It has been our experience and belief that through the arts - creative writing, dance, music, theatre/film, and visual arts - students learn that they can make their own unexceptional beings extraordinary and uncommon. They can use their imaginations to create a broader universe than the one they experience every day. The arts engage the minds of students to sort out their own reactions and articulate them through the medium at hand, be it a paint brush, a piece of modern music, or a classic drama.

One of the most important contributions the arts make to the development of young people is the cultivation of their emotional and spiritual well-being. The human spirit in all its glorious manifestations is central to the arts. The arts introduce us to human perceptions and understandings we could not acquire any other way. At their best, they always enlighten.

Science and technology do not tend to our spirit. The arts do. That is their role. That is why and how they complement and counterbalance the rest of the curriculum. Our spirit needs as much nurturing as any other part of our mind. Schools that ignore it are cold and desolate places. Remember: If we fail to touch the humanity of students, we have not really touched them at all.

The arts' place at Donegal is not frivolous entertainment. The arts are our humanity. The arts are the languages of our students through which we express our fears, our anxieties, our hungers, our struggles, our hopes.