My background is in arts education and we know, absolutely for a

Host: The school auditorium was dimly lit, the faint glow of the stage lights painting the rows of empty chairs in soft amber. The air was thick with the smell of paint, dust, and old curtains—the kind of place where dreams had been built from cardboard, string, and courage. A faded poster from last spring’s play, Our Town, still clung to the back wall, curling slightly at the corners.

The echoes of children’s laughter had long faded; all that remained was the quiet hum of potential that every creative space seems to hold — that promise that something beautiful might happen again.

Jack stood on the stage, holding a stack of paint-splattered scripts. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his hands flecked with dried blue paint. He looked like a man who’d once believed in magic and was trying hard to remember how it worked.

Jeeny sat on the edge of the stage, her legs dangling, her eyes tracing the old theater lights. She had that soft, knowing look of someone who understood that what happens in places like this could never be measured by grades or budgets.

On the music stand between them lay a paper, its words slightly blurred from paint:
“My background is in arts education and we know, absolutely for a fact, that there is no better way for kids to learn critical thinking skills, communication skills, things like empathy and tolerance. This is true across every boundary, across cultural boundaries, across socioeconomic, it's a great leveler in terms of unifying our world.” — Emma Walton Hamilton.

Jeeny: (reading the quote aloud, smiling) “You know, I think she’s right. This room proves it.”

Jack: (chuckling) “Yeah. You can feel it even when it’s empty. Like all the arguments, laughter, and last-minute costume changes left their ghosts here.”

Jeeny: “Those ghosts built something better than report cards ever could.”

Jack: (nodding) “Empathy.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You can’t fake that. You can’t grade it either.”

Host: The spotlight above flickered once, like an old star remembering it was supposed to shine. The wooden floorboards creaked beneath them, worn smooth by the shuffle of a thousand nervous kids learning how to be brave.

Jack: “You know, when I taught theater, parents used to ask me, ‘But what will this do for them?’ Like they wanted a spreadsheet that listed the ROI of imagination.”

Jeeny: (grinning) “And what did you say?”

Jack: “I said it teaches them to be human. What more do you want?”

Host: She laughed — a quiet, musical sound that filled the hollow space like a soft echo of everything the room had seen before: rehearsals, heartbreaks, and the unspoken unity of shared applause.

Jeeny: “You ever notice how theater kids learn to see the world differently? They learn timing, compassion, vulnerability — all before they learn taxes.”

Jack: “Yeah. And when something goes wrong on stage, they don’t quit. They improvise. You can’t teach that in a math test.”

Jeeny: “You can’t teach empathy in a textbook either. You have to live it.”

Jack: (leaning against the curtain rope) “That’s the problem, though. Art’s treated like dessert — something nice if there’s time after the real meal. But it’s not dessert, Jeeny. It’s the table we eat on.”

Host: The words hung there, rich and heavy. The air seemed to shift — as if the walls themselves agreed.

Jeeny: “So why do we keep starving it? Every time budgets get tight, art’s the first thing to go.”

Jack: “Because it doesn’t scream loud enough. Art doesn’t threaten — it invites. But the world listens better to noise than to nuance.”

Jeeny: “That’s what’s wrong with our priorities. We build systems that produce workers, not thinkers.”

Jack: “Not feelers.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We forget that the ability to feel — deeply and intelligently — is what holds society together.”

Host: The stage light above her hummed faintly, casting her face in gold. Her eyes glowed, alive with conviction, her voice carrying that kind of quiet power that could fill an empty theater.

Jeeny: “Think about it, Jack. A kid who learns to stand on this stage, to speak as someone else, to feel as someone else — that kid grows up incapable of cruelty.”

Jack: (softly) “Because empathy’s the only real education that lasts.”

Jeeny: “Yes. You can’t unlearn it.”

Host: A gust of wind crept through the half-open backstage door, stirring the old scripts on the piano, rustling the dusty curtains like applause from ghosts long gone.

Jack: “You know, I had a student once — shy, quiet, never looked anyone in the eye. He joined drama club because his friend dared him to. First few weeks, he barely spoke. Then one night, during rehearsal, he forgot himself completely — became the character. Everyone clapped after, but he didn’t even notice. He was crying. He told me later, ‘That’s the first time I felt like someone else knew what it was like to be me.’”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) “That’s the power of art — it builds bridges that language can’t.”

Jack: “And tears down walls that history builds.”

Host: They sat in silence for a while. The sunset slipped through the tall windows, washing the room in amber light — soft, forgiving, like the final act of a long play.

Jeeny: (whispering) “You know what she said — Emma Walton Hamilton — she called art a ‘great leveler.’ That’s what this is. When you’re on stage, the world stops caring who you are, where you came from, how much you have. You just are. Equal in light, equal in story.”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “And that’s where peace begins — not in policy, but in imagination.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Art doesn’t just entertain; it humanizes. It teaches kids to live in color, not categories.”

Host: The light began to fade, and the first stars appeared outside the high windows. The auditorium felt both ancient and eternal — a cathedral for the soul’s education.

Jeeny: “You know what I wish?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “That every child could stand on a stage, or pick up a brush, or write a story — not to perform, but to understand themselves.”

Jack: (smiling) “Then the world would have fewer wars and more standing ovations.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe both. Because art doesn’t erase conflict; it just gives us a way to see each other through it.”

Host: The lights dimmed, and the two of them sat there, bathed in the faint afterglow of the stage — surrounded by the invisible applause of every story ever told, every child ever changed.

And as the camera pulled back, the auditorium stretched into darkness, leaving only the sound of soft laughter and the echo of possibility.

Menachem Begin once said peace was the triumph of truth.
Emma Walton Hamilton reminds us where truth is learned.

For in the arts, we learn to speak the language of humanity —
the rhythm of empathy,
the melody of communication,
the harmony of understanding.

And perhaps that is the greatest education of all —
to not just know the world,
but to feel it,
together.