We started to write a blog about why arts education matters, but we found we couldn't have said better than Tony Award winner Judith Light in her blog for the National Endowment for the Arts, “Why Arts Education Matters”.
Light echoes why
the Straz Center and Patel Conservatory work so hard to create and maintain community
outreach programs, our field trip series, scholarship opportunities, and jobs
for extraordinary local teaching artists.
My mother taught me
when I was three years old to memorize and recite "'Twas the Night Before
Christmas." Everybody laughs, but it's absolutely the truth. My mother was
my first teacher of the arts, and I performed "'Twas the Night Before
Christmas" for my father, so he was my first audience…
When I was growing up,
my parents supported my interest in taking acting classes and doing community
theater. My father drove me to the rehearsals every day after school, whenever
I was doing community theatre productions, and I went to a performing arts camp
in New Hope, Penn. I grew up in Trenton, N.J., and my parents even allowed me
to go on the train to New York City when I was a young teen to study theater.
My parents' faith in me
at that young an age—and the kind of professional training I was getting from
my theater teachers—gave me a sense of purpose, a sense of self-confidence, a
sense of discipline. I learned what artistic achievement actually was, what
hard work the business was. I didn't have this rosy picture of what our
business was. I was really learning what it would require for me to become a
professional.
I was also learning
about life. … I learned about having faith in myself and about developing
humility. Most people know that this business is all about not getting
everything you want when you want it. Since success comes with such incredible
gifts, many people don't realize that, for an actor, most of our lives are
actually filled with recognizing that we can't control things. So I've learned,
and am still learning as this is an active process, to simply be grateful for
what I've been given. Those are very, very precious life skills that were all
part of my arts education.
I became an actor, but
arts education isn’t just about preparing our young people for a career in the
arts. …They learn about discipline and hard work and what's required and what
they have to do to bring themselves to the work.
They learn how they can
be of service in the world through the arts. They learn how to elevate the
people around them. They learn how to work with a team. By studying the arts,
these students are exposed to worlds and lives that they might not have any
other way of knowing about or any other way to connect with in their lives the
way they are right now. Arts education expands their horizons.
These young people are
our legacy. We are passing the torch to them. And I think that’s one of the
most important reasons why we need to foster the arts. … I think when we get
into the arts as young people, it tends to be pretty much about us and our
egos. But as we really learn about the arts we discover that it is all about
being of service and all about supporting others in seeing things they would not
otherwise see—about themselves as well as other people.
Make a choice to join
us in inspiring audiences and artists to dream, reach, discover and create!
Become
a Straz member today! Visit strazcenter.org or call 813.222.1002.
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