Hard Work

Jordan Levin wrote a passionate piece in Sunday’s Miami Herald about the importance of the arts in troubled economic times. Levin writes,

“I would argue that thinking culture is a frill, a disposable ornament for a comfortable life, has helped get us into the mess we’re in.”

Levin argues that there are many reasons the devaluing of art has happened and it got me thinking.

There are two references in the piece to American Idol and to be honest American Idol pushes a button for me. I see American Idol as part of a growing glorification of the amateur in pop culture. More and more, popular culture is highlighting the amateur who through innate talent or good luck finds themselves celebrated. The issue for me is the absence of hard work. In our great country many of us have become intoxicated with a fantasy that success is possible without hard work or preparation. That is completely antithetical to the arts. The arts are all about hard work. It is about risk and failure. It is sometimes about success and clarity. For a few it is lucrative. But mostly it is about hard work.

As an arts educator, I believe I have a responsibility to my students to cultivate their understanding that the arts are worth doing. And things that are worth doing take hard work. A couple of years ago a student wrote on the end of semester evaluation, “Dr Saraniero takes theatre too seriously. She thinks this is the most important course we take. I had to work harder in this course than in any other.” It was meant to be a complaint but I took it as a compliment.

The devaluing of the arts that Levin wrote about goes hand in hand with the devaluing of hard work. So in our ethical responsibilities to our students, we must encourage them to work hard, learn from failure and try again. Not very glamorous but qualities that literally built this country. Making art requires quintessential American attributes – so why are the arts struggling to survive?

Creativity

It’s been ridiculously long since my last post. Back in the saddle!

There was a great piece in The Nation in May by Jeff Chang called “The Creativity Stimulus”. He writes about the arts and culture in the economic recovery. I wasn’t going to write about this now since it came out in May but this morning I saw that Americans are discouraged about the state of the economic recovery. So I thought this might still be timely. Here is a piece of Chang’s article that hit home for me.

Creativity can be a powerful form of organizing communities from the bottom up. The economic crisis gives us a change to rethink the role of creativity in making a vibrant economy and civil society. Artists as well as community organizers cultivate new forms of knowledge and consciousness. One of the unsung stories of the past twenty-five years is how both have used creativity to inspire community development and renewal. Creativity has become the glue of social cohesion in times of turmoil.

I love that last line. “Creativity has become the glue of social cohesion in times of turmoil.” This is such an important reminder for those of us who work in schools. These are indeed times of turmoil and children are not exempt. Try as we might as adults, we have a very difficult time shielding children from our stress. And as many schools will continue to be woefully underfunded this fall, children will be impacted directly by our adult stressors.

The funding in public education is pretty bleak at the moment. Which is all the more reason why we have a responsibility to promote creativity in schools. To paraphrase an old saying, “When the going gets tough, the tough get creative.” In our ethical responsibilities to students, we can’t a little thing like underfunding get in our way. It is unlikely arts education will be well funded anytime soon but, as Chang suggests, we can be rich in what we cultivate in our schools and communities.