When I was 11 years old, my grandmother passed away from leukemia. Around that same time, my dad took a massive pay cut. Just as I was old enough to construct my understanding of the world, we were losing our house and our needs were hard to come by. To appease my mother, I signed up for my middle school Speech and Drama Team. Although I was not initially keen on the idea of speaking and acting in front of large audiences, my mother foresaw the value that speech education would add to my life. I reluctantly joined the team and from that point on, the course of my life changed for the better. In an effort to encourage similar testimonies and expose other K-12 students to this outlet, it is imperative that we come together as a community to fund and advocate arts programs everywhere.

At the middle school level, I was writing speeches regarding politics, radio broadcasting layouts, and reciting scripts that required me to explore characters who were cancer victims, orphaned children, and various other depressing and twisted plot lines that most parents of middle school students would censor. I, with the 30 kids of my team, hundreds of students in the state, and thousands in the nation, did what some adults struggle with. We gained insight into the human condition.

Speech students really are one of a kind. At my high school, you would find the speech team at school until 6 p.m. practicing or up at 2 a.m. on a bus traveling to a tournament. We wore business suits, memorized ten-minute presentations or scripts, talked to walls as we practiced, and sometimes improvised performances. One National Speech and Debate Association’s promotion advertisement is “Find Your Voice.” That is precisely the essence of what the program does for students. I have watched students construct performances on historical figures and military life. I have watched performances that explore the most heart wrenching of situations. I have heard friends give speeches on “Spreading the Word to End the Word,” on racism, and on sexism. I have encountered broken, depressed and unconfident students who found a voice in the speech family. I have witnessed some of my best friends finally choosing to be honest with the world regarding gender and sexual orientation and accepting who they are in the face of adversity. These examples are all products of arts exploration.

So much was lacking in my life before I joined the speech team. Speech ironically acted as an escape from my problems, but simultaneously allowed me to confront them. Whether all adults realize it or not, high school is a challenge. Today, students battle cyberbullying, heightened sexuality in the media, the stress of social media popularity, drug and suicide epidemics like never before, and the reality of student loan debt in order to attain dream schools. For some of my peers in high school, it was easy to frequently turn to illegal activity to fill certain voids. It is not that I was morally superior to those activities in high school. Believe me, I was a normal teenager and made mistakes. It’s just that speech education allowed me to address such issues through the power of language instead. Plus, I never once had time for Friday night beer pong because I had to wake up at two o’clock in the morning on Saturdays to compete in a business suit somewhere across the state of Kentucky.

As a seven-year speech team member and two-year captain of the team, excellence and achievement were always expected. At the same time, if I ever failed, my coaches and teammates were there to pick me back up. This gave me a strong sense of responsibility and purpose. Common ideology is that kids will be kids and the young should party hard while they can. I would love to challenge those ideas. Responsibility, paired with fun, should begin at the earliest age possible so that students can realize their gifts and utilize them in an effort to make a difference in the community. I am not saying that fun should be discouraged in high school. I had immense and generally “clean” fun and laughed continuously with members from my team. I possess memories and strong friendships that will undoubtedly last forever. Identity formation is central in the stage of adolescence. The point is that without some activity for students to put their energy towards, apathy can occur. Apathetic citizens are not only dangerous for the individuals themselves, but for society as a whole. Speech and arts education is a contemporary tool we can use to lessen this trend and positively contribute to identity formation and civic engagement in teens.

To be blunt for a moment, I would consider my life a success so far. Notable to mention is that it is rumored Brad Pitt, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey, Nelson Mandella, and John F. Kennedy are all Speech and Debate alumni. Therefore, I feel obliged to put myself in the same category… In all seriousness, trophies and awards measure none of my success, but the skills I have obtained through speech and art education do. I now know how to have professional conversations, construct an argument, rock heels and a business skirt, and go after any task I set my mind to. More importantly, I know who I am. Not in the definitive sense, but just the essence of what I stand for and believe in. This growth was all made possible through my experience in speech education.

I am lucky enough to have free college tuition due to my involvement in artistic performance. While my major is not performance related, I use the positive attributes attained through my experiences every day. The same is true for many of my friends who were speech students and went on to different career paths. They are usually at the top of their programs academically and socially because they are committed to success. Of my friends who have gone on to pursue the arts, they have been accepted to prestigious programs and are life-long learners in their craft. Consider the results on drug use, attendance rates, and overall interest in education if students all over the country were exposed to well-funded and well-supported programs of their interest.

In three years, I will hopefully begin my teaching career. My prayer is that I am placed in a district that equally values STEM focus and arts integration. In the event I am not, I will give every attempt to implement programs of my own and give students the opportunities they need to learn more about themselves and the world around them. As cheesy as it may sound, the fight cannot be won alone. Though I do not remember where I first heard it, one of my favorite quotes is: “Art has the role in education of helping children become like themselves instead of more like everyone else.” Imagine a country of almost 320 million people in which individuals were authentically themselves and walking in their full potential. Pretty cool, huh? While a bit idealistic, it is possible to move forward. It will take collaboration and not only local but also state and national support. I can attest that the arts change lives, but will only continue in schools through focused and driven advocacy.