As a fine arts advocate I know the importance of showing the data to prove the impact of fine arts education on the whole child. However, as we all know, there’s more to the story than numbers and statistics. Our personal experiences resonate with decision makers and parents of younger children. We each have unique stories to tell that cover a wide range of “why” and they need to be shared.
So… I guess I’ll start.
As the daughter of an Air Force pilot that moved a lot, being in band gave me an immediate family wherever we went. I attended 3 different high schools in 3 different states but I always had “summer band” to go to right away. I met my husband and my best friends of 35+ years in the UT Longhorn band, and they work in a wide spectrum of careers. Believe it or not, there are very few band directors or professional musicians. What we would all agree on is the time management, communication and collaboration skills we learned through our band experiences have benefited us in our careers.
Since I am a musician and I worked in the music industry, you would think that my children might become musicians too. But no… they are dancers, and I became a drill team mom. I loved every minute of it!
What my daughters experienced in our school district, and this was different than when I was in school, was an intense pressure to focus on extra Advanced Placement and STEM career oriented classes in high school, in order to get into the “top universities”. When my youngest daughter was in 4th grade, I attended a parent meeting where they said that my child would not have a job if she did not have a STEM degree! Of course, they were selling a STEM camp but that message permeated our community. Despite this, my daughters still chose to go heavy into fine arts because the only thing they knew as 8th graders was they wanted to dance all four years of high school. My youngest daughter even triple blocked dance in her junior and senior years because she was an officer on the drill team.
Then came college applications… Our experience showed that there are a lot more factors than extra AP and career specific classes that admissions counselors are reviewing, like showing a deep commitment to something outside of academics. My oldest daughter went to the University of Georgia on a scholarship in business (she only took one business elective in high school). She now works for a major university as a career advisor in their business school, and teaches the local dance high school team in her spare time. My youngest, the dance officer that took 3 dance classes versus extra science electives, is currently at the University of Texas and in an honors program as a neuroscience major. She also teaches dance on the weekends and performs with the Roustabouts, a UT dance team. They both will tell you that staying involved with dance is what keeps them sane. I know dance developed essential skills that have helped them get extra academic opportunities in college and good jobs during and after college.
I am also aware that our experiences with fine arts and academics are based on several additional factors, like where we lived, what we could afford and what was available. That’s why I started Parents for Arts Education. I want to help ensure fine arts courses are available for everyone and not replaced by less expensive classes in younger grades. Unfortunately, the next generation of students won’t know what careers are available at the time they graduate. Schools need to focus on building skills that apply to all careers and to educating the whole child, and funding fine arts programs is one of the best ways to do that.
I know so many of you have different, more impactful stories than ours that need to be heard. Let’s show that fine arts covers the diverse spectrum of student’s needs and pathways for success.
Go to www.parentsforartseducation.org and share your #becauseoffinearts stories…