Through The Arts Education Personal Statement

Education is home for me. After spending my life moving around the country and the world, school has been my constant - until it wasn’t. In the fall of 2013, I began to develop severe, debilitating migraines. I was in and out of the hospital, receiving tests, but getting no promising news on my condition. I spent most of my high school career bedridden, isolated from peers, teachers, and family. I was at risk of not graduating, but I refused to give up and my school refused to give up on me. Teachers, family members, and peers fought on my behalf. They rose up, we pulled through this situation, and eventually I graduated. After treatment and research, my migraines are a thing of the distant past, but serve as a reminder. Through difficult times and the inconstancy of a physical home, education

There I was privileged to work with the Prism Project, a weekly program that provides students on the autism spectrum with opportunities to express themselves through the performing arts. My work in this unique program pushed me to dig deeper into our nation’s focus on the arts. Wanting a national context for arts education, I landed a spot at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. There, I was a program intern for Changing Education Through the Arts (CETA). Through CETA, I helped coordinate the Arts Integration Conference of 2015 and watched as it changed the lives of hundreds of teachers and policymakers. There I had my first politicized and international education encounter, as I sat down with representatives from the United States, Mexico, Sweden, Sri Lanka, and Singapore, who had gathered with the goal of bettering school for their nations’ students. As they spoke, I began to piece together the policies they wished to support and change. Listening to these guests reinforced my global perspective of education: we want the best for children, no matter where we come