In the current issue of Commentary, Terry Teachout quotes from Dana Gioia’s commencement speech at Stanford, the same passage that struck me when I read it.
Gioia is chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and his speech pays tribute to the many ways in which culture, especially the arts, enriches life. He also laments the way in which commercial entertainment has crowded out and debased the kinds of culture he appreciates.
Well, I’m an elitist too, and I don’t entirely disagree with his thesis. But then there’s this, from the prepared text for the speech
At 56, I am just old enough to remember a time when every public high school in this country had a music program with choir and band, usually a jazz band, too, sometimes even orchestra. And every high school offered a drama program, sometimes with dance instruction. And there were writing opportunities in the school paper and literary magazine, as well as studio art training.
I think he’s old enough to be remembering times that never were — leaving aside, that is, the logical question of how anyone could “remember” circumstances at “every public high school in this country” when as a high school student he could have been familiar with at most a handful out of thousands.
I’m 67, and I remember the times quite differently. I graduated from Valley Stream Central High School in 1957 (my graduating class, which had about 400 students, just held its 50th reunion. I was sorry to miss it). Valley Stream is in Nassau County, on Long Island. It borders Queens County, which is a borough of New York City. When I was growing up, Valley Stream was really more of an exurb than a suburb. There were people who commuted into the city, but that wasn’t the dominant pattern.
All this is to set the stage; Valley Stream was a comfortable, safe place that ought to exemplify the rosy past Gioia claims to remember. And he couldn’t be more wrong.
Yes, there was a choir. I sang in it. But it was 80 voices, by audition. So at most 5 percent of the class, on average, could be in choir. There was a marching band, an adjunct to the football team, but that was even smaller. Concert band, jazz band, orchestra? I don’t remember, but even if there were, the number of participants was small. I did take a course in music theory, the only “arts” thing that wasn’t entirely extracurricular, and it was excellent, but there were fewer than 10 students enrolled.
Drama? There was a club that put on an annual musical. Maybe 20 people, max. Dance? No.
Writing opportunities? Yes, you could write for the school paper, but you had to be in with the popular kids to get on staff. I applied, and was set to selling ads along Merrick Ave. toward Lynbrook, which didn’t suit me. A friend and I tried to start a literary magazine, which lasted all of two painfully mimeographed issues.
Studio arts? You’ve got to be kidding. We had shop and home economics.
And by today’s standards, this school had very favorable demographics. Almost no poor children (few rich ones either), almost no children being raised by a single parent — unless she was a war widow, which is not exactly the same thing — and almost no children of color. Which latter should not make any difference, except that there is that persistent anomaly called the achievement gap, and Valley Stream was on the fortunate side of it.
So if Valley Stream did not enjoy Gioia’s imaginary Eden, who did? Surely not black kids in Bedford-Stuyvesant or Watts. Or Hempstead, for that matter. Surely not white kids in an Appalachian holler, or Hispanic kids in border schools along the Rio Grande or any-color kids in rural schools across the windswept Great Plains where the graduating class numbered 10.
“Every public high school”? Not hardly.
And it’s not a matter of money, because the schools Gioia condemns today have several times as much money, after adjusting for inflation, as Valley Stream had 50 years ago.
I guess you have to allow poets license.