peacefully while respecting diversity will be a major task for adults in the 21st century,
adults who are at present adolescents in our schools.
Under these circumstances, creating a school community that recognizes differences yet
supports commonly accepted goals and values is a challenge. High schools, where peer
groups are the coin of the realm, are particularly vulnerable to cliques, mistrust and
hostility. Further, the fact that students come from families who also often have widely
differing values and experiences in the society adds to the difficulty of creating
community within schools. This is not just a problem of inner city black-white-Latino
conflict. Anyone who has heard Caucasian students in wealthy suburban schools talk
with envy and derision about the superior performance of Asian students--"grinds"--
understands that such wounding and divisive stereotypes are found everywhere.
In a school for the arts, the identity of students is based on their arts discipline and their
merit judged on how serious they are in the pursuit of their work. Students are dancers,
musicians, artists, actors and writers, not rich kids, poor kids, nerds, jocks, blacks,
Asians or Latinos.
It is a cliché to say that art is a universal language, but it is my observation that students
from many cultures are able to appreciate not only the content of the arts cross-
culturally but also the process and aspirations of other young artists no matter what
their individual background. A school where one can communicate by playing an
instrument, singing, dancing, and painting is a school where there are many
opportunities for all students to be seen in the fullest sense by their peers. For example,
placement in a string quartet is based on skill level not age or nationality. It is therefore
not uncommon to find players from 12 to 18 years old and from three or four different
countries in one group relating and learning under the best possible circumstances;
because they must if they want to play. Their common goals, techniques, and training
help them overcome, in a natural way, the barriers that would normally separate them.
They come to see and understand each other through the work, not the usual eat-the-
food national-costume "international days," common in more many school settings.
The relevance for postmodern society in students coming to such an understanding
through experience is obvious. True mutual understanding comes through working
together in an endeavor that has meaning for all, using a "language," in this case music,
common to all. It is experience and understanding, changed feelings, growing from that
experience, that bind people together and break down the stereotypes that keep them
apart, not rhetoric, rules or the pleas of school administrators to "get along." New
experience changes perception and leads to new understanding. The arts offers a natural
venue for such experience and therefore such understanding.
Moral Education -- One of the most difficult issues that our society and schools have
to struggle with is the role of schools in the moral and ethical development of
adolescents. In this secular and multicultural society there are no easy answers. In fact,
we can't agree on what moral education is, let alone offer a "curriculum." However,
addressing the question of how we support the development of good character in
students is essential. A bright, well-educated and talented young person who has no
moral center, who does not have the tools and understanding to lead an ethical life