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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Barack on arts education

Nancy Cook, a friend and fellow fiber artist (who, by the way, gave a fabulous presentation to my local guild, Lake Norman Quilters, last night), sent me a link to an interesting YouTube video of Barack Obama answering a question about reforming the education system at a town hall meeting in Wallingford, PA, in April. He made an especially insightful comment at the end:

"Part of what arts education does is it teaches people to see each other through each others' eyes. It teaches us to respect and understand people who are not like us. And that makes us better citizens and it makes our democracy work better.… And that's one of the main reasons we need to promote the arts."
– Barack Obama

Obama was talking about how the "No Child Left Behind" program had resulted in fewer art and music programs in many school districts, and the negative effects that has had on young people.

You can see the video clip on YouTube by clicking here.