Americans for the Arts

There is so much that I was able to do because of arts education. Having the arts in high school opened many doors to my academic and personal growth. Even the way I see the world is different. I can look at things and analyze them for what they are, and what they could be. I can dissect things in my mind to understand the process behind them. I have gained so much. My high school experience was built upon arts education. Now, I have started college, and the knowledge I have collected about the arts, and the experiences I have had through the arts, has not only given me new friends, but has opened doors in terms of what I can do with my life.

I was excited to enter Randolph High School back in 1980, mostly because of its thriving music program. I couldn’t wait to sing in the different choruses, and to audition for the competitive show choir. Yet when I arrived at school, I learned that, as a result of Proposition 2 ½, music had been cut from the high school curriculum—along with other reductions to busing, foreign languages, sports, and library staff. I was devastated. My arts education came to a sudden end, but my education as an arts advocate was just beginning. Along with other students and parents, I wrote letters and attended meetings, imploring administrators not to abandon the music program. And our efforts began to pay off.

The 2018 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention was as stimulating as ever! Over the years I have attended several Americans for the Arts conferences and I am always impressed by the number and variety of attendees who gather to discuss the impact of the arts in our communities. More than 1,000 people traveled to the beautiful city of Denver to discuss the trends of equity and inclusion across all sectors, how the arts unite cities, advocacy and grantmaking, as well as the role of the arts in aging and coping with trauma. The list of topics covered seems almost endless! As an arts educator, I was interested in learning about the growing field of Creative Youth Development (CYD). The highpoint for me was hearing from the young people who attended the preconference sessions.

Although the average household income in Marin County is high, the income gap in the county is wide. And Marin public schools serving lower income families are as cash-strapped as any in California. Yes, Marin’s pricy private schools offer rich arts experiences. But most of our public-school students receive a haphazard mix of programs hustled together by hardworking PTAs. And in our lowest income communities, where schools often serve predominantly immigrant youth of color, many have no arts at all. During National Arts in Education Week, my organization Youth in Arts and a team of stakeholders will present data illustrating local inequities in arts services before unveiling the first ever Marin Arts Education Plan. This plan offers first steps towards addressing the arts divide and creating a framework for all students to access quality arts learning.

An access to a theatre education is as simple as teaching acting classes in a school. It’s allowing anyone to participate in shows and extracurriculars involving the arts. It’s giving kids a space in which to creatively express themselves without judgment, and giving them a group of people who will welcome them with open arms. And most importantly, it’s telling everyone’s stories, not just one kind of person’s stories.

It’s easy to see the end goal, but it’s harder to reach it. There’s too much left to do to summarize in a blog post, but I think these three ideas are a good starting point to make the arts more accessible:

"I used language because I wanted to offer content that people - not necessarily art people - could understand." - Jenny Holzer

Some years ago I took a trip to Lisbon, Portugal. And ignorantly (and perhaps, arrogantly), I assumed my knowledge of the Spanish language would suffice for me to be able to communicate with the Lisbonites. I soon grew frustrated at my inability to communicate with the locals and when asked to describe my experience with Portuguese, I later said it was like trying to speak Spanish using French. 

Language is important.