Welcome To Esperanza Elementary Blog

I want to give you a special welcome to our Esperanza Elementary blog as we take our journey to found the school of our dreams. I invite you to visit us often and offer any ideas, thoughts, suggestions, questions, comments, etc. you might have.

Monday, November 12, 2012

The Challenging Pleasures of Art

The ideas expressed in this "Music and the Spoken Word" message capture why we want to include the arts as part of an Esperanza education. 

The Challenging Pleasures of Art
     Delivered by Lloyd D. Newell
 
A few years ago, Dana Gioia, a commencement speaker at Stanford University, expressed his concern about a culture that, little by little, "trades off the challenging pleasures of art for the easy comforts of entertainment.”
There’s little doubt that entertainment can be worthwhile, fun, an exciting. But when it’s over, entertainment very often leaves us no better than it found us. As Gioia explains, it "exploits and manipulates who we are rather challenges us with a vision of who we might become.”
Art, on the other hand, does not try only to entertain us. It tries to teach us and stretch us; it can lift our spirits and even make us better. As Gioia put it: "You don’t outgrow art. The same work can mean something different at each stage of your life.”¹ It’s not that the work of art changes—we change. In fact, in a very real way, it’s the art the changes us.
Perhaps you have seen a painting or heard a song that you struggled to understand fully. But then, as you studied or pondered it, your eyes were opened to a deeper beauty, a deeper truth, and the work of art became a treasure to you. A young high school student experienced this when he was assigned to study a well-known poem. It wasn’t easy; it challenged and stretched him in unexpected ways. But once he made the effort to appreciate the poem, to discover its meaning below the surface, he was invigorated by its richness. Somehow, in small but important ways, it helped him see the world with a little more depth than he had before.
Like anything worthwhile, art can be challenging. But it is also enriching and inspiring, rewarding those who dig deep for its meaning with the ability to perceive more intently the beauties that surround us.
1. "Gioia to Graduates: ‘Trade Easy Pleasures for More Complex and Challenging Ones,’” Stanford Report, June 17, 2007, http://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/june20/gradtrans-062007.html.
Program #4338
"Los desafiantes placeres del arte"
Hace unos años, Dana Gioia, discursando en un programa de graduación de la Universidad Stanford, expresó su preocupación por una cultura que, poco a poco, "cambia los desafiantes placeres del arte por la fácil comodidad del entretenimiento”.
No cabe duda de que el entretenimiento puede valer la pena, y ser divertido y emocionante. Pero cuando acaba, a menudo no somos mejores de lo que éramos antes. Gioia explica que éste "explota y manipula nuestra identidad en lugar de retarnos con una visión de lo que podemos llegar a ser”.
El arte, por otro lado, no trata sólo de entretenernos, sino de enseñarnos y exigirnos; puede elevar nuestro espíritu y hacernos mejores. Como dijo Gioia: "El arte nunca cesa en nosotros. La misma obra puede representar algo diferente en cada etapa de nuestra vida”, no porque la obra cambie, sino nosotros. De hecho, en un sentido muy real, es el arte el que nos cambia.
Usted tal vez haya visto una pintura o escuchado una canción que al principio no logró entender plenamente, pero después, al estudiarla o reflexionar en ella, sus ojos se abrieron a una belleza o verdad más profunda, y esa obra se convirtió en un tesoro personal. Un joven estudiante lo experimentó cuando se le asignó estudiar un poema muy conocido. No era fácil; lo retó en formas inesperadas. Pero una vez que se esforzó por apreciar el poema, por descubrir el significado entre sus líneas, quedó vigorizado por su riqueza. De alguna manera, en formas pequeñas, pero importantes, le ayudó a ver el mundo con un poco más de profundidad.
Al igual que cualquier cosa que valga la pena, el arte puede ser desafiante, pero también enriquece e inspira, y a los que buscan su significado les brinda la habilidad de percibir con más intensidad la belleza que nos rodea.

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