Arts in the Schools

The latest installment in our family's amazing journey through Arlington school district's (where my family lives in Poughkeepsie, NY) fine arts program was my son Nicolas' stage debut with a minor role in the student-run drama club, Blue Sky Drama. Although to call it a club is to do it a major disservice as it is quite remarkable. The show was excellent, as was Nicolas, but the reason I feel compelled to post is larger than that. 

We are extraordinarily fortunate to have found ourselves in a district that understands the importance of and supports the arts in schools. From a kazoo concert in first grade through mandatory chorus through fifth all the way up to 10 different instrumental groups - including a superb full symphony, a nationally recognized jazz band and a just flat-out kick-ass marching band - in the high school the music department is remarkable. We were blessed with not one, but three, gifted art teachers, one of whom taught a volunteer accelerated art course in the middle school. And now both kids have been bitten by the theater bug - my 11 year old daughter Isa has already been in one middle school production and is in rehearsal for her second, while Nicolas will follow up his first show this spring as a Jet in "West Side Story" - and have a chance to pursue it.

Our kids have sung, danced, played, painted, written, acted and just created for close to a decade now, all for free (mostly), and all because the people in charge get it. A partial list of the things they have gained from this amazing little bolt of wisdom:

- appreciation for the arts
- the need for dedication and discipline
- passion
- joy
- pride 
- teamwork

They're hearts and minds and souls are bigger and stronger because they were given the chance - the opportunity, means, and encouragement - to take part in the creation of something. Something that didn't have to be made, but was made for it's own sake. Being able to read, write, add, etc are essential to productive membership in our modern society, which really means that the kids must do it. But there are those misguided souls who argue that the arts - all that music, painting and poetry - should be given up, because they're not essential. But that making it just for the sake of making it - that act of joyful creation - is what makes it so wonderful, because it doesn't have to be done. 

Then I think of how much joy and pride we have been given by all of what they and their peers have produced, and I am overwhelmed.

We must make the choice, all of us, to keep the arts in our schools.  It will make our kids better, it will make us all better.