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Video: Carnegie Mellon University's Robert Ramirez Speaks to the Importance of Arts Education
May 17, 2024
In this video, watch as Robert Ramirez chats about the value of arts education and be sure to check back on Wednesday (September 13) as BroadwayWorld's own Richard Ridge checks in with the 2023 Excellence in Theatre Education Award winner, Jason Zembuch Young!
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I think art changes lives one person at a time, one person at a time, which feels small
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but cumulatively is huge. I've seen students come from varying backgrounds in my time as an educator and there's so many
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different outcomes for every different student that you have in your classroom
0:26
The one thing I can say that's uniform amongst them is that they come out of their education
0:31
with such a strong sense of their selves and such a strong sense of their purpose in the world
0:38
I think arts education gets you really in touch with yourself, with your higher self
0:45
and with what really fulfills you, whether that's art itself or some other path
0:54
Arts education matters to me personally because I come from a background that is not privileged
1:00
and in fact quite the opposite and from a place where there is a lot of despair and
1:09
a lot of lack of hope. And art was and continues to be for me a doorway to greater things
1:21
I think art can be an access to that kind of hope for people and I mean people of any
1:30
and all walks of life. Specifically for me it was a way out, it was a way out of a situation that I thought was
1:40
going nowhere and offered no possibility. If I could make that opportunity possible, if I could provide that access for another
1:53
person like myself, another young person who is struggling to find themselves both as a
1:58
human and as an artist, then I think I've done my job and I've done something good in
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the world. Nothing excites me more than seeing a young person have that spark of idea and creativity
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and to overcome themselves and the obstacles that they think are in their way, the things
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that frighten them about putting themselves out in front of the world with their art
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I have seen students come into my classroom at the beginning of a four year cycle, afraid
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nervous, tentative, wary, withheld, any number of things. The person that I see leave that room is someone who has confidence, who has a sense of themselves
2:44
and a sense of purpose and that's a joint effort between all of their teachers and them
2:51
most importantly them, the effort that they put in. You have the opportunity to submit the name of a theatre educator that changed your life
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that helped you access that special something inside of you that helps you thrive as an artist
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