Patrick Morgan
Technical Communications at Conductor, Inc.
Vassar College, AB ‘08
Lewis and Clark College, M.Ed ‘10
Writing and editing for a living requires a person to hold two seemingly antithetical truths about oneself. You need the ego to believe you are the right person to tell a particular story or communicate an idea, but you also need the humility to listen to and accept criticism from your editors and your audience. I've found those traits—self-confidence and an open ear to hear other perspectives—necessary to being a musician and an artist, but woefully rare in my peers in my work community.
Commonplace instead are the twin pitfalls of Imposter Syndrome and the fear of feedback: "I don't think I'm good enough to do this and I'm afraid to hear someone tell me how to get better." I am positive that my experience in arts education at Memorial helped me avoid these pitfalls. You can't get better playing an instrument or reading lines on stage without integrating others' perspectives into your own performance, and you can't get that feedback without first having the confidence to step on stage and to open yourself up to criticism. Those are the experiences that educators like Mark Messer, Jamie Niemann Pitt, and particularly Paul Ulrich afforded me.
What's more, they did this with the facilities and resources at their disposal. Trips to other area schools revealed the differences in community priorities determined solely by ZIP code—not by student ability or interest. Even at 15-years-old (perhaps especially at 15-years-old), you recognize what this says about what and who your community values. Without investments in arts education (which allows for the kind of self-growth in confidence and the ability to give and receive constructive, collaborative feedback) how can young people believe that their community values their interest in self-expression and in their growth as individuals?
I'm heartened that MMSD and the broader community is taking on this project, and am sure it will help encourage students at Memorial to find their voice, their confidence, and their peace as they go through finding themselves and becoming adults.
