From the Desk of a Former Arts Advocate
By Dr. Elizabeth Gerbi, Freelance Writer, Scholar, Coach, Mentor, and Performing Arts Educator. Who has decided after making the same mistake 2,000 times that she will not make it 2,001. www.elizabethgerbi.com
Last night, I had an epiphany. Like so many epiphanies, this was triggered by an emphatic, all-consuming disagreement, having just heard a “new mission statement” from a colleague so wrong, so unethical, so morally reprehensible on every level…that, well, I’ve come to know from a least a minimal degree of self-awareness, is an indicator that I might be somewhat professionally complicit in its creation.
I don’t have to explain to any arts educator what our “advocacy stance” looks like: a resolutely humorless position, generally characterized by a girding of the upper body musculature, where we use trivial weapons like “evidence” and “reason” in order to try to conquer the budget-balancing Neanderthals whose sole aim is to hold us down, and perhaps murder some Golden Retriever puppies and casually foreclose on George Bailey’s house on their way to work. Cue twinkly piano music, followed by a panoramic shot and wash of strings, courtroom-drama-style, as we raise our hands in triumphant defiance of those lost souls who were denied the power of art as children.
In this particular instance, I watched the few coworkers not paralyzed by disbelief leap on their proverbial desks, articulating their philosophies of teaching with respect, sincerity, and pleading to the surely-extant moral compass of the ignorant. I love them so much, their bravery, their candor. Their faith.
I am inspired to join them. However, mid-climb up my own moral high ground, I paused, and said, “No. No, I will not do this again,” and calmly retreated to my desk to do my actual job. In this case, providing enormous amounts of written feedback on students’ developing analyses in order to ferret out instances of advanced critical thinking and draw a bunch of circles and arrows pointing to awesome, original thoughts, scrawling “YES! MORE OF THIS!”
Like many, I have frequently made the mistake of being baited by alternate facts (I was living in Washington, D.C. during the 2016 election, after all). I have felt the romantic draw of reciprocal advocacy, thinking that if I can only find the most poetic means of conveying the value of arts education, that all those who listen will experience a Grinch-esque coronary explosion, pick up their violin, and chime in my song. I have engaged in MANY militarized mobilizations as a student, citizen, and now academic. I would throw my life on the line for arts education, as would the best of my colleagues — which is probably what drew us all to this line of work to begin with.
Perhaps middle-aged acknowledgement of objective reality has caught up to me, but this time… I realized, there will be no changing this mindset. These wrong ideas are fixed, and I MINIMIZE THE SELF-EVIDENT IMPORT OF WHAT I TEACH BY EVEN ENGAGING IN A DIALOGUE ABOUT ITS IMPORTANCE. BECAUSE THE MAGIC IN ART IS NOT TALKING ABOUT IT… IT’S DOING IT, AND I REFUSE TO RELINQUISH MY HOME-COURT ADVANTAGE BY ATTEMPTING TO PROVE THE MERITS OF AN ARTS EDUCATION VIA THE TOOLS OF MY ENEMY.
AS THEY SURELY WOULD NOT ATTEMPT TO PROVE THEIR ARGUMENT WITH A SONNET OR A CONCERTO, I SHOULD NOT ATTEMPT TO CHANGE THEIR MIND WITH DEFENSIVE RHETORIC.
I’m not going to talk about it anymore. I’m going to do it. If it’s not accepted, I will bring the truth to my students’ children. I will keep going until the torch is handed to those more worthy of it, or collapse trying.
I conclude the only way to promote the truth is to double down on my actual work, which is to fan creative flames in the young, unjaded masses who come to our doors, in part because they don’t realize that higher powers are engaged in re-routing their aspirations back into cycles of inequity and poverty.
My job is to direct my energies towards my charges, who are the only among us truly capable of change. Those not yet corrupted by decades of personal disappointment, so much so that they have lost all sight of why they became educators in the first place. Those who are way smarter than me, and can see creative solutions that my aging, ossifying brain will subconsciously reject.
And I find myself O.K. with this.