Some kids are already back in school.\u00a0 Most of the rest will be going back in the next couple weeks.\u00a0 And almost all of them have one thing in common- they attend schools that put sports above everything else, especially fine arts.<\/p>\n
In most towns it’s easy to get a huge crowd for a football game.\u00a0 It’s a lot harder to get one for a choir concert.\u00a0 Everyone with a kid in school knows how the basketball team is this year.\u00a0 Few know how well the marching band did in last week’s competition. No one bats an eye at paying to get into the soccer tournament.\u00a0 Those same people would be pissed to have to pay to see the sculpture class’s works.<\/p>\n
As a band nerd, this really gets my goat. I was fortunate enough to attend a school where the band program had extraordinary support.\u00a0 Most band kids aren’t that lucky.\u00a0 \u00a0I shudder to think what may have happened to me without that safe haven. Band was the one place in high school where I was safe.\u00a0 The one place where no one bullied me.\u00a0 The place were I could really shine because I was talented.<\/p>\n
The simple fact is that not everyone is good at sports.\u00a0 Sure, you can learn a lot through sports – time management, teamwork, leadership, social skills, perseverance, responsibility, communication skills- the list goes on.\u00a0 But here’s a thing-\u00a0 there are MANY other ways kids can learn these same skills.\u00a0 One excellent way is through the fine arts.\u00a0 Find me a marching band kid and tell me they don’t have all of those skills.\u00a0 Take a look at members of the swing choir and tell me they haven’t learned the same lessons.\u00a0 \u00a0 And if you are looking for ways to pay for college, there are just as many scholarships out there for kids who excel at the fine arts as there are for the sports players.<\/p>\n
Yet whenever school budget cuts need to be made, where do schools look first?\u00a0 Everywhere except sports. They are the sacred cow who must be saved at all cost, in spite of often involving far smaller numbers of students than other extracurricular activities.\u00a0 This is just plain wrong.\u00a0 We need to fund, and fight for, ALL ways for kids to express themselves and find out what they are truly good at.\u00a0 And that includes all manner of arts.<\/p>\n
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Some kids are already back in school.\u00a0 Most of the rest will be going back in the next couple weeks.\u00a0 And almost all of them have one thing in common- they attend schools that put sports above everything else, especially fine arts. In most towns it’s easy to get a huge crowd for a football game.\u00a0 It’s a lot harder… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[19,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-myself","category-things-that-make-you-go-huh"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/music.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}