VIVA La Children

Vista has yet another reason to be proud of its indigenous artists. The recent VIVA La Children, a festival celebrating art made by children, attracted well over 1,000 people. The number of attendees apparently came as a surprise even to the organizers of the event.

The sad truth is that over the past few decades, the lives of children have become more and more impoverished, not necessarily in a materialistic sense, but in the lack of opportunities for meaningful self-expression.

The political response to this gradual impoverishment is to suggest that parents need to get more involved. Somehow, parents--who themselves are increasingly the products of impoverished education--are supposed to take up whatever educational slack is left by the schools. How can parents teach their children what they themselves don’t know?

Thank goodness that every now and then someone comes up with a good idea like the VIVA La Children festival. But in our world, the number of such events is far too small for the number of children.

F. RICHARD MOORE, Professor of Music, UC San Diego