{"id":474,"date":"2012-10-31T10:32:16","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T14:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/theatricalimperative\/?p=474"},"modified":"2012-10-31T10:32:16","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T14:32:16","slug":"in-defense-of-compulsory-arts-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/theatricalimperative\/2012\/10\/in-defense-of-compulsory-arts-education.html","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of “Compulsory” Arts Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, I keep coming across this word.\u00a0 \u201ccompulsory,\u201d in connection to arts education.\u00a0 Many of our major institutional funders (including, these days, government <\/em>funders) look askance at funding youth arts engagement that is \u201ccompulsory\u201d rather than \u201cself-selected.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Many audience members and supporters, upon finding out that we at\u00a0Epic have major arts education programs, ask first \u201cdo the students choose<\/strong> to participate in theatre, or are they required?\u201d\u00a0 Well, actually, we do both.\u00a0 But does that distinction somehow impact the quality or importance of the arts participation experience? \u00a0Why do we equate \u201ccompulsory\u201d with “bad”<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hundreds of NYC Public High School students engage in post-show discussion following DISPATCHES FROM (A)MENDED AMERICA.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The word is typically used in a very negative context, of course \u2013 with the definition of \u201crequired,\u201d \u201cobligatory,\u201d or \u201cenforced.\u201d\u00a0 Sure, we get a bad taste in our mouths when we think of \u201cenforcing\u201d participation in the arts \u2013 especially in underserved schools where arts instruction is not already a part of the curriculum – because the vast majority of art-makers tend toward a political value system that \u201cencourages\u201d much and \u201cenforces\u201d little.<\/p>\n

Most of us would object to the statement \u201cArts education should be enforced in America\u2019s schools,\u201d or even \u201cArts education should be considered obligatory.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 But we seem to forget that another definition of \u201ccompulsory\u201d is \u201cessential.\u201d\u00a0 Would you object to the statement \u201cArts education should be considered essential to one\u2019s education?\u201d\u00a0 Probably not.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m going to push it further.\u00a0 Why SHOULD we be so damn tentative about \u201cforcing<\/strong>\u201d young people to engage in professional arts experiences?\u00a0 I\u2019m comfortable with that word, if we have to use it.\u00a0 What\u2019s wrong with making sure young people do something we know<\/strong> is good for them?<\/p>\n

I think we better consider this \u201cself-selection\u201d or \u201cchoice\u201d that we\u2019re trying to protect in 14-year olds.\u00a0 Think back to when YOU were 14.\u00a0 It may be painful, I know.\u00a0 14 was, for me, defined by the view of a parking lot, through a chain-link fence, where I spent every lunchtime wishing I was anywhere but McKinley Senior High School, a place where I had no friends, or even really acquaintances.\u00a0 Or by the sound of a young woman \u2013 let\u2019s call her \u201cAmanda,\u201d the name of almost every young woman who broke my heart in Louisiana in the 1980\u2019s \u2013 spontaneously laughing, the small gold crucifix on her chest bouncing, when I asked her for a date one day after Chemistry class.\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s important, when we talk about what 14-year-olds should or should not be \u201cforced\u201d to do, to remember what it means to be 14.<\/p>\n

Do you remember, when you were 14, EVER doing anything that you were not emphatically COMPELLED to do?\u00a0 Whether by your parents, or teachers you were awed by, or peer pressure, or by your impressions of who you were supposed to be as gleaned from the media?\u00a0 I was COMPELLED to skateboard because they wouldn\u2019t let me on any of the teams at school, and I needed an athletic and social outlet.\u00a0 Skaters could practice, and compete, basically anywhere where there was concrete, at any time, barring police intervention.\u00a0 When a person slightly older than me showed me the \u201ccounter-culture\u201d that came with skating, because my alpha-culture did not seem to accept me, I went with it.\u00a0 As a result of being a newly-minted skater<\/strong>, I was COMPELLED to get my hair cut in a sort of unspeakable combination of a \u201cloufa\u201d and a \u201cmohawk\u201d because that\u2019s what no one else in Baton Rouge, LA, had in 1985, and I had been told that I had to have what no one else had.\u00a0\u00a0 And I wore a pretty embarrassing combo of:<\/p>\n