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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
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The one thing I can say that's uniform amongst them is that they come out of their education
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with such a strong sense of their selves and such a strong sense of their purpose in the world
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I think arts education gets you really in touch with yourself, with your higher self
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and with what really fulfills you, whether that's art itself or some other path
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Arts education matters to me personally because I come from a background that is not privileged
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and in fact quite the opposite and from a place where there is a lot of despair and
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a lot of lack of hope. And art was and continues to be for me a doorway to greater things
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I think art can be an access to that kind of hope for people and I mean people of any
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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
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going nowhere and offered no possibility. If I could make that opportunity possible, if I could provide that access for another
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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
2:13
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
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and a sense of purpose and that's a joint effort between all of their teachers and them
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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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