Glee viewers watched as a group of wildly different students came together. They started off with little in common and without the foggiest understanding of each other. In each episode, characters perpetrated and were victims of harassment and humiliation intended to preserve the natural order of high school. This recurring theme is fine for fiction but is also an unfortunate reflection of real life as confirmed by the recent upswing in bullying reports. We know that the arts teach tolerance and empathy, self-control and discipline, team-work and collaboration. Glee manages to illustrate this as viewers witness the evolution of unlikely friendships and camaraderie between disparate characters.
The arts have the power to change perceptions about kids, both of themselves and by their peers and teachers. Students who don’t fit in socially and struggle academically often shine in their arts classes, becoming stand outs in a positive way. The same is true for kids who do excel in their studies or athletics. For some of these students, participation and success in the arts prove that they are more than just their label of football player or honor roll student. We’ve watched as this very thing happened to the Glee characters.
In Glee’s season finale, I was pleased to see how much value was placed on the “journey.” Any arts educator worth their salt emphasizes the artistic process over whatever the final product happens to be (a monologue, a sculpture or an aria). Competition and judgment have a place in every disciple. Without that kind of feedback, how do we improve? That said, those components are deemphasized in arts education because the part that matters, the part that teaches us the most is the part that the judges rarely see. It’s the choices that an artist makes along the way, working out how to solve the problem, coming at it from a different angle if the first attempt doesn’t work as planned. And isn’t that the way it should be in art and in life? As Will Schuester stated, “life only really has one beginning and one end and the rest is just a whole lot of middle….Who cares what happens when we get there, when the getting there has been so much fun!”
Is it possible for a popular television show to send a message about the importance of arts education? It seems that answer is a surprising and emphatic, yes! At a time in our country when arts programs are being stripped from the educational landscape, Glee serves to illuminate what kids are actually learning in their arts classes and why that is so very important to preserve.
Watch the Glee season finale here.
