Kathryn Stripling Byer is a 2012 inductee of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame and a former NC poet laureate. She weighed-in recently on the importance of the arts in education in an op-ed piece for The News & Observer in Raleigh.
To read the full op-ed piece, click here.
In it, Kay shares a visit she made to her daughter’s school as part of her laureate duties. The children she met were inspired by her poems and stories (and attire), and the students were a revelation to her, equally eager to “discuss haiku and Milky Way Cake.”
Our children’s future depends on the choices we make during these times when so much more seems to divide us than unify us. And yet I’d be willing to guess that when it comes to their future, we share more common ground than not.
We want them to have good, well-funded schools, and we want those schools to offer them not only the skills they need, but also to introduce them to the arts – music, painting, dancing, drama and poetry. These programs, like the Poet Laureate position I was honored to hold for nearly five years, deserve our support.
To support the arts in North Carolina, click here.