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A Message for Team P.S. ARTS from Dr. Kristen Paglia, CEO

My first year as CEO kicked off with the 2015 LA Marathon. It was an apt beginning, foreshadowing the long road ahead packed with both daunting and thrilling moments. During the marathon and as a new CEO, there were times I felt discouraged and inadequate and times when I felt like I had finally gotten into a groove. As fate would have it, my professional transition coincided with my husband working on several superhero-genre writing projects. That, plus having a ten year-old boy and an unprecedented number of excellent superhero movies and TV shows that came out last year, resulted in me spending a lot of time watching the world get saved and thinking about what it takes to do the saving. One night when I was feeling particularly exhausted and defeated by our behemoth public school system, I collapsed in front of The Avengers just at the scene when The Hulk is smashing bad guy and Norse God Loki into oblivion to help save humankind and notes that he is a “puny” God. It made me feel much better to be reminded that no matter how powerful and invincible a destructive force seems, one day someone will be angry, brave, and persistent enough to defeat it.

Now, admittedly, reveling in a fantasy of pummeling out of touch school district bureaucrats into compliance with Federal law stipulating that all children are entitled to an arts education is both worrisomely obsessive and not exactly the approach I want to teach my children. That got me thinking too… The Hulk’s tactics don’t exactly scream superhero, change agent, or leader, but he does get results. The Hulk doesn’t exactly come from a place of altruistic idealism — and he’s cranky! It occurred to me then that most iconic superheroes aren’t idealists or even necessarily very nice people; even mild mannered Clark Kent has baggage. More than being perfect people, superheroes have in common a keen sense of justice and the capacity to make a difference. I recalled my favorite line from The Incredibles, when (in a moment of frustration) Mr. Incredible says, “No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again. Sometimes I just want it to stay saved!”

On a massively smaller scale, I relate. My staff, faculty, Board of Trustees, and I are not always the idealists and great believers in humanity people may imagine we are. We come home tired and discouraged from the monumental effort of making our schools better, and the problem of educational inequity and the lack of arts in schools is still not fixed! We get angry and pushed to the end of our tolerance. Aside from not having super strength, we’re not so different from The Hulk. So why do we keep coming back? What keeps us going? I think it is the same thing that keeps The Hulk and all those other superheroes going. They know that something bad will happen if they don’t. That’s why we all give so much to P.S. ARTS. To keep something bad from happening to thousands of kids who deserve better.

So, the most important lesson I learned my first year as CEO of P.S. ARTS, is that idealism, vision, values, and hard work go a long way, but being a change agent also involves a fair amount of angst and pain. As I embark on my second LA Marathon and second year as P.S. ARTS’ CEO, I strive to get more comfortable with the fact that challenging undertakings mean being physically and emotionally pushed to the limits. Also, in light of my lack of superpowers, I will strive for the fortitude and creativity to come up with more sustainable (and perhaps less illegal) strategies for saving the world than bashing our ever-renewing foe into an alternate universe. Our greatest superpower, in fact, is our community. I cannot express enough my deep gratitude for P.S. ARTS’ many thoughtful and generous supporters who keep showing up to the fight. This weekend, as you run, walk, or cheer from the sidelines, know that you are a modern superhero and your collective contributions will, one fine day, lead to a world that stays saved.

Support Team P.S. ARTS!

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