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Transcript
- There is a specific kind of silence that lives in a school hallway when the music room has been closed for three years. It’s not just quiet; it’s the sound of a thousand potential voices waiting to be heard, but having nowhere to sing. I want you to picture a classroom for a moment. Maybe it’s one you walked through as a child, or maybe it’s one your niece or nephew sits in right now. The walls are painted a chipped beige. The desks are scratched and wobbly. And on the back wall, where there should be colorful posters of musical notes or paint-splattered aprons, there is nothing. Just blank space. This isn’t hypothetical. This is the reality for thousands of students in under-resourced public schools across our country. When we talk about budget cuts, we often think about textbooks or heating bills. But one of the first things to go is the arts. Music programs get slashed. Theater clubs get disbanded. Art supplies become a luxury item that teachers have to buy out of their own pockets, which they can’t afford. Let’s dig into that for a second. Why does this matter so much? It’s easy to look at a violin or a set of charcoal pencils and see them as toys. Or as nice-to-haves. But for a kid who might be going home to a house with no food, or no safety, or no one who speaks their language, those tools are lifelines. They are the only place where they feel control. Where they feel seen. Not as a statistic, not as a problem to be managed, but as a creator. As someone with something to say. I remember talking to a former teacher I worked with early in my nonprofit days. She told me about a boy named Marcus. Marcus was the 'troublemaker.' He was always in detention. He pushed back against every rule. But she noticed he would sit in the corner during lunch, sketching intricate designs on napkins. When she finally encouraged him to join the art club, even though it had almost no funding, everything changed. He didn’t just start drawing better. He started showing up to school on time. He started trusting adults. That art class wasn’t just about learning perspective; it was about giving Marcus a reason to stay. We live in a world that is obsessed with STEM. Science, Technology, Engineering, Math. And don’t get me wrong, these are vital fields. We need more engineers. We need more coders. But somewhere along the way, we’ve convinced ourselves that if it doesn’t lead directly to a high-paying tech job, it’s not worth the investment. What does that look like in practice? It looks like a principal choosing between buying new computers for the computer lab or hiring a part-time music teacher. And because the data on standardized test scores doesn’t easily capture the value of empathy, creativity, or emotional regulation, the music program loses. Every single time. But here is the truth that the data misses: the arts teach us how to be human. They teach us resilience. When you’re painting, you make a mistake. You can’t just delete it like you can on a keyboard. You have to adapt. You have to find beauty in the error. You learn to sit with discomfort. You learn that failure is not the end; it’s just part of the process. These are skills that employers are desperate for right now. Creativity. Problem-solving. Collaboration. Empathy. But more importantly, these are skills that help kids survive their own lives. In a recent study I came across, researchers found that students who participated in intensive arts education were significantly less likely to drop out of high school. Less likely to get involved in criminal activity. More likely to apply to college. The arts aren’t just decoration. They are a protective factor. They are a shield. And when we take that shield away, we leave our most vulnerable children exposed to the storm. I want to share a story that still makes my chest tight. A few years ago, I visited a middle school in a district that had undergone massive budget austerity. I went to meet with the drama teacher. Her name was Elena. She had been teaching for twenty years. She loved her students more than anything. But the theater department had been cut. The building was being used for storage instead. Elena kept the spirit alive by borrowing costumes from thrift stores and rehearsing plays in the gym after hours. She spent her weekends cleaning up sets. She spent her evenings writing grant applications that rarely paid off. One day, I watched her lead a rehearsal. There were twelve kids in the room. Some were hungry. Some were tired. But when they stepped onto that makeshift stage, they transformed. For an hour, they weren’t kids struggling in poverty. They were kings and queens. They were detectives. They were heroes. And then the bell rang, and they had to go back to their hard realities. Elena looked at me afterward, exhausted, and said, 'I’m not sure I can keep doing this alone. But if I stop, who will tell their stories?' That question haunts me. Who will tell their stories? Because without that outlet, many of these kids feel invisible. They feel like their feelings don’t matter. Their pain doesn’t matter. Their joy doesn’t matter. The arts validate their existence. They say, 'You are here. You are important. Your inner world is rich and worthy of expression.' When we defund the arts, we are essentially telling these children that their inner lives don’t count. I know what some people are thinking. They’re saying, 'Kristina, we can’t afford to fund the arts. We need to focus on basic needs. Reading and math are the foundation.' And I hear you. I really do. No child should be in a classroom that doesn’t have access to quality literacy or numeracy instruction. Those are non-negotiable. But the arts are not separate from those foundations. They are woven into them. Think about it. How do you teach empathy in literature? Often through role-playing, through drama. How do you teach geometry? Through architecture, through sculpture, through design. How do you teach history? Through documentary filmmaking, through oral storytelling. The arts are the vehicle through which abstract concepts become real, tangible, and memorable. When we strip away the arts, we flatten education. We turn it into a transaction. Memorize this fact. Pass this test. Move on. But life is not a transaction. Life is messy. It’s creative. It’s collaborative. If we want to raise children who can navigate a complex, changing world, we need to give them the tools to think outside the box. And you cannot think outside the box if you’ve never been allowed to play with colors, with sounds, with movement. There’s also a profound economic argument here. Communities that invest in the arts tend to have lower crime rates, higher civic engagement, and stronger social cohesion. It’s an investment in the fabric of society. Yes, it costs money. But the cost of ignoring it is far higher. We pay for it in healthcare costs. We pay for it in the justice system. We pay for it in lost potential. Thousands of brilliant artists, innovators, and leaders are lost every year because their schools couldn’t afford a paintbrush. So, where do we go from here? How do we fill that empty chair? How do we bring the music back into the halls? It starts with shifting the narrative. We need to stop seeing arts education as a luxury and start seeing it as a necessity. We need to talk about it at PTA meetings. We need to write letters to our local school boards. We need to show up to budget hearings and demand that arts funding be protected, not cut. But it also starts with individual action. You don’t need to be a billionaire to make a difference. You can donate to local arts nonprofits. You can volunteer to read to kids in the library. You can offer to teach a workshop if you have a skill. You can advocate for your own children, asking their teachers what resources are missing. And for those of you who have the means, consider making direct donations to school arts programs. Many schools operate on shoestring budgets. A small donation can buy instruments, provide scholarships for field trips, or keep a teacher employed. These gifts are transformative. They send a message to a student: 'Someone believes in you. Someone sees you.' Let’s also support policy changes. We need state and federal legislation that ensures equitable funding for arts education, regardless of zip code. Wealthy districts shouldn’t have vibrant arts programs while poor districts have none. That is a moral failing. And it is solvable. We have the resources. We just need the will. Remember Elena? The drama teacher? She eventually got a small grant that allowed her to hire a co-teacher. It wasn’t enough to fix everything, but it gave her breathing room. It gave her hope. And that hope spread to her students. One student went on to study theater in college. Another became a social worker, citing drama class as the reason she learned to listen to others. The ripple effect is real. It is profound. It is lasting. That’s the heart of it. This isn’t just about culture. It’s about connection. It’s about giving every child, regardless of their background, a voice. A way to express the things they can’t say with words. I think about that silence again. The silence of the closed music room. It’s heavy. It’s suffocating. But imagine the opposite. Imagine a school where the halls are filled with the sound of piano keys. Where the classrooms buzz with the chatter of students discussing their paintings. Where the auditorium is packed with families watching their children perform. That vision is possible. But it requires us to choose differently. It requires us to value the whole child, not just the test score. It requires us to recognize that creativity is a fundamental human right. So today, I ask you to think about one thing you can do. Maybe it’s calling your representative. Maybe it’s donating ten dollars. Maybe it’s just talking to someone about the importance of the arts. Small actions add up. They create momentum. They build a movement. We are the generation that decides what matters. Do we decide that efficiency matters more than empathy? Do we decide that profit matters more than purpose? Or do we decide that every child deserves a chance to sing, to dance, to create, to dream? I believe in the latter. I believe that when we fund the arts, we fund humanity. We fund hope. We fund the future. And that is a future worth fighting for. Thank you for listening, for caring, and for being part of this conversation. Keep creating. Keep speaking up. I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.