What we would lose if all of Michael Jackson’s music and all of Theodor Geisel’s books were scrubbed from our culture and our classrooms?There has always been people who have struggled to figure out what to do when they find out that the artist behind the art that they love are not good people. This “song” has been going on throughout the history of Western art, and recently the new “verses” have brought the debate to the fore. On one hand people want to separate the art from the artist and enjoy the art on its own merit. While others feel that the art and artists are interconnected and one can’t ignore the sins of the artist when experiencing the work of that artist.
I’m going to focus on this debate in the context of the classroom because where I’m seeing this ongoing debate played out in my world is among teachers.
To teach art in the classroom requires that educators teach about the piece of art: when it was created, where it was created, who created it, and why was it created. It is context of where that piece of art exists in history, culture and the artist’s life that brings meaning to art education. Yes, performing a piece really well without any of this cultural context is powerful, and can be transformative, but it is everything about the piece of art that bring a deeper level of personal meaning to the experience of learning the piece of art.
You cannot do a Michael Jackson song without teaching about Michael Jackson himself. Not including the controversy, and the allegations in discussions about his life with students is like teaching the World War II only from the American’s perspective. It’s inaccurate, and wrong. Elevating Geisel in our children’s eyes as an author to admire, ignoring the racism in his life is also very wrong.
People are torn because people feel they have gotten so much out Jackson’s and Geisel’s work, personally and they feel that their students have also benefitted from their inclusion in the curriculum. There’s an argument that the art is so good, and so important that we have to overlook the sins of these artists. What is this art is not that good?
What if we spent the amount of time and energy doing moral gymnastics to justify the inclusion of Geisel’s work in the classroom on included books that had more diverse characters, taught the same reading skills, and were written by more diverse authors?
Children would learn through authors like Grace Lin that Chinese people are so much more than the racist caricature that the kid claims he saw on Mulberry Street.
We would have more inclusive classrooms across America filled with books that provide mirrors and windows of the people in our communities and beyond. The diverse authors of these books would inspire children to read and write.
Are we doomed for a cycle of reinventing our curriculum every single time we find out something bad about an artist? No, we are charged with the responsibility to reflect, recreate, and re-imagine our curriculum constantly to make it more diverse and inclusive. That means getting rid of artists who express with their words and actions that their values are not ones that we want to elevate and have our students admire.
As much as I try to have my students admire artists for their work as artists and not elevate them into heroes, I know that simply by including a song in class, it is expressing to the students that I like this artist. If the teacher feels that its important enough to do in class it must be good in their mindds.
This may seem like a burden, because it asks us to make sure that what we include in our curriculum are things that we are okay with students feeling like we endorse. But it is also power that I used when when I chose on the first day of 3rd grade music this year to do an activity to a Brand Carlile song. I showed them a picture of her with her wife and kids backstage at the Ellen Show, and you better believe I wanted to express to my students that I honor everything that Carlile was about, and that they should too.
One teacher on a Facebook group was debating about whether to continue doing “I Believe I Could Fly” as a graduation song. If the teacher didn’t do that song they would lose a tradition, and a song that is fun to sing. But is it worth the trauma that this song might bring to people in that audience? Is it worth putting money in the pocket this guy so that you don’t have to look for a new song?
Is it worth teaching our children that morals don’t matter?
The cynics will argue that if you require artists to be good people to teach their art, then you will not have any art to teach. We are teachers. We prove cynics wrong every single day, and if we do the work, we can prove them wrong and fill our classrooms with wonderful and diverse art by artists we can all stand behind.
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