Access to arts education is a human right
In 9th grade, with some encouragement from my English teacher, I applied for my high school’s interdisciplinary arts program. To get in, a student could apply as a writer, visual artist, actor, dancer, or musician. Once in, every student worked in every medium. I submitted an application and a portfolio of my writing and was accepted. For the next three years, I spent the last 2.5 hours of each school day with my classmates and our eccentric, multi-talented teacher. We made short films and played improv games. I wrote and directed scenes that my classmates performed. I learned to draw with charcoal and to chart music by ear. I wrote 500 poems in 500 days – a lesson in why an artist must have a practice or a discipline.?
Where would I be without this program? Every day, I use something I learned there. My arts education has completely colored the way that I experience the world. From the artists and media I’ve been exposed to, to the frameworks that help me understand art and life, to the many modes of expression I now have access to, my arts education has profoundly shaped me.?
So often, arts education is challenged by the question of value. By value, we mean: how will it help a child grow up into an adult who can score a high paying job? Sure, there is some money to be made in art though it is by no means easy to make it. Art’s value is intrinsic. It enriches our lives by helping us examine life, express ourselves, and connect with other people. It makes life meaningful and interesting.?
Few students are fortunate enough to be part of a program like the one I took part in. Many schools have whittled down their arts budgets to only offer music or visual art, but not both. Some students have access to neither. When access to arts education is determined by zip code, it communicates to some students of privilege that their lives have value beyond what they will bring to the workplace, while others receive the opposite message.
I have encountered no better feeling than that when I’ve created art that embodies some otherwise abstract truth or essence. It is matched only by the feeling when someone else resonates with something I’ve made. To be on the other end of that exchange – to encounter art in which I recognize truth – is deeply validating and cathartic. While it may feel like I was born knowing, there is so much in art that I would miss had I not been taught to see it.
Most students will not grow up to become professional artists (some will, and we need them). But in a society that has the resources, if fairly distributed, to meet every person’s basic needs, I will boldly assert that access to arts education - the portal to our very humanness - should be a human right. This assertion led me to my work with DC Collaborative and to doing my part in its mission to support DC’s arts community and to provide equitable access to arts education for all students.
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Thank you,
Ilana Lipowicz Education Programs Assistant
Through our Forward the A.R.T.S. Fund we have subsidized more than $9,600 for school bus transportation in the 23-24 school year.?
A.R.T.S stands for Accessible, Reliable Transportation for Students. This program subsidizes the transportation of students and chaperones when education program providers are not financially able to cover the cost. More than half of DC Public Schools do not have a designated transportation budget and 65% of teachers we surveyed reported that the cost of transportation is the largest barrier to arts education. Our Forward the A.R.T.S. Fund is another way we work to make the arts and humantes more accessible. You can support our work by donating today.