Coming Up Taller- Michelle Obama quoting InsideOut’s Peter Markus

on Dec 17 in media by


REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY AT PCAH COMING UP TALLER AWARDS:
“Ultimately, each of your programs is using achievement in the arts as a bridge to achievement in life. And you see all this every day, each and every one of you working so hard. You see this in your students as they become more confident and more engaged and more willing to take risks and to take responsibility for their futures. You see it when their academic performance improves, when you see improving attitudes and higher GPAs. And you see young people who never saw themselves as college material, you see them getting those acceptance letters and you see them going on to pursue their degrees. So we all know in this room the power of the arts to change young people’s lives.

But we also know that even though so many young people in this country live just minutes from the centers of culture and power and prestige, many feel that these resources are miles away and very far beyond their reach.

That’s why we’re working to make the White House a showcase for America’s rich cultural life, and opening the doors of this house to as many of our young people as we can, exposing them to classical music, exposing them to jazz, the spoken word, everything.

We want to show them that they have a place not just in our museums and in our theaters and in our concert halls, but they have a place in the halls of this White House, as well. We want to show them that they can have a future in the arts community, whether they do it as a hobby or as a profession or simply as an appreciative observer. We want to show them that if they work hard and if they believe in themselves, nothing is beyond their reach.

And I think one of the professional writers who works with young people through the InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit, Michigan, he put it best when he said something very simple: “If you ask a kid to dream, he’ll dream.””

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