www.theodysseyonline.com: When I was in middle school and high school, I felt like I lived for the musicals that my school orchestrated. For those of you who don’t know, a musical is an onstage performance wherein actors take on roles that involve singing, and often dancing, to progress the plot of the story. While it may sound a little bit nerdy to get up in front of an audience to perform in this manner, this is something you cannot knock until you try it. For some reason, though, many public schools have de-funded arts programs that would allow these musicals to occur, while increasing the funding for sports teams. There are a few things that are being forgotten when sports are valued more than musical programs in high schools.
19 comments:
This article is SO, SO important and especially relevant to me because my home state has such a crappy department of education. I've heard fantastical tales of a time where you only had a one semester gym requirement and the other 7 semesters of your high school life was filled with electives for you to choose. Unfortunately I got the short end of the stick and was forced to take all 8 semesters of P.E. courses. I'm just wondering why sports are respected so much more than theater since both have many similarities in terms of physical and mental training. Personally, I never really clicked with any sport like some of my other friends but theater was there for me with open arms when I needed it. I'm sure I've gotten my own type of physical experience building sets and running around backstage. In addition, there's a whole lot of brain muscle that theater helps build and I think it should have the same type of prestige and FUNDING as any high school sports program. I just hope that, in the future, theater (and the arts) are respected just as much as any other program offered in a high school. It should always be STEAM not STEM.
I am from Houston, Texas where there is a very large emphasis on sports, especially football, and I can say that this article is one hundred percent accurate. At my high school the budget for the football department alone was about double the amount of money given for the drama department, so we had to fund most of our shows ourselves. The budget went towards things like new uniforms, travel, supplies sold at games compared to what could be spent in theatre such as installing motorized electrics, more tools for the shop, or even more sewing machines which my school greatly lacked. Until about my senior year, there was also a lack of respect for the theatre department to the point where our student only performances felt like sports games at times. There should be a much larger respect for the arts, not just musicals, in general. All fine arts programs, such as band, orchestra, dance, etc., lack in funding compared to athletics, but it seems that it will only get worse under the current administration. We need to continue to push appreciation and funding for theater in general and all fine arts.
One of my favorite things about the odyssey is that the articles are usually written by students for students. In this article I believe its main objective is to try and get more adults to understand. At my high school sports would always be above arts. I understand that more of student population precipitates in sports than arts. However, my senior year of high school more people choose to study art than play sports in college. One of my biggest complaints about the arts losing money is that my school sports team were very bad. The Board of education were trying to put in a turf field for the football team. This would be understandable If they showed worthy of that. They had a horrible record. It seemed so unfair that the theater program only got $5,000 a year to put on four shows while they were going to spend millions on a turf field. It’s very saddening to see the arts getting cut so sports can have more money.
Ugh. I have always disliked the Odyssey on principal because most of the time their articles are pure garbage. I read this article in the hopes that my feelings towards this website would have changed. But woefully, this article has affirmed and deepened my hatred of the Odyssey. First things first, while I agree that schools should not defund the arts there are logical reasons that sports get more funding. For instance: the article admits that musicals run seven performances before they close. Compare that to the at least ten football games the team plays (pssst more “performances” means more money). And also, a high school theatre house can hold, what, maybe 800 if we’re being generous. Football stadiums can hold thousands of people, even the rinky dink small high school stadiums. More attendees means even more money per each night of the performance. It’s fiscally smart and responsible to pour a bulk of public school’s funding into an event that has the largest chance for a return profit. And don’t even try to say that there is no mental strain of athletes. The quarterback, for example, is constantly calculating what plays to run while keeping in mind the abilities and thoughts of not only his teammates, but the player on the opposite team as well. This article is garbage, no way around it.
I thought that this article was going to provide an interesting analysis on the difference between sports and theater as prioritized by the school systems, but after reading this article all I found was a weak comparison by an author who seems to devalue the work that athletes do with a weak comparison of the two subjects. It seems to me like the author thinks that sports take no brain power what so ever and that skill in sports in only due to repetitive practice. While there are absolutely some differences to these two things, athletes don't put any less dedication into their craft than performers do, they just do it in a different way. I am disappointing that this article doesn't go into the importance of theater programs in schools today and how theater programs have just as big an impact on students as sports does even though they don't get the recognition or the budget. Overall, I think that this article was wrong in many ways and written without the acceptance or understanding for the students who chose to dedicate their time to something that is simply different, not more/less challenging.
Like others, I initially clicked on this article in hopes of finding some sort of analytical or at least meaningful comparison between sports and theatre in high school. Although much of what is written is true, it is presented in a way that makes the writer seem more whiny than inquisitive on the topic. As artists it is our duty to have sympathy for the world around us, and I felt like this article lacked sympathy. Just because we all want improved theatre programs in high schools does not mean we should resent or demean sports. Often, sports are the first thing people have access to as children: little league, ballet, gymnastics etc. The bigger issue is the funding for these programs. People who supervise funding should consider opportunity that often go unrecognized, like the arts. I'd love to see a more in depth article that discussed the process behind funding, and the "why" behind sports over theatre we so often see.
This article is bullshit. I've never read 4 paragraphs of a totally failed attempt at making a point but really just dancing around the subject of theatre for several minutes and wasting my time. The comparisons are weak and the entire body of the article is merely a straw man's argument. I'm honestly surprised an article from The Odyssey Online made it to The Greenpage to begin with. I thought we were above shitty student-written editorials unless they actually mean something. Oh Football is cool but have you tried MUSICALS?! Is basically all this is saying. And honestly, every point made FOR including musicals is more about the effort students put into it not what they get out of it. The value in an arts education isn't about the praise they get at a performance where the "stakes are high" versus a baseball game... It's about what skills students gain from participating in the arts and how it develops them to become a valuable member of society... why not talk about that? If this was the argument given to this school, no fucking wonder they wanted to cut the funding.
This article really only just hit the surface of such a big topic that goes way deeper than the author made it feel. But the Odyssey is known for student aged authors, so good for him for making a statement about it to a broad peer related audience. I could go off on a rant on how valuable theater and musical theater are for high school students, but I have written that comment enough times in the past, so what I really wish I could hear was a sport players perspective on this. So many movies and TV shows use this idea where the athlete also gets involved with the nerdy theater kids and ends up loving both. Personally, I have never had a real conversation about this with a die hard sports team member, and I think it would be really interesting to hear what they think of it. I attend an arts magnet high school, and here at Carnegie sports are not a huge program, so I never have really had the experience that the author talks about. I have heard the stories of sports turning peoples lives around, giving them somewhere to belong and a support network, which theater does too - I don't think one is better than the other in just a cut and dry way for students (obviously I have my own personal preference) but I would love to be at a meeting with the principle of a school, theater director and sports coach to hear the conversation of budgets.
Hey look it's the plot of Lemonade Mouth! This was kind of a weird article to be honest. There wasn't really a ton of factual statistical information, which was what I was primarily expecting. Instead, there was a lot of angry "THEATRE IS HARD!!!" and explaining why theatre is so difficult. Yeah dude, theatre is hard, but so are many many other things. Sports are hard. Athletes train a ridiculous number of hours each week to improve or maintain their skills. I am in no way discounting rehearsal hours, cause you know, I do that too, but it's really stupid and unproductive to just point at all sports and yell "We work harder!!" I am 100% completely all for not slashing arts funding, but this is 100% completely definitely not the way to make a case for it. Talk about what arts does for students and schools, not what students do for arts. When people are talking about sports in schools, they don't say "Our athletes put in 473828 hours in the gym every DAY!" They stay stuff like "team building, health, hard work, blah blah blah." This guy needs to reevaluate his priorities because if more arts people keep trying to argue like this, all of our funding is gonna go out the window.
The only real important pull from this article was the line "there is no sport that requires the knowledge of human emotion." It makes theater important because it makes people learn about people, how they think, how they respond, how they emote. In theory this would give the kids who act a greater ability to understand their peers and function more effectively in the emotional battlefield of life. (wow I kind of hate the phrase I just wrote but I'm totally leaving it) This isn't even entirely true. When you get serious about acting is when I feel like this could apply. School theater could begin to give insight into human character and human emotion, but I feel like - especially at that level - the focus is really just on getting that character, becoming that character so that you don't really get this practice in emotion sport: understanding yourself or others. And it discounts those who work anywhere besides on stage. If the main treasure school musicals have is that it trains in emotion knowledge while sports do not, then there's really no point in anyone building scenery or making costumes or anything because they're not learning anything at all.
I was really disappointed by this article, i was expecting a well written and thought out argument on the value of the arts in high schools and greater society, but what i got was a rant about how someone was disappointed that they didn't get the appreciation they "deserved" for doing a musical. but as far as i know, people don't get into this industry for the sheer possibility of fame, or because they want people to tell them they are good, people do theater because we love this art form and we love doing it. also this was basically a poorly written four paragraph explanation of what a musical is, and i think this was pretty counterproductive to the argument the author was trying to make. instead of complaining that they put so much work into theater but didnt get any recognition, the author should be making a case for why the theater environment is a good choice for kids, and why it should continue to receive funding.
This article definitely has some comments in it that I just have to disagree with. It started right off the bat with the title, the examples that the author gave were no strong and they seemed more like generic statements than anything else. The one thing I do agree with is the commitment aspect of theater and athletics. Both call for significant time commitments that could be seen as similar, but honestly, aside from that it really seems like every other example is just pulling for straws. This topic seems like the never ending discussion in my high school and middle school and it would be interesting to see someone actually analyze the similarities between the two activities. I had high hopes for this article when I first clicked on it, but the bottom line is that I just don’t think the parallels that are made nor the examples are strong enough for me to actually get excited about. So, all in all, it is a great topic for discussion, something that many people have talked about for years, but as for the article, I think It was lacking some serious substance.
I believe that this is far from a well written article; however, the point being made is extremely important. Coming from a high school of about 330 students, getting a large group of students together for any single activity was difficult; therefore, they created fairly strict requirements for participating in athletic activities (Some athletic activity 11 out of your 12 trimesters, but you could cut that down to 8 if you played two team sports a year). By contrast, the only arts requirements are two arts classes freshman year – one performing art and one studio art (unless you took two languages, then you didn’t have to do both) – and then one art class of some sort over the next 3 years. It is easily arguable that theater accomplishes all of what sports claim as the reasons they are so important to schools. It is also arguable that theater accomplishes these better than athletics in some ways.
I was fortunate to attend a performing arts Middle school and then go on to a performing arts high school so a lot of the arguments in this article i never actually experienced first hand. I am obviously a strong advocate for equality in high schools regarding arts programs. It is 2017 so the fact that this is even a conversation anymore irritates me. Studies show the presence of arts programs in schools positively impacts students. I believe the skills you learn from a drama class can greatly change your life by helping provide confidence in public speaking, understanding the necessity for preparation/rehearsal, and creating a discipline in young students. I think something important to take away is that no one is saying we should cut funding for sports teams rather we should create funding for an arts program. Both are equally important and will both change students lives.
I was very lucky to have gone to a school that put a large emphasis on the arts. The year before I attended my high school they actually cut all the sports programs and sent the money to the performing arts department. I understand that this is not the majority but even in my school with no sports the arts were always a little less respected than all the other departments. Even now my sister is there in another department and she doesn't seem to understand the amount of work that goes into what those kids are doing and that makes me really sad. It's very upsetting that she and most of her friends don't understand the value of art, and I think thats the problem. People who never did art don't understand it's value don't get why it needs to be respected and we should require more people to take art classes and to be involved in the arts so that when they grow up and make choices about schools the understand fully what they are doing.
The Odyssey is definitely not a great source and honestly I'm surprised it's on this blog. One time my best friend from hope was asked to write for them and ended up getting blocked by their Facebook page, but that's a story for another day. Even though this article is very surface level (not surprised because of the Odyssey's reputation) I agree with the core message in it. When I was in high school our community and school board combined raised over $1 million to build a new turf football field. We have never really had a good football team but people were so invested in sports that they didn't care and fund-raised for it anyway. On the other hand, our musicals had always been loved and appreciated by the community and yet they weren't willing to help raise money for a new sound console that they honestly desperately need at this point. I was very privileged to go to high school that had a theatre program at all, but sometimes it's hard to be be jealous of the special treatment that other extra-curriculars received.
Within the past few years my high school theater program has been defunded in favor of getting new equipment for our sports teams. While I understand that the way that our town funds the public school systems in the various departments is undeniably more complex than simply shuffling around piles of money, it was still very disheartening to hear from the underclassmen when I went back and visited that they weren’t able to create the same caliber of sets or do the same types of interesting, experimental theater that we had done in the past because our director felt forced to do large-scale musicals using our limited stock scenery in order to sell enough tickets to fund the next show. I feel like the administration in charge of moving these funds around aren’t aware of the degree to which our high school theater program influenced our lives and, ultimately, gave us a group of people to be around in a school that not everyone always felt welcome in. While it feels redundant to be speaking about the importance of theater on a blog for a theater college, in which most of if not all of the students found or developed a love for theater in their formative high school years, it’s hard to describe exactly how immensely important it is for students to have an outlet in an artistic field that is too often thrown to the wayside.
I agree very much with most of this article. In my high school, everyone had to be enrolled in a sport each season, Fall, Winter, and Spring. Tech counted as a sport, but performance did not, even though the physical and time commitments were likely about the same. I remember many actors complaining about having to run from practice to rehearsal 5 days a week, only to spend the same amount of time in the theatre as on the field. I think the title of this article is a little much, but I do think the amount of work and dedication put into a show should deserve just as much acknowledgement or recognition as that put into a sport. I think awards at the high school level for performances should be present just as much as those for sports programs as well. I know things like the Thespian festivals are a great way to do that, so making sure that these are accessible is, in my opinion, a great way to acknowledge all of the hard work put into theatre.
I like the point this article is making, but I'm not the biggest fan of how they make the point. I totally agree that theatre programs at the high school level should be treated as sports--at least from a budgeting standpoint. Coming from a high school where the theatre program was essentially expected to make all their own money, and the football team got new gear every other year and hired at least four coaches, there is clearly a gap in funding and recognition. But I dislike that this article, which was very clickbait-like, compared the two in terms of intensity, and claimed that drama was actually much harder. As someone who ran cross-country as well as doing 4 shows a year with the drama club, I don't think that the two are in any way comparable in terms of intensity. Sure, drama was long hours overcoming major challenges, but sports programs are vastly more physically intensive. I think that theatre needs to be recognized much more than it is, that should not mean we discredit sports programs, as many people benefit greatly in different ways from these types of programs.
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