How the Arts Can Help printer friendly version

An arts-enriched curriculum approaches student learning more holistically by:

• engaging students in their more standard academic subjects in new ways
• addressing different learning styles and needs
• aiding in the development of critical and abstract thinking and problem solving skills
• providing a healthy sense of family and belonging
• empowering the individual and nurturing self esteem
• utilizing teamwork models
• encouraging a questioning spirit and requiring flexibility of perspective
• creating a more active and compassionate citizenry

Help With Academic Learning: In its "Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning" report, The Arts Education Partnership's research findings illustrate a direct connection between arts education and improved academic performance. It cites, for example, the ways in which music education increases proficiency in mathematics and theatre education improves reading and language skills. These phenomena occur for a myriad of reasons. When the arts are integrated with the academics, students gain greater insight into and appreciation for the academic subject matter they are studying; the arts can capture kids' attentions, enrich their understanding, and address their different styles of learning. For example, by playing music and showing slides of artwork created during the time of the Renaissance or the Industrial Revolution, History teachers can bring their lessons to life, better stimulate more visual and aural learners, and meaningfully connect the names, dates, and facts of history to the individuals and belief-systems that uniquely identified those eras. Or conversely, students can be asked to apply knowledge from their academic subjects to the artwork they are creating. Fine art students, for example, must draw upon their knowledge of math when blowing up a small drawing to scale as a painting on a larger canvas. Similarly, music students use ratios, patterns, absolute values, and arithmetic when sight-reading, writing, and playing music. In these ways, academic knowledge can be put to practical use when creating works of art, works of art can deepen meaning and excite students about their academic studies, and most importantly, the unique acts of viewing, listening to, interpreting, and creating works of art address the diverse learning styles and needs of many students.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills: Whether composing an orchestral piece of music, reviewing a dance performance, analyzing the moment of conflict in a play's scene, or selecting paint colors for use in a self-portrait, arts classes demand and nurture the critical thinking skills necessary for all other academic pursuits. Students are challenged to question, analyze, interpret, articulate, and demonstrate various concepts, arguments, and emotions. Moreover, great works of art often address important questions and at times even posit solutions. Theatre and film, for example, ask us to examine our personal relationships, to trace the human growth of their characters, and they often address various socio-political issues. Whether writing a script, discussing a play's themes, or bringing a character to life on stage, theatre students explore language, history, politics, and psychology, and they must draw on both their rational and emotional resources to confront and answer the questions that arise in each area. Furthermore, in the collaborative arts, students must learn to work as team members. Be them behind the scenes as part of a stage crew or in the spotlight as an actor, theatre demands of all involved cooperation and a shared sense of responsibility and commitment to the group. In this manner, students are also challenged to develop inter-personal communication and problem solving skills.

Thinking and Articulating the Abstract: When a fine art student is asked to explain a surrealist painting, they must interpret the symbols on that canvas and navigate from the abstract images to the articulation of something more rational. When acting students change their manner of walking to better fit the characters whose roles they have taken on, they learn to express through the physical actions of their body the internal, psychological characteristics that make that person unique. An arts education teaches young people how to use and navigate the abstract and symbolic through verbal, aural, corporal, and visual languages. This ability to understand the abstract and work with symbols is also required in many academic subjects and professional scenarios, such as when analyzing the scientific data presented in a graph or when translating between two languages such as French and English.

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