Season’s Greetings from the Newberry County Literacy Council. There are two items on the agenda for this column. The first is about our People’s College. Our fall term, which focused on environmental science, has just ended. After beginning the term with a book about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone Park — which I have mentioned in previous columns — we read “What We Know About Climate Change” by MIT professor Kerry Emanuel.
The book is a straight-forward presentation of how scientists study climate change, how they know about climate conditions in the past, what consequences they have observed, and what consequences are likely in the future. Climate change has become as much a political issue as a scientific one, but Emanuel’s recitation of the facts and the scientific consensus about the rise in carbon dioxide in the air since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and the rise in temperature since that time, was compelling for our group. For all the topics we study in the People’s College we try to consider local aspects. For climate change, this meant asking what can communities do in response to this challenge; what can local citizens do? Can we, as a community, narrow our carbon footprint or increase recycling? These seemed, to our class, important questions to address.
The second item is about the visits our clients and volunteers have made to the Opera House. We have attended a number of shows over the last few seasons – some plays, some musicals, and some great solo performances. Our most recent visit was November 24 to see the Joey Alexander Trio. Alexander is a 16-year old prodigy from Indonesia who plays jazz piano. He appeared with Wynton Marsalis at Lincoln Center when he was 10 and produced his first album at eleven. The other members of the trio were a base player and a percussionist. It was world-class music with each performer presenting sensational solos.
Literacy is most often associated with reading and writing; however, as we have written about in previous columns, it also encompasses other abilities – to compute, understand finance, make decisions about healthy lifestyles, operate computers and smart phones, and use social media. The Literacy Council has delved into all of these. With these visits to the Opera House we are extending into what can be called ‘cultural literacy,’ an understanding and appreciation of arts such as drama, music, and painting. When we watch someone like Joey Alexander, we can appreciate his talent pretty easily but to fully understand his music we need some history and context. Jazz, the music he plays, is considered an American musical tradition. It was largely a product of the New Orleans area, where a mix of Cajun and Creole and African-American culture, spiced with ragtime, call-and-response, and marches led to a unique sound and style where improvisation played a major role. Wynton Marsalis, who has performed at the Opera House and was one of the chief narrators of the marvelous Ken Burns documentary on the history of jazz, brings jazz to life as he explains this history in a way that broadens our appreciation of it. That’s what cultural literacy means – an understanding and thus appreciation of all the art forms. The Opera House has an initiative called Newberry Arts for All, to spread the benefits of the performing arts to the whole community — beginning with a focus on children and reaching out to segments of the community who have not often or ever attended. The Literacy Council is pleased to partner with the Opera House in this initiative. We hope it will add to bridge building in our population – connecting people from different income, racial and ethnic groups. Social science research indicates that this kind of bridging creates ‘social capital’ – connections and goodwill that cut across diverse groups and promote trust and engagement. This social capital also benefits local businesses and associations. For example, the Opera House, a local restaurant and the Literacy Council become places, apart from home and work, where people associate and build relationships. The Opera House and the Literacy Council promote this kind of bridging with the NAFA program, the People’s College, and the Weekly Reader Book Club. They are all opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds to engage.
We recognize, too, the educational component in promoting cultural literacy for all. For example, the Opera House brings all fourth graders in the city (and soon the county) to see eight different events. Each visit includes instruction about the shows and the value of the arts. The Literacy Council programs promote collaborative readings of great works of literature and discussions of important ideas nationally and locally. Great works of art and great works of literature are indeed for all.
Until next year, Happy Reading!