Mary Micari on WYCD's First Episode

Our first episode is about Arts in Education. Funding has been cut across the United States, but meeting with the folks at Young Audiences New York was eye-opening.
Here’s what I did not know until yesterday: Arts Education is not in the curriculum in all New York City schools. That means that music class, art class, choir and band are all virtually non-existent for our city’s kids unless a school has the gumption to apply for a grant to bring arts into their environment. (And I am sorry that I had to use the word ‘gumption’ but I am angry.) New York City is one of the most culturally vibrant cities in the world, and our own school kids are denied the arts in their schools. Ummmmm, some questions.
The arts were all over my education growing up on Long Island in the 1960’s and 1970’s. In fact, the best times that I had in school involved the arts. I would not like to imagine growing up without learning to play the recorder in the third grade. I was really so bad at it, too, but I didn’t give up until the teacher asked me to “stop, please”. I can still remember the green felt bag that was the recorder’s home. And how I would take it out to practice and torture my parents with my jazzy rendition of “I’m a Little Teapot”. Oh, how I dreamed that my amazing recorder playing would win David Cassidy’s heart. Good times.
I was in the choir. I was involved all the school plays from kindergarten (where I played Bacteria in the Ecology Play) all the way through my senior year in high school. I took classes in drama and directing. In fact, because I wanted to take so many arts classes, I never had any free periods and subsisted on a diet of Blow-pops and cafeteria coffee (it was the late 70’s and there was no such thing as nutrition). My arts education helped to make me who I am today. All right, so maybe that’s not the best recommendation, but it is still really important.
It seems wrong that the arts are considered non-essential curriculum. I understand that it’s all about reading, writing and arithmetic, but we learned yesterday what I long suspected: children do better in all of their classes when they are exposed to the arts.
So, what can you do to help arts-in-education? Well, we got a lot of great ideas from YANY. If it’s not in your child’s school, make sure it is at home. Spend an hour a week making art together, or making a movie on your computer, or having a sing along. A few years ago, my friend and I were singing with my nephew, who was 7 at the time, around the dining room table. I noticed that he was fidgeting a bit during one of the songs and I asked him what was the matter. “I really have to pee” he said, “but I don’t want this moment to end.” I assured him we would keep singing. We did. We have never really stopped.

What You Can Do Starts Shooting

WYCD Creators: Jessica Arinella and Mary Micari have begun interviewing Arts in Education experts for their first episode of the show! On Monday, the team went to the Young Audiences NY offices to talk to much of the staff there. With them, Jess and Mary discussed topics like why arts in education is so important, what impact it has on the students and how people could get involved at their local school.



After discussing Arts in Education as an issue, Jess and Mary asked about how each of them was affected personally by having arts in their school growing up. I have to say, this was one of the discussions I found most fascinating. Each had a rather compelling story about how finding a certain artistic discipline helped to create who they were as a person - whether that meant fitting in at school better, opening up their social circle in a new way or starting a love affair with an artistic outlet that remains to this day.



For Jess and Mary, this is just part 1 of their story. Next they want to hear from every day people. How has having (or not having) the arts in school affected the average person? Is this an issue that most people feel is important to them? Why or why not?

What better way to find this out than by taking it to the streets. Beware, we might want to hear from you!

Stay tuned...

The First Episode

Choosing a first episode is the sort of challenge that brings to a neurotic mind such as mine visions of epic battles of lore. The Iliad, The Battle with Mordred, The Assault on the Black Gate- not for any real or imagined similarity, but rather for the hours of pointless conjecture such a choice brings. For example- If Agamemnon could have just kept it in his pants for say another year, perhaps Troy would never have fallen and Achilles would have lived. Then again we would have never have had the Odyssey, the Electra Complex or ultimately democracy- but I digress. Picking a first topic and trying to forsee all the myriad ways it will play out can make you a tad nuts. So we pulled in the big guns. We called our friends.
We first complied a list of all the possible topics that we love to tackle. A list that included Global Warming, Darfur, Katrina, Hunger, Arts in Education, Violence against Women, Violence in Schools, Animal Rights, Gay Rights, AIDS in Africa, Poverty and Clean Water. We then sent the list to our friends and asked them to list in order of personal preference which episodes they would like to see in the first season. The answers came back as varied and different as our friends. We then took another tact. Which episode could we do the best?
A first anything is bound to be plagued by problems, mistakes, missteps etc, and we wanted to pick a topic that we knew something about. After our very successful web videos that we made with Young Audiences NY , we decided to pick Arts in Education. As working artists we have of course been deeply touched by the Arts within our own lives, and in a time of economic crisis, when budgets are being slashed, the Arts are in tremendous danger of disappearing in our schools. But at what cost? And why does it matter? During a time of huge crisis in our country is Arts in Education as important a topic to cover as say hunger, or global warming? We believe it is. And we intend to show you why.
We head out Monday to start production of our first episode. We will keep you posted.