Who Will Be the Next Steve Jobs?

I have a big art show coming up, not the usual type of show that I have been producing for over a decade for kids, teens, or other artists, but for myself. This is a solo show for me, an exhibition for an artist who has turned to her own art to get her through one of the most difficult periods of her adult life: staying afloat during the recession.

This isn’t the first time that art has gotten me through tough times. Art saved me as a kid, too. I didn’t have a Father Knows Best childhood. I didn’t even have a father. He died when I was eight. The adults in charge in my life weren’t anything like Margaret and Jim Anderson. I was raised by a post-feminist movement mother whose new found freedoms were all consuming. Life for all of us was made even harder and more complicated by the abuse of alcohol. I learned at a very young age to rely on myself. This doesn’t sound that unusual by today’s standards, but back in the seventies, it was novel. The only constant in my life was my creativity. I could trust myself and my art. Making art was safe, dependable, and constructive. Whether I was alone in my room, or down in the basement creating something, I was master of my own universe. I could tune the world out, be free and in control.

This is one of the many reasons why I advocate for the arts in schools. It’s not just that an arts education makes for a complete education, or that participating in the arts raises test scores. It’s about finding and nurturing passion, about turning kids on who would otherwise be lost without art, music, writing, theater, etc. Offering arts education in schools is about giving right brained kids their due respect and much needed dignity, and helping them find and follow their bliss.

Tragically, however, our society is so busy, over whelmed and self involved, that we look upon these kids as being deficient in some way. They’re in the way. They won’t conform. They move too much. They don’t focus. They don’t go along with the status quo (all qualities that are usually revered after someone like Steve Jobs makes his mark, but are shunned, stifled and snubbed until society finally approves). We mistakenly label and medicate these kids so they’ll settle down and go along with the flow, or not upset the apple cart. Or challenge us. Or protest when we tell them to march and take their place in the status quo line.

Labeling and medicating children has become an epidemic in this country (and only in this country – we’re the only society that starves itself, gets depressed, and labels and medicates its young). This is a serious epidemic that needs to be eradicated by having all Americans slow down and take a good look at itself. Quit looking at kids and isolating their behaviors as if they are the problem. Our lifestyle and attitudes are the problem. We need to ask, what are we doing to our children? If we keep dosing our kids, who will be the next Steve Jobs? If the next generation is too zoned out to question, to take on challenges, or to push the envelope, what will become of them? What will become of us?

To Sirs, With Love

It’s been over thirty years since I last played my alto saxophone. That was when I was a teenager, playing in the school band. I had played consistently for eight years throughout my public schooling in Colorado. I was pretty good, and I will always be grateful for the many opportunities that playing music afforded me, even though I didn’t pursue a career in music. I grew up to be a visual artist and an arts education activist. I started a nonprofit organization in southern California to give kids the same arts education experiences that I had growing up.

We raise money and donate music programs to low income elementary schools. We buy the instruments and pay for the weekly instruction during the school day. Our graduating fifth graders move on to middle school with the ability to read and play music (unheard of in the Los Angeles Unified School District today). For existing middle and high school music departments, we raise the funds necessary to purchase much needed materials as well as offer assistance towards the costs of competitions and other expenses. We also produce a number of different arts festivals.

A couple of years ago we created a Battle of the Bands for middle schools as a fun competition to win cash prizes. It also gave teen rock bands the opportunity to get more public exposure, as well as give parents a chance to meet different music suppliers and program providers in an exhibition area. As the RSVPs started to come in from different band directors, and as we got to know more and more teachers through the production process, my own memories of playing in such festivals and competitions started to come back to me. I realized, on a much deeper level, just how lucky I was to not only have had such music programs offered to me in the schools I attended, but that I had the best music teachers around. I appreciated them as much as any kid could at the time, but now, as an adult with over eleven years experience of running an arts education nonprofit against all odds (dealing with the bureaucracy of the LAUSD and steering a public charity through the high seas of the recession), and getting to know more art and music teachers who are dealing with the same challenges, I have grown to appreciate my former band teachers all the more.

We invited every single public middle school teacher to participate in our Battle of the Bands. About half of them declined, not wanting to give up a day on a weekend to do it. The rest of the teachers accepted our offer happily, which insured that our festival would be a rewarding and successful event. The school bands that won reminded me of my former school bands. We seemed to win everything. We won because we were good, but how good could we have been were it not for great teachers?. After the festival, I reflected more on how fortunate I was to have had such incredible support and guidance. I wanted to find my old band teachers and thank them.

I will never forget C.J. Shibly from Isaac Newton Junior High School, or Ross McClure from Evergreen Junior High School. Because of them, I got to be in a marching band, a concert band, and a jazz band in junior high school. We played in parades and performed at school sporting events. For three years at Evergreen High School, I had the good fortune of having Jim Stranahan as my teacher. He was straight out of college - young, energetic, and very, very optimistic. He was cool. He was also an incredibly talented musician in his own right. In the three years that I played in his bands, we cut two albums (one in a studio and the other live at a national competition in Miami, Florida). We played every competition he could get us in to. He even got us gigs playing private parties (one was a gig at McNichols Sports arena for a pro basketball game). All of those weekends and evenings…..he gave up a lot of his own time (and money, I’m sure) for us.

I started searching for my old band teachers so I could let them know how much I appreciated what they had done for me as a teen. I decided to look my former band mates up, too, to see if any of them had pursued careers in music. I found some: Doug Jackson went on to play guitar for well known rock bands like Iron Butterfly, Kenny Loggins, and Ambrosia. Our pianist, Willie Hammond, is a working musician in Boulder, Colorado, and Nate Birkey is a successful trumpet player with his own jazz quartet in New York City. We were just ordinary kids, going to public school. We took the music classes that were offered to us. What would have become of Doug, Willie, Nate and me if we hadn’t had those music classes and those incredible music teachers?

As a parent myself, I argue that music education is vital and necessary, not just because it improves academic scores and keeps kids in school, but because no education is complete without it. Every kid should know how to read and play music, whether they grow up to be musicians or not. The experiences and rewards derived from playing in school orchestras and bands last a lifetime. If I hadn’t taken band for eight years, I may never have met my best friend, Greg Ruland, or traveled to Florida, or set foot in a recording studio, or had a chance to really listen to others, or take so many risks by working through stage fright, putting myself out there so I could bust through my own teen fears when it was my turn to play a solo. I would have been denied the opportunity to honor my deceased father by playing on his silver plated sax, or to give my grandfather (a retired jazz musician) a reason to be proud of me. On top of all that, I would have missed out on the rare opportunity of having an adult outsider validate and show concern for the problems I was having at home. My family had been torn apart by divorce, death and alcoholism. Very few adults dared get involved, even my own family members. Most of them looked the other way. Jim Stranahan did not. He couldn’t fix anything for me, but he could let me know that he could see me, and that he cared. I’ll never forget the day he took me aside to ask me if anything was wrong. I told him. My secret was out. Nobody else had ever done that for me before. He was a true artist, connecting to me and all of his students, not just through music and his training as a teacher, but through his own heart.

I never did find C.J., Ross or Jim. I presume they are all retired from teaching now. I hope they’re all happy, healthy, and playing music. Wherever you are: Thank You.

Live and Let Live

I’m horrified by the news of the four teens who were driven to commit suicide in the past month, all because they were tormented by others for being gay. I’m growing increasingly more intolerant of the word “tolerance” whenever the media covers these stories. “Tolerance” is not the right word.

We need to be tolerant of people we’re stuck with, people we just don’t like. Such individuals as a lousy boss, a stinky, old, big mouth aunt at Thanksgiving, inconsiderate neighbors, clueless parents at school, volunteers who don’t do anything but create more work for everybody else, anybody who is a regular part of our lives, but rubs us the wrong way. We tolerate each other because we have to.

But when we use the word “tolerance” when referring to someone’s sexual orientation, the color of their skin, or their religious beliefs, what we’re really saying is that I (the superior person) will tolerate you (the inferior person) because I am clearly the better person.

Let’s try replacing the word “tolerance” with “acceptance” when participating in the national conversation about bullying.

When I teach art to little kids, they hear me say, over and over again:

1: There are no wrongs in art (in their own art, or in the art of their neighbors, so criticism of either one is never allowed). Their art is a part of them, a reflection of them, and cannot be bad or wrong.

2. Artists, musicians, actors, dancers, writers, and scientists never become famous for doing what everybody else has already done. They become famous because they’re different from everybody else.

In making these my two “rules” for making art in the classroom, I have tried to not only give children permission to be creative without fear, but I have also tried to create a school culture that values all sorts of differences. Children come to understand that not only are we all different from one another in many ways, but if they want to grow up and be a famous person one day (as all little kids do), they will HAVE to be different. My young students trust me because I’m so different, and because they all think I’m famous.

One of the lessons I like to teach is Vincent Van Gogh. I talk about how, when Vincent was young, the kids made fun of him for being different. It really hurt him and he never got over it. He kept that inside of him his whole life and was never happy, because it ate him up inside. I tell them that when a few kids teased him, the rest of the kids would sit in silence, and not stick up for Vincent, even his friends, which hurt him even more. This always leads to a discussion on how we should always stand up for anyone we see who is being picked on. I don’t give too much attention to the bully or the victim in this discussion. I like to focus on the silent bystanders, which most of us are at some point or another. We are participating in the torment of others if we witness it and stand by and do nothing.

We need real arts teachers in our schools (not people who have been taught to teach a lesson or two, but real artists, musicians, writers, and performers). They bring passion and love for what they do to the learning experience. And they send out the message, just by being who they are, and educating kids on the accomplishments of other creative people, that it’s not only OK to be different, but it’s something we should all strive to be. Only the art teacher can pull this off. A classroom teacher who is taught to teach art, music, or any other arts discipline, cannot convey this, because they have a different role to play in their students’ lives (my son’s fourth grade teacher was a former military officer. The values that he passed on to his students from his former career, were immeasurable and significant, but would have conflicted with what he would have been expected to do if he was asked to teach mime, for example). Kids need arts teachers – for what they teach them about the arts, for what they teach them about themselves, and for what they teach them about the world. And some kids, like the four who killed themselves, may literally need their arts classes for sanctuary. Band, art, drama, choir rooms…..they’re not only places where great art is discovered, passed on, or made, but they are literally places where kids can go to get away from that which torments them. Arts teachers are the messengers, and living proof, that being different is the ideal.

Right Brainers Have Rights, Too!

When my son was a toddler, my mom friends and I would joke about which one of us would be the first to be told that our son had ADD, given the trends in America to mold kids (mostly boys) into submission so they would sit still and go along with Status Quo. It is my belief that there is nothing physically or neurologically wrong with these kids, at least not as much as the epidemic suggests. I believe that this trend is due to the self interests of the adults who are supposed to care for these kids, and our overcrowded, overwhelmed public education system, the lack of respect for creativity and individuality in ourselves and others, and our fast paced, self indulgent lifestyle. Our culture has ADD, not our kids.

I knew that the day would come when somebody would eventually suggest that my son had ADD, given that he is a dreamy, eccentric, right brained learner - all qualities that I value about him and have always encouraged, but also qualities that are devalued in public education, and are seen as some sort of medical or behavioral disorder. So when the day came when my son's burned-out, near-retirement fifth grade teacher suggested we take our son to "a really good pediatrician" about his having ADD, I vowed to let my son finish the rest of the year with his friends that he had known since kindergarten, but pull him out after elementary school, as I saw this as the end of the road for institutionalized education for him. With middle school a few months away, I could see the writing on the wall - and it wasn't good for him insofar as his personal fate was concerned. He'd fall through the cracks for sure. He's been free now for over five years and is finding and following his bliss, with the support and understanding of his parents, who understand and appreciate that creative thinkers (right brained learners) learn differently from their more academically inclined peers (left brained learners). The right brained learners are being unfairly diagnosed, labeled, and treated as defective and unsuccessful. Many take medication to help them conform. The message that these intelligent, creative, innovative children are receiving is "there is something wrong with you and this little pill will take care of it". There is nothing wrong with these kids. Our culture, public education, and the adults in charge are failing these kids.

The time has come for all of us to slow down, take a hard look at ourselves and how we see and treat children. We need to start asking, "What is the matter with us?," instead of, "what is the matter with them?". We need to do right by the right brained kids of our community.