A rant - about arts education

I'm at a business conference for professionals in the field of performing arts. One of the sessions was about building future audiences, and a panel of college students were asked about what would attract them to an arts event or venue. That led to a discussion about their background and education in the arts.

So today we had a round-table session where one of the topics was arts education and outreach - what are our organizations' educational efforts to attract young audiences, especially students and children.

Many participants described creative, in-school programs their organizations are doing, putting performers in the classroom. One nationally prominent leader of a major classical music organization described a wonderful program that provided kids a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes.

The discussion among the attendees, most of whom are my age, so-called "baby-boomers," went something like this:

• We have to reach out to schools to bring kids to our symphonies, operas, drama productions and ballets.
• It's a challenge because there are no longer arts programs in schools, so kids don't know anything about performing arts.
• What can we do to educate kids and make them learn to appreciate the performing arts that are presented in our venues?
  

This topic really hit a nerve in the group, because even after we moved on to something else, people kept circling back to this. As I stood holding the mic, waiting for my turn to speak on Topic Number Two, I waited until a back-and-forth ad hoc exchange about arts education had concluded. Then I finally had the floor.

When I opened my mouth, I forgot about the other topic. Because a rant had been building up in me. Here it is:

"Everyone here in this room is trying to do wonderful things to reach out to young audiences. But as I listen I can't help but feeling we are making an erroneous assumption that the problem is that young people don't know anything about performing arts.

That's just not true. Right this minute, kids are singing, dancing and performing, and we don't know anything about it. Instead of trying to teach them about our symphonies and operas and ballets, we need to go see what they are doing. We need to learn about their music and dance, their performance and spoken word, so that we can appreciate it, put that on our stages, and give them more of it. That's what will bring them into our venues.

For us to assume that they don't know anything and we're the ones who should teach them is, frankly, a little arrogant of us. We need to learn from them, if we want them to be our future audiences."

- end of rant -

When I was done I felt a little trembly and sat back down, worried I might have offended someone. Plus, who am I to lecture them? After all, I'm not an arts educator, and my organization doesn't even do arts education directly - at least, not yet.

All of these arts professionals love their chosen fields with a passion. No one can deny that. But as they talked, everyone seemed to be missing something.

When I think about teaching kids to appreciate classical art forms, I remember something I experienced when my son was little.

I am a passionate gardener. I love gardening, flowers, the intricacies of nature; the beauty of the plant and insect world, the exquisite textures, colors, shapes and smells of plants. I used to bring my toddler son into the garden and say, "Look - see the beautiful flower, look how it's shaped. Look at the shoot coming out of the soil, look at the sprout rising up from the split avocado seed."

He was totally uninterested.

It hurt, I admit. I had so looked forward to teaching my child about the natural world I loved so much. How could my child be so incurious, so unobservant?

But then I stood back a little and watched what he was doing in the garden.

The hose trickled onto the sloping walkway as I dug in bedding plants. Water ran down the concrete, the stream forked and ridged as it met grains of sand and pebbles, obstacles that changed its route. It pooled in place until the surface tension overflowed the piled debris that bound the puddle, carrying leaves and bits of chaf with it.

For him, that was fascinating. He watched a twig travel in the water. He dammed the stream, until it burst free. He touched his finger to the concrete and felt the water flow around it. The power of water, the forces of gravity, the affects of geology - that was what caught his imagination.

He's 20 years old now, and has his own interests, many that he doesn't share with me. But I can see that there are things he loves, things that drive him and fascinate him. Just like gardens and flowers fascinate me.

In arts education, we can't build future audiences by only showing them what we love and asking them to love it too. We have to watch them, see what kind of art they make, and love, and consume. And then we have to help them seek the best of it, and hunger for it, and demand it.

If we are the ones they demand it from, then we will have achieved success.