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AUGUST 2004

Heifetz, Shaw, & A Blueprint for Teaching the Arts
by Scott Noppe-Brandon

George Bernard Shaw, after attending a concert by the violinist Jascha Heifetz, wrote him a letter.

My Dear Mr. Heifetz:
My wife and I were overwhelmed by your concert. If you continue to play with such beauty, you will certainly die young. No one can play with such perfection without provoking the jealousy of the gods. I earnestly implore you to play something badly every night before going to bed.

Art has such power in our lives. Through the ages it has been among the most powerful, influential, motivating aspects of human experience. It exerts a tremendous impact upon the lives of us all, even those who do not regularly participate as viewers or makers of art. Ironically, it also affects those who pay little attention to it because they think of it as a strange entity separate from our “other” lives. But art is not only in the museums, concert halls, or galleries, it also in the buildings that surround us, sometimes—if we’re lucky—in the buildings in which we live; it is in the clothes we wear, the furniture we buy, the cars we drive, the movies we watch, and on and on. Certain cultures do not have a word for art within their vocabulary because it is such an integral part of their everyday lives. There is a distinct sense of pleasure shared by cultures around the world, in making art, discussing art, viewing art; in adding a dimension of beauty to our environment with art. Historians have written that the most important “books” of any culture are the books of art. At various times in human history, rulers—even recently—have forbidden people from listening to music, or have destroyed important and priceless artifacts: once again, art is powerful! Repression of art arises from fear of its power, fear of expression, of diversity of thought, of losing control.

As the Department of Education releases its new Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts, let this message be as loud and clear as can be: art must be within the schools. We do not, cannot, will not have schools that fully educate our nation’s youth until we have art as an integral part of the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly education of every pre-K through 12th-grade student. It is imperative that high quality works of art be part of every student’s educational experience. Students need to see, be part of, and create based on their encounters with art created by the most imaginative minds humankind has produced—and continues to produce. How will students understand what is meant by high standards unless they see examples of such standards in the classroom? Since the 1960s, thousands of artists have had the privilege and responsibility to take art into the classrooms and theaters of schools around the United States. More often than not, in my opinion, the finest, most affecting art has been the result of the artist’s need to share an idea, through creative expression, with humanity at large, not just with a particular age group. Such artwork repays itself over and over again, as each new generation finds something in it that it can own.

To become an aesthetic object, artworks need to be grasped by persons who have learned to engage in them, to co-exist with created things for a time in aesthetic space. Virginia Wolfe wrote that each of us is part of the work of art. We are the words, we are the music, we are the thing itself, such as we are: human at our best, not perfect. Mr. Heifetz understood that: he allowed himself a false note once in a while and consequently lived to a ripe old age of 87.#

Scott Noppe-Brandon is the Executive Director of the Lincoln Center Institute.

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