Americans for the Arts

At the Berklee Institute for Arts Education and Special Needs, we believe that the arts better the lives of everyone. This is something other countries have figured out, but we still need to learn it here. We still need to learn to welcome all—including people with disabilities—into spaces where performances and exhibits take place. We still need to learn to broaden our understanding of who can be an artist, and what an artist looks like. We still need to learn how to open up our classrooms to all students and break down barriers to arts learning so that arts education, artistic expression, and artistic engagement can be a powerful, meaningful, and significant part of everyone’s life.

They say, “It takes a village to raise a child," but the need for a community of support doesn’t end after adolescence. As you move into adulthood, you have the opportunity to expand your village and seek out those who inspire you to join your team. But, before you welcome someone into your circle, you should learn what motivates them. Do they genuinely value the importance of sharing knowledge with the next generation, or are they driven by ego and status? If you are lucky enough to find a mentor who wants to see you succeed for purely altruistic reasons, welcome them with open arms and do everything you can to keep them close.

I’m going rogue. I’m an arts administration educator posting in the Arts Education blog salon. I’m here for purely selfish reasons: arts administrators LOVE engaged arts audiences. We need students to have great arts education experiences in the K-12 system, since studies show that this is an indicator of future arts participation. Arguably, fewer barriers to equity and access in arts education can help lessen the barriers that arts administrator have to help audiences overcome.  

There are quite a few barriers to equity and access in quality K-12 education. These are often structural issues that will take time to fix. I’m more interested in addressing what can be done now, while the larger and slower fixes are underway.

I love Viola Davis for obvious reasons, but I’ll name some: she’s a brilliant, passionate actor who has used her platform to advocate for equal opportunities for artist of color. She gained even MORE of my love for what she said after winning the SAG Award this year:

Diversity is not a trending topic.

It’s really not. Diversity is not something that you prioritize because it’s the new buzzword

This week, we've been featuring stories from high schools around the country that were awarded arts education grants funded through the Custom Culture partnership between Americans for the Arts and Vans. On June 8, the winner of the annual Vans Custom Culture shoe design contest was announced at a special event in Los Angeles. It was an incredible celebration of a program that proves that when businesses partner with the arts, everyone wins.

During our time at the Lincoln Center, the resident artists put us through our paces. The eight faculty members, including myself, were asked to sing, make music, act, and construct pieces of art. For those of us who were biologists, political scientists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, English professors, and historians, we had never been asked to take such actions in this way.