Dennis Earl Fehr: Activist, Artist, Teacher Edited interview by Leah Smith published in The Daily Toreador January 2008

DF: TTU's visual studies program primarily prepares people to teach art in public schools, but also in a variety of other settings. For example, our students have had semester-long field experiences teaching art to incarcerated young people in the County Juvenile Justice Center. And at the Struggs Learning Center they teach students who have been removed from their schools for disciplinary reasons. Our visual studies majors tend to embrace and even thrive in such situations. They're remarkable.

LS: From what your biography states on the school of art Web site, it appears that you have had a very interesting and adventurous career. What  has been the most rewarding for you?

DF: I love being invited to other countries to share our program's social justice approach to education. My visual studies colleagues are also very active and successful, and we get great support from the School of Art's director. We are impacting art education worldwide. This global perspective has given me insights into what needs to change in U.S. education. First, we must outgrow the notion that the arts are a frill. Creativity is emerging as one of the most important factors in determining who the world's players are in the twenty-first century. 

Second, instead of moving toward an "English only" policy, we need to become a multilingual country as fast as possible. 

Third, we need to move from a nation of couch potato kids to one that provides physical education daily, including nutrition. 

And fourth, an enriched curriculum means nothing if we adults don't teach our children how to handle their knowledge ethically. Some teachers say that's the parent's job. Of course it is. But many parents are not doing it. A society's second line of defense is its teachers. 

I should add that in the public schools the teaching of ethics has nothing to do with religion, since all great religions already agree that we should be charitable, humble, honest, and forgiving. People kill each other over what God's real name is, which book God really wrote, stuff like that, which has no place in schools.

LS: What brought you to Lubbock? Or to Texas Tech?

DF: I started out at the University of Houston. I was successful there so Texas Tech lured me with an offer I couldn't refuse.

LS: After seeing and being in these great places, is it hard to come back to Lubbock?

DF: Yes. Fortunately I work at a university I respect, and I am affiliated with two strong colleges, Visual and Performing Arts, and Education. I feel equally at home in both. 

LS: I also noticed that recently Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi invited you to a private meeting. What did you take/learn from this discussion?

DF: Before Ms. Pelosi became Speaker, I was asked to advise her on education legislation. When she became Speaker I was asked to begin advising George Miller, who chairs the House Committee on Education and Labor. That led to advising the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and the Workforce, as well as several individual members of both chambers. Last August the Speaker invited me to meet with her and her chief of staff to discuss a group I created, the National Education Taskforce (the NET). The NET advocates for children in schools. One of the NET's members recently discussed the No Child Left Behind Act with John and Elizabeth Edwards. We have not met yet with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama but we have placed our research with them. We are a nonpartisan group and would love to meet with the leading Republican candidates too, if the opportunity presents itself. Our website is www.natedtaskforce.org.

LS: In the preface of your book "Dogs Playing Cards: Powerbrokers of Prejudice in Education, Art, and Culture" (the complete second edition is online at courses.ttu.edu/fehr/), you discuss groups that have been marginalized in society. I admire your desire to take a different look at these situations. What made you become aware of these things?

DF: I grew up in a secluded religious sect that was opposed to education and the arts. (That's probably why I ended up getting a doctorate in art education, but I digress.) As a kid I was forbidden to watch TV, wear stylish clothing, play sports, go to movies, or even date. Marriages were (and still are) arranged. I was married as a teen to a woman I hardly knew. The marriage and the sect are now ancient history in my life and I'm happily remarried. I experienced the bitter sting of religious prejudice many times. In every other way, I was born to privilege: Male, White, straight, able-bodied, and Protestant. But my experience enables me to identify easily with victims of of any form of oppression.

LS: What advice do you have that could help the oppressed?

DF: Refuse to accept it. No one is oppressed without their permission. The price might be high---for me it was estrangement from my family for years---but it's the price of freedom. Fortunately, my family and I are now very close even though all of them still belong to the sect.

LS: Thank you so much for your time.

DF: You're welcome.