Mother’s Day is not just a Hallmark holiday. As a mother, I can tell you it’s about wanting your kids to be safe — not fighting in Iraq, for instance. You want them to be educated, and happy, and kind to others. Honest and fair in their dealings. You want to protect them from liars and charlatans. You want them to have discernment and not fall for the crap that passes as popular culture.
And you want them to appreciate the the transformative nature of great music, something that is easy for our generation but a lot harder for young people in today’s cultural climate.
In an article in the Wall Street Journal Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, was quoted as saying
The decline of arts education in the U.S. and the paucity of international cultural exchanges will take decades to repair.
You can see a copy of the article here.
I confess to a little bit of hero worship of Dana Gioia. Here is a man who grew up as an immigrant in L.A., the first one in his family to go to college. He didn’t fit the usual demographic of a cultural consumer, but he defied the stereotypes and developed a mad passion for the arts.
In his speech at the Stanford University commencement last June, Gioia pointed out that we’ve become passive consumers of culture instead of active participants. And he blames it partly on a decline in arts education:
At 56, I am just old enough to remember a time when every public high school in this country had a music program with choir and band, usually a jazz band, too, sometimes even orchestra. And every high school offered a drama program, sometimes with dance instruction. And there were writing opportunities in the school paper and literary magazine, as well as studio art training. I am sorry to say that these programs are no longer widely available to the new generation of Americans….The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society.
The whole speech is worth reading. Click here for a copy.
How can classical music radio help repair the arts education in this country? Or are we just here to provide entertainment for the older generation? Are we doing anything to stimulate arts education and foster a love for great music among the younger generation?
I’m tossing the question out for greater minds than mine to ponder. Are we catering to older, passive arts consumers? Have we completely disenfranchised a whole generation of kids? It’s not just an academic question. When my kids were in elementary school, the school district eliminated all music from the classroom. The classical music station, which should have been the leader in the arts community, railed against the decision verbally but didn’t do a darn thing to help.
I don’t know about you but I’m getting inundated with requests for money from all the arts groups. Tickets to concerts are so expensive that only the wealthy can afford them. Classical music is NOT accessible, but on the radio it’s still free. So the burden is on you. You have the power of the air waves to do good.
Come on, classical radio. Let’s see you sponsoring kids’ concert series. Get some curriculum on your website and promote it in the classrooms. Send your announcers into the schools. Train some kids in radio production. Sponsor your artists to do outreach in exchange for air time. Infuse the teachers with some enthusiasm for your product. When is the last time you threw a special event for teachers? Get WGUC’s Classics for Kids on the air, or at least on your website.
I’m sure you can think of a hundred other ways to reach out. The mom in me says those kids really need you.
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The arts in public schools were never designed primarily to train future artists. As a former high school music teacher I knew that my job was to raise up the next generation of arts patrons. If a kid had a positive experience in my band class, I knew that he or she would be more likely to want to take his or her family to concerts and plays as adults. The effect of declining arts programs in the schools means a decline in the number of people who will someday buy concert tickets or pay for memberships to support all those [non-profit] classical radio stations. It’s a no-brainer. If you know something about music, it’s your task to find a way to pass it along.
I coached drum corps, color guards and high school marching bands for twenty years, as a sideline to my day job. Most of the time I was paid very little. Sometimes I did it for free, just because I liked the work and the kids. I only stopped coaching drum lines when an accident ended my professional drumming and teaching career. I’ve gone on to enjoy a second career in a completely unrelated field, where I work collaboratively with other people and gain satisfaction from helping them.
Last week, I ran into a former student of mine. He marched lead snare in a high school drum line I taught back in 1990. Today I’m 45 and he’s 31. He doesn’t play music for a living. He told me that his experiences in band, the joy he found in making music with others, helped him to realize that whatever he did for a living he wanted to work with and for other people. Today he’s a personal trainer in a gym and he says he finds tremendous personal satisfaction in helping others to achieve better health and fitness.
THIS is why arts education matters. Because participation in the arts can help to make us better and happier people, in whatever we choose to do.