Some Thoughts From a Student Arts Festival

I recently had the eye-opening experience of attending the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest (ISAS) Arts Festival in Dallas. I went to support our Bosque School students who were acting, playing musical instruments, and singing in the festival; and I am happy to report that they were outstanding. They performed beautifully, they were appropriate in every context, and they were supportive of each other in every venue; in other words, they lived up to our expectations!

What was unexpected for me was the vibe at this festival. There were students from independent schools throughout the Southwest, and the manner in which they interacted with one another and appreciated each other’s work was impressive and humbling. For lack of a better analogy, I described it as Fame meets summer camp. In addition to their staged performances, students were breaking out in song or dance while just hanging out, total strangers were striking up conversations with one another, and the atmosphere itself fostered creativity and kindness among everyone. As a teacher said, “The kids are totally themselves here, and maybe more than at any other time.”

So, what was it that made this experience so exceptional? Why was this environment unique, and why can’t school be like this all the time? Beyond the obvious realization that students do have many classes besides the arts, and they do have homework and other impositions on their time, there were some elements that we could take from the festival that might make our schools very different places.

First of all, students were not competing with one another during the festival. There were no prizes or awards, so everyone could appreciate each other’s work without feeling diminished by others’ accomplishments. As a former high school and college athlete, I am all for competition, but I do wonder if we could find opportunities to de-emphasize it in our schools. Perhaps this might encourage more of the mutual support and admiration we saw at the festival.

This lack of competition in no way prevented the students from doing outstanding work. The level of talent at this festival awed us all. Students were doing their best even though they didn’t have to do so; they were expressing themselves just for the joy of it!

Secondarily, students were performing what they had learned from their teachers. However, there were opportunities in places like the Coffee House where teenagers could sing what they wanted or engage in the messy act of creation with others, with no other reward than making something new and exciting.

Don’t get met wrong. In an increasingly interdependent and competitive world, we must continually challenge our students to produce work that meets high standards and prepares them to succeed at the nation’s best colleges, where they will find themselves in competition with the world’s best and brightest. We disserve our students if we ask them to do and be anything less than their very best.

Nevertheless, we want them also to be fully realized human beings who are not only productive but are also happy. We want them to be academically engaged and proficient, but we also wish for them to be well-rounded and eager to engage in a variety of activities. We require much of them; perhaps we should also allow them to have more opportunities to choose what they wish to do.

We began a weekly event at Bosque School this year called Musical Mondays, where students in the upper school perform on the first day of every week. Sometimes they perform in their school groups, but more often students play a piece of music with their peers that they themselves have chosen. It’s a beautiful moment when all of the students in the entire upper school applaud their peers, and it provides an entirely new insight into the personalities of the students who are playing. We have a window into the world of the students unfettered by requirements imposed by the adults in their lives, and they always amaze us. We also have a requirement for juniors and seniors to write their theses, and here again, we are able to see what interests and motivates them beyond their grades.

Moments like these show us what’s possible when those of us in schools give our students the chance and the time to pursue their passions and be who they really are. Just imagine what it would be like if all of our schools could have the climate and atmosphere of the ISAS Arts Festival, even if it were for just a while. Our students might blossom beyond our wildest dreams.