Philadelphia Inquirer   -November 13, 2011

Susan Teegen-Case is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and the executive director of ArtWell, an arts program for Philadelphia youth (www.theArtWell.org)

A few years ago, we had a student from a disciplinary high school join a poetry club we started there. He lived in a neighborhood where drug deals, break-ins, and gang violence were near-nightly occurrences. One day, when members of his club were recording their work in a professional studio, he was asked what difference poetry made in his life. He lifted up his shirt and showed the freshly sealed wound from a bullet hole.

“Instead of going after the guy who shot me,” he said, “I wrote a poem about it.”

Here are excerpts:

I want to be

In a nice place

Where they don’t hate. …

My city is noisy, loud and unfair.

But it’s my home

And what I grew up with.

Though it may be tough,

Mean and hard,

It will always be my city.

We have to lean on each other

Through good and bad.

And I am a respectful person,

Always trying to be myself.

I don’t let no one bring me down.

Clearly, one can respond effectively to conflict with beauty. And by beauty I don’t mean just pretty: I mean creative expression that is self-aware, bold, and true.

In my 10 years as executive director of ArtWell, I have witnessed students from some of our city’s most challenged schools channel their grief and frustrations into poetry, music, and visual art. By learning to understand and express themselves, these students gain the confidence to pursue dreams and make connections with others that before seemed unattainable.

The state legislature is debating whether to provide taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers to low-income families. I’d like to focus, instead, not on transferring kids out of struggling schools but how, with relatively small amounts of money, all schools can invest in opportunities for creative expression that make a difference in students’ lives.

Most people, if they had to choose between funding a science or art class would choose science, because that ostensibly prepares kids for the real world. Reading history is more valuable than writing poetry because kids need facts, not feelings, right?

But what if, in a time of economic duress, the most valuable lesson we could give our children was confidence in their abilities? What if we could teach them the awesome power of hope? What if, in this city of diversity, we could help them build friendships with people who do not share their race, religion, or socioeconomic status?

We have the tools to deliver these lessons. With little more than pen, paper, glue stick, or secondhand instrument, we can help our young people process hardships and come out with greater self-knowledge and a more positive relationship to the world.

Certainly there are data showing that arts education leads to higher-achieving students, but there is another impact much harder to measure: Arts help soothe the soul.

For 10 years, I’ve seen how the arts help reduce conflict – both within individuals and between communities.

I’ve seen kids from the Islamic, Catholic, and public schools in Kensington South collaborate on a mosaic mural and bring the neighborhood into new relationships of appreciation, even joy. I’ve seen a young man, who immigrated from Ghana and struggled to fit in with broken English, learn to write and recite poetry with the voice of a king; he’s now a nursing student at Drexel. I’ve seen a girl from a rough slice of West Philly get excited about the election of President Obama and end up with her poetry featured on HBO. And, of course, I’ve seen that young poet, the boy with the gunshot wound.

We teach our young people that they can be poets and scientists, athletes and artists. They teach us how to respond to adversity with newfound inner strength.