The existential contexts of education reach far beyond the conceptions of Goals 2000 or the appalling actualities of family breakdown, homelessness, violence, and other "savage inequalities." Classroom encounters with the arts can move the young to imagine, extend, and renew. If the arts' significance for growth, inventiveness, and problem solving is finally recognized, a desperate stasis may be overcome. Standardization and thoughtlessness are social pathologies. (16 references) (MLH)