CHOOSE ART (The Big Ask, Part 3)

Several months ago I outlined the case for the Vermont Arts Council’s request for a 100% increase from the State appropriations process in two posts: The Big Ask, and The Big Ask, Part 2.

It gives me great pleasure to report that last week Governor Peter Shumlin released his 2014 budget with a significant increase to the Arts Council’s budget:  $210,000, or 41%.  In addition, the Governor recommended increasing the Vermont Humanities Council‘s budget by $45,289 (or 26%), the Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s by $27,393 (or 24%), and the Vermont Historical Society’s by $74,525 (or 9%).

Without belaboring the point that this increase will almost certainly enable us to avoid leaving Federal funds on the table, this makes Governor Shumlin by far the most arts and culture-friendly Governor since Phil Hoff, and the thanks for this significant step forward is due to all of you who phoned, wrote, or in countless other ways let Governor Shumlin know that standing up for the arts at a time of economic uncertainty is good for business, good for communities, good for schools, good for tourism, and, in general good for Vermont.  So, good for all of YOU who made this case to the Governor, and Thank You!

So now the hard part begins…

Regardless of your political affiliation, the Legislature has very hard choices to make this year. For example, should it fund low-income heating assistance or fund weatherization? Fund programs that help incarcerated individuals transition out of prisons, or fund programs that help prevent young men and women from going to prison in the first place? Fund more arts education, or fund more free and reduced lunch programs in schools?

Where public funding is concerned there is always going to be disagreement among well-informed, well-intentioned leaders.  To me, however, this is really not an “either/or” but a “both/and” conversation.  Every one of the choices listed above are good.  We need BOTH heating assistance AND weatherization.  We need programs BOTH for incarcerated individuals AND for those who are at-risk.  We need BOTH reduced lunch programs AND the arts in order for our students and our communities to prosper.

But let us not lose sight of several important pieces of information that are frequently overlooked by policy-makers.

Where the arts thrive, so thrives the school—attracting young parents to the community, and providing a broad range of activities (beyond academics and athletics) to engage young minds

Where the arts thrive, so thrives local business and entrepreneurship—attracting and retaining businesses requires more than just a salary.  Businesses need art and culture and recreation in order to have healthy, productive, educated workers who are happy doing their work

Where the arts thrive, so thrives the economy—for every dollar of public (state and local) investment in the arts, Vermont and its municipalities receive more than $6.50 in tax receipts.  (Note: this is real impact, not an expression of economic activity.  There’s a huge difference)

Where the arts thrive, so thrives the community—communities that pay attention to the “look and feel” of their downtowns, to what happens to their graduating seniors, to the quality of life that their senior citizens enjoy attract more civic-minded and creative people to serve on school- and select-boards, planning commissions and other community-oriented bodies

This year, for the first time in a generation, Vermont’s Governor has asked the Legislature to increase the support for art and culture state wide.  Now it is your turn.  Please ask YOUR legislators to support the Governor’s recommendations. 

Ask them to choose art.

On Art

In the space of a few short months the world, and especially Vermont, lost several of its brightest lights: John Engels, poet and teacher passed away in June; Lillian Farber, photographer, philanthropist, and activist and Louis Moyse, flutist, teacher, and co-founder of Music at Marlboro in late July, and then Rusty Jacobs of Woods Tea Company just this past week.

When even one luminary dies, the initial surprise and dismay is followed by several moments of contemplative silence during which you think about your own life and wonder what more you could do to make it have even a fraction of the meaning or impact of the life of person who just passed. Losing four is a shock to the system.

It is not for me to improve upon the impressive and beautifully written testimonials, editorials, and obituaries that have been written about these four artists by family-members, friends, former students, professional colleagues, and newspaper editors. Their passing, however, has inspired me to share a brief reflection on the role of art and art-making in general.

* * * * *

Since the mid-20th century our society has become increasingly disconnected from its cultural roots and has even dissociated itself from others who are culturally, ethnically, or religiously “different.” Television, personal computing, Game Boys and Blackberries, if not the root cause of this situation, have certainly exacerbated it—immunizing us to sometimes terrible images and sound bites because we no longer have time for the leavening influence of family or community to provide a vital context for those images and sound bites. Paradoxically, our increased connection to the world has left us more isolated within it.

The decline in quality of our public schools, the increased drop-out rate among adolescents, the increased sensationalism in our mass media, the perceived loss standards in our popular art forms, the disturbing upward trend of men under the age of 21 whose lives are now controlled by our corrections system are all related symptoms of a general lack of commitment to our community and to each other.

For me, the most powerful antidote to all of these problems is the arts. There is a transformation that occurs in a person when a work of art, a piece of music, a play, a dance, or a poem speaks to him/her for the first time from a place that our language centers are unable to process. Art is a language; a form of communication that uses different “alphabets” (sound, movement, color) to communicate common and uncommon aspects of our humanity to each other, regardless of our backgrounds.

The arts MUST be in all schools, preferably integrated into core curriculum so there is little opportunity for people to establish a belief that art is “for others.” When the arts are cut from a school budget, student engagement will decrease and truancy and delinquency will increase. The three “Rs—(and their offspring “STEM” (science, technology, engineering, and math)—ignore the arts. So I insist that the way to engage kids in schools is by focusing on the three “As”—Academics, Athletics, and the Arts. Every district, every school, every student should have its own plan for how it will pursue excellence in these three areas. Kids will naturally find their own areas of comfort, expertise and belonging. For some, the arts will only be an academic pursuit; for others the arts will be as physically demanding as a varsity sport. And for still others, the arts will be an end unto itself that at the very least keeps them engaged in school.

The arts MUST be central to our community life. As mass media, pop culture, Game Boys, and worse (drug abuse, divorce) challenge our community fabric to the point where locked gates and barred windows become a necessity, the arts can provide a nucleus around which shared values and concerns may be explored. The whole “creative economy” movement is, I believe, a recognition of the role of the arts in this revitalization process. Artists must be at every planning/zoning table, every chamber of commerce meeting, every public affairs policy debate, and every school funding discussion. The creative mind promotes aesthetics and good design in our public spaces. It also develops solutions to issues that sometimes perplex those of us who tend to only value rationality and measurable returns.

Finally, the arts MUST be a part of the image we project as a nation to the rest of the world. Cultural diplomacy is probably the single most effective tool we have to understand other cultures and reverse societal trends towards isolationism. The arts offer meaningful paths to building relations with people of different faiths and citizens of different races.

The arts are not just for the privileged few, the “elite.” They belong to us all because they come from us all.

Steamed and Ready to Roll: 2007 Congressional Arts Competition

Monday, May 14th, was a day of transition in Vermont. For the first time, the statewide, high school art competition came to a close and Sen. Jim Jeffords was not front and center doing what he loved most—talking to kids, exhorting them to greater heights of accomplishment, and basking in the admiration of his young cultural constituents.

That pleasure belongs now to Congressman Peter Welch who did an admirable job in bridging what the esteemed Senator started 26 years ago when he was in the US House of Representatives. VIEW PHOTOS OF THE WINNERS' ARTWORK

My role was to present the “People’s Choice Award” (to Armando Veve of South Burlington) and I used this opportunity to expound on the latest of my “soapbox” ideas. At past events, I have talked about the alternative to the Education Community’s worn “3 Rs”—the “3 As” (Academics, Athletics, and the Arts)—as a means to engage individual students, entire schools and even school systems in a more integrated and creative approach to learning. I have also exhorted students in the room, contrary to exhortations by the Governor and other members of the administration, “to leave Vermont as soon as they are able, put the great Vermont values they were raised with to the test in as many different cultural settings as possible, and only when they are good and ready to settle down, create a job, have a family, THEN come back to Vermont!”

This time I had a new soap box to stand on.

It seems that policy-makers, in particular the group that has been appointed to serve on the Governor’s task force to examine the economic development future of Vermont, chaired by Bill Stenger (of Jay Peak), have come up with a new acronym to capture the what students need to know as they prepare themselves for Vermont’s 21st Century workforce.

It is “STEM” which stands for science, technology, engineering, and math.
(You see where I’m headed, don’t you? Of course you do; you’re probably one of the so-called “cultural creatives” whose hidden talent is to see connections where others don’t!)

Like the 3 Rs (which aren’t), STEM leaves out the crucial part of student learning that allows them to access the right side of their brains. In an age where magazines like Forbes and Business Week are touting such things as “the MFA is the new MBA,” and where medical schools like Columbia are requiring students to go to art museums to increase their observational skills and learn how to better communicate about things that are subjective and interpretive, and where people like Daniel Pink (author of “A Whole New Mind”) are earning $25,000 a pop for lecturing on the value of integrating right-brained thinking into business, it is astonishing to me that our policy-makers are so slow to recognize the value of the arts.

STEM should be STEAM. All of us should make it clear to our elected and appointed officials at the state and local level (especially school boards!) that STEAM (not renewables!) is the potent force of the future.

Of course, if STEAM doesn’t do it for you, perhaps TEAMS will. Or MEATS (if it’s lunchtime). Or even MATES (if you are on the prowl or like to play chess).

The point is, it’s time for the Arts to be shared by more than just the artist community. Let’s make it happen. Full steam ahead.

The Fourth "A" - Asia

Several years ago I proposed that, as a society concerned about educational quality, we should do away with the “three Rs” and replace them with the “three As.” I proposed this for several reasons: one, only one of the three R’s is an R; two, there is so much more to basic learning than reading, writing, and arithmetic; and three, schools who want to sacrifice the arts on the budgetary altar don’t need the added incentive implied by not mentioning them in the three R’s.

My mantra for the past eight years has been for schools to develop learning plans for their districts, schools, and individual students that focus on Academics, Athletics, and the Arts. A school that places appropriate emphasis on the knowledge of and appreciation for excellence in academic pursuits, athletic pursuits, and artistic pursuits will, I believe, consistently churn out better rounded citizens than those that don’t.

But lately I’ve been curious about what else might be done to create an optimal learning environment in our schools and for lack of any originality on my part, have come up with a fourth “A.”

Asia. Okay, I’m stretching things a bit. What I’m really talking about is China, but “three As and a C” doesn’t roll off my tongue as easily as “the Four As.” So for the sake of argument, let the fourth A equal C.

Besides several million Chinese-Americans who live in some of our more populated cities, how many Americans know anything about China other than what they have read on the menu at the local Chinese restaurant? How many of us know how much of our debt China now owns, or how many of the consumer goods we wear, drive, listen to, or talk into, are made in China?

If you’re like me, you know next to nothing about China, and since the purpose of this essay is to tie it back to educational opportunities in Vermont, here’s an idea:

We should find a way to encourage school systems in the state to develop K-12 programs that immerse children in the Chinese language and, as language skills reach appropriate levels, starts teaching other subjects (like reading, writing, arithmetic and—yes—art!) in Chinese!

Oh sure, our educational bureaucracy would never stand for such a thing, but bear with me for a moment. Think of the possibilities. First, regarding our under-populated school system, think of the interested parents from out-of-state who would move here in order to have their children exposed to this kind of learning environment. Second, think of the university matriculation rates of Vermont high school graduates who just happened to speak and write Chinese. Think of the employment opportunities for those high school graduates with such skills.

And on a bigger picture, imagine how much greater world understanding there would be if an ever-growing population of young Americans—Vermonters all—were to reach out across the Pacific, reach out across what is right now an enormous cultural divide, and learn the language(s) of what is still the most populous country in the world—the country that owns almost as much of our debt as Japan, the country that makes the computers I write these essays on.

If this model works for you, but you don’t want to pursue Chinese, then feel free to apply the same approach to Spanish, or Arabic, or any other of the worlds great languages! For the moment, however, I’m sticking with Chinese. Here’s why.

On November 28 and 29, 2006 the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Zhou Wenzhong, will visit Vermont on a trip sponsored by the Vermont Chamber and the Vermont Council on World Affairs. The Vermont Youth Orchestra (planning a tour of China next summer) will play at a special Culture and Arts Breakfast. I plan to be there and meet His Excellency. I’m curious about him. I’m curious about his country. I’m curious for me. And I’m curious for my children.

I also like the symmetry of the Four As.