The American education system should make sure students are better versed in the world of art, the co-chief art critic of The New York Times said at the Lawrence Schools Foundation community education breakfast Friday.

“We don’t teach what I’d call visual literacy. We teach the other kind,” said Roberta Smith, a 1965 graduate of Lawrence High School. “I think it would be pretty amazing if art history were taught in public schools from an early age.”

Teaching students the history of art would make for a more visually appealing and, she argued, happier society. She said the subject helps people be better critical thinkers, more self-aware and more fulfilled in life. But the arts are usually one of the first things to go when schools are looking to cut budgets, she noted.

Art and creativity were the themes of Friday’s 13th annual Lawrence Schools Foundation community education breakfast. High school marching band members and cheerleaders performed to open the event, while preschoolers sang and played maracas to close it out. Attendees cut shapes out of construction paper that students then turned into a collaborative art project. Four student champions were recognized in part for their creative achievements.

At the breakfast, Superintendent Rick Doll noted that Lawrence Schools Foundation donors and Lawrence Education Achievement Partners gave $1.3 million to the district in 2013. “Our schools are better because of the foundation and LEAP,” he said, helping the district achieve its goals of “excellence, equity and engagement” and “raising achievement for all while closing the achievement gap.” He noted that the district’s high school graduation rate has risen from less than 80 percent half a decade ago to more than 90 percent today.

During her keynote address, Smith said that when it comes down to it, everyone is a critic. “All anybody has to start with … is what’s in your gut,” she said. “You know when you think a joke is funny. You know when you like music.”

Countries older than America, particularly in Europe, generally embrace art more, she said, as they can see the history of their society’s creativity in the buildings they pass by every day; thus, they value it more.

But she asserted that our nation doesn’t need more artists — just more individuals bringing a creative spirit and eye for quality to other realms of society.

“People don’t really know how much ugliness they’re looking at every day and how it affects them,” she said, pointing out how uninspired modern furniture and architecture — with the exception of the new Lawrence Public Library, which she praised — can often be. She argued that this could be a reason for the country’s high rates of depression.

“Art is not recreation; it’s like food. It sustains you and enables you to go on to other activities,” she said. “It’s absolutely essential. It’s how you know yourself.”