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Always among the highest expression of every culture, the arts teach us much about every historical period through its literature, visual arts, music, dance, and drama. Today it is recognized that to be truly well educated one must not only learn to appreciate the arts, but must have rich opportunities to actively participate in creative work. The arts are languages that most people speak, cutting through individual differences in culture, educational background, and ability. They can bring every subject to life and turn abstractions into concrete reality. Learning through the arts often results in greater academic achievement and higher test scores.
Articles
Learning Through the Arts Dee Dickinson
This report presents a synthesis of the research on the contribution of arts education to learning. It presents information on Seattle schools and others that have incorporated the arts successfully. The report discusses the relationship between the arts and cognition and the ways each art form promotes unique ways of knowing
Learning Through the Arts
by Dee Dickinson, New Horizons for Learning
Contributors:
Barbara McKean, University of Washington
Eric Oddleifson, Center for the Arts in the Basic Curriculum
Contents:
Begin...
Academic Achievement and the Arts
The Human Brain
Intelligence
Individual Differences
The Visual Arts
Music
Dance
Drama
The Workplace
Relation to Life Skills
What Do We Mean by Arts Education?
If human beings are to survive, we need all the symbolic forms at our command because they permit us not only to preserve and pass along our accumulated wisdom but also to give voice to the invention of new visions. We need all these ways of viewing the world because no one way can say it all. Charles Fowler Former Director, National Cultural Resources Washington, DC
The arts are essential parts of the human experience, they are not a frill. We recommend that all students study the arts to discover how human beings communicate not only with words, but through music, dance, and the visual arts. During our visits (to schools) we found the arts to be shamefully neglected. Courses in the arts were the last to come and the first to go. Dr. Ernest Boyer, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
The term arts education has had various meanings throughout the years. Following the lead of both the national standards and the Washington State Essential Learnings, the term arts includes music, dance, drama and visual art. The visual arts and music have traditionally received the lion's share of attention in education. This report takes the position that all four art disciplines are essential to education and does not favor any one discipline over another.
Since the beginning of a common curriculum for public schools, arts educators have struggled to have the arts taken seriously. Over the years, the arts have assumed the role of promoter of good citizens, accessory to academic subjects, special programs for the gifted or extracurricular activity. In Becoming Knowledge: The Evolution of Art Education Curriculum, Denny Palmer Wolf writes that, "research in arts education has consistently shown that the arts are a distinct form of knowledge requiring sustained and demanding work and yielding kinds of empathy, understanding, and skill both equal to and distinctive from those available in chemistry, civics, or shop."
Just as the image of the arts as school subject has changed so has our notion of what an educated student in the arts looks like. This image has undergone an historical change from craftsperson to artist to symbol user and thinker. Today, a student educated in the arts is a much more composite and fully dimensional figure, as Wolfe suggests, "the painter informed by art history or the concert goer whose hearing is informed by the risk and demands of playing an instrument."
This report presents a synthesis of the research on the contribution of arts education to learning. It presents information on Seattle schools and others that have incorporated the arts successfully. The report discusses the relationship between the arts and cognition and the ways each art form promotes unique ways of knowing. Research on what the arts offer to the preparation of students for the world of work is also presented.
Our students deserve and need the arts. Research is consistent in their findings as to the benefits of the arts. The aim of this report is to make this research visible and accessible to those who are committed to providing arts education in our public schools and to those who are still skeptical about the role of the arts as basic to every child's education.
Academic Achievement and the Arts
Fortunately the arts are alive and well in many Seattle schools, and new arts programs are on the way. One example is Green Lake Elementary School which is dedicated to the successful academic excellence of all students. It is a place where students "acquire a positive learning attitude for a lifetime, celebrate the uniqueness of all, understand similarities and differences, develop an appreciation, respect, and understanding of the physical environment, have fun, laugh, and enjoy learning." One need only to enter the school with its bright murals, student-created rain forests, and enthusiastic dramatic performances to know that something special is alive in this school.
Much of Green Lake's mission is fostered not only through a rich curriculum supported by diverse activities, but through a schoolwide, multi-arts program with a full-time arts specialist. Professional artists and performers work on different art-related activities with the entire student population, and a growing number of teachers are integrating the arts into the curriculum.
Principal Harvey Deutsch notes that "students who might not have otherwise been successful are flourishing. Discipline problems have nearly disappeared, and academic achievement is constantly rising as a result of the rich arts program."
At Concord Elementary School, in one of the less affluent areas of Seattle, every student from kindergarten through fifth grade takes part in a dramatic performance each year. Current plays focus on cultural diversity and nonviolence, and include performances of Beauty and the Beast, The Wizard of Oz, The Phantom Toll Booth, and Shakespeare's The Tempest. Upstairs in the school is The Attic Theatre with four stages to accommodate the full schedule of rehearsals and performances. There one can walk through a set of "America's Hall of Fame" composed of historical scenes depicting the contributions American leaders such as Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks. Also in the attic is the set for "Eco-News," an in-house television program produced by fourth and fifth grade students every day.
Principal Claudia Allen notes that she is seeing "incredible achievement especially in reading skills. Fourth and fifth grade students increased their reading scores by two levels on the Macmillan Reading Inventory from fall to winter quarter 1995-96, and California Test of Basic Skills scores have increased by twenty to twenty-five points.
In other parts of the country long-standing arts programs in the schools have also shown dramatic results. The Center for the Arts in the Basic Curriculum, directed by Eric Oddleifson in Massachusetts, has been keeping careful records of achievement. Some of their early records are shown in Table I. In more recent studies, the Center reports that:
The arts are strong at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, a magnet school that enjoys a national reputation for consistently high achievement. Its graduates are sought by the most prestigious colleges and universities.
One sees students with sketchbooks on the front lawn. Hallways are lined with students' oil paintings and color photography. A man-sized poster announces the opening of their production of To Kill a Mockingbird. In the cafeteria a student reads Shakespeare. Senior projects include "Computer Arrangement of 12th Century Choral Music Through an Artificially Intelligent Knowledge-Based System.
Jefferson's principal, Jeffrey Jones, expresses the philosophy that informs the school: "In order to be a good scientist, one must also be a good humanist.: The arts and humanities are as richly evident as the sciences in this school."
In Needham, Massachusetts at the John Eliot school, the arts are fully integrated throughout the curriculum, and academic achievement is soaring. The Superintendent recently told Principal Miriam Kronish, "I am absolutely astonished--even dumbfounded--by your results." John Eliot does not cater to superior, talented students and many are economically disadvantaged, but nonetheless their 1992 MEAP (Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program) scores were the highest in the state.
Ron Berger, a sixth grade teacher in an arts-integrated school in Shutesbury, Massachusetts notes that "In my classroom, I have tried to build an environment where arts is more than a decoration or supplement for work, but rather a primary context in which most information is learned and shared. The infusion of arts has had, I believe, a profound effect on student understanding, investment, and standards." He suggests further that "The arts are an incredible tool for 'ratcheting up' the quality of work and standards in a school. It shows in the discipline kids develop and in their academic achievement." (more...)
Recently the College Entrance Examination Board announced that in 1993 students who studied arts and music scored significantly higher than the national average on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Students who had participated in acting, play production, music performance and appreciation, drama appreciation, and art history, scored an average of 31 to 50 points higher for the math and verbal sections. The Board also stated that students with long-term arts study (four years or more) tend to score significantly higher on the SAT than those with less coursework in the arts.
In 1995, The United States Department of Education reported in Schools, Communities, and the Arts: A Research Compendium, that "using arts processes to teach academic subjects results not only in improved understanding of content but it greatly improved self-regulatory behavior." Barry Oreck of ArtsConnection and Susan Baum from the College of New Rochelle observed integrated arts lessons in all major subject areas in fourteen New York City elementary and secondary public school classrooms. They found that "student behavior improved strikingly in such areas as taking risks, cooperating, solving problems, taking initiative for learning, and being prepared. Content-related achievement also rose."
Oreck notes "this answers our key question: whether skills from the arts transfer to other areas. But we also found that this transfer cannot occur unless teachers change their classroom's structure--their use of time, grouping, instructional strategies, active and participatory learning for all kids--to allow those skills and abilities to come out and be used."
The study also found that for students who struggle in schools with curriculum and instruction based primarily on verbal proficiency, arts processes are extremely powerful. "We saw huge changes for those with more kinesthetic, musical, and artistic tendencies," notes Oreck. His continuing research deals with developing arts assessments to evaluate learning in non-arts areas--using dance, for instance, to assess students' understanding of molecular bonding. "We have found that if you learn something through a theater game, you can still answer a straight test question," he says. "Does it work the other way around?"
What do the schools described above have in common? Their students are spending over 25% of their time in school studying the arts as separate subjects as well as integrated throughout the curriculum. It has been noted that through experiencing the arts they are developing the capacity for sound judgment, attention to purpose and ability to follow through on tasks, and the ability to consider differing viewpoints and defer judgment. They are exercising and developing mind, body, emotions,--and spirit!
One sees students with sketchbooks on the front lawn. Hallways are lined with students' oil paintings and color photography. A man-sized poster announces the opening of their production of To Kill a Mockingbird. In the cafeteria a student reads Shakespeare. Senior projects include "Computer Arrangement of 12th Century Choral Music Through an Artificially Intelligent Knowledge-Based System.
Jefferson's principal, Jeffrey Jones, expresses the philosophy that informs the school: "In order to be a good scientist, one must also be a good humanist.: The arts and humanities are as richly evident as the sciences in this school."
In Needham, Massachusetts at the John Eliot school, the arts are fully integrated throughout the curriculum, and academic achievement is soaring. The Superintendent recently told Principal Miriam Kronish, "I am absolutely astonished--even dumbfounded--by your results." John Eliot does not cater to superior, talented students and many are economically disadvantaged, but nonetheless their 1992 MEAP (Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program) scores were the highest in the state.
Ron Berger, a sixth grade teacher in an arts-integrated school in Shutesbury, Massachusetts notes that "In my classroom, I have tried to build an environment where arts is more than a decoration or supplement for work, but rather a primary context in which most information is learned and shared. The infusion of arts has had, I believe, a profound effect on student understanding, investment, and standards." He suggests further that "The arts are an incredible tool for 'ratcheting up' the quality of work and standards in a school. It shows in the discipline kids develop and in their academic achievement." (more...)
Recently the College Entrance Examination Board announced that in 1993 students who studied arts and music scored significantly higher than the national average on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Students who had participated in acting, play production, music performance and appreciation, drama appreciation, and art history, scored an average of 31 to 50 points higher for the math and verbal sections. The Board also stated that students with long-term arts study (four years or more) tend to score significantly higher on the SAT than those with less coursework in the arts.
In 1995, The United States Department of Education reported in Schools, Communities, and the Arts: A Research Compendium, that "using arts processes to teach academic subjects results not only in improved understanding of content but it greatly improved self-regulatory behavior." Barry Oreck of ArtsConnection and Susan Baum from the College of New Rochelle observed integrated arts lessons in all major subject areas in fourteen New York City elementary and secondary public school classrooms. They found that "student behavior improved strikingly in such areas as taking risks, cooperating, solving problems, taking initiative for learning, and being prepared. Content-related achievement also rose."
Oreck notes "this answers our key question: whether skills from the arts transfer to other areas. But we also found that this transfer cannot occur unless teachers change their classroom's structure--their use of time, grouping, instructional strategies, active and participatory learning for all kids--to allow those skills and abilities to come out and be used."
The study also found that for students who struggle in schools with curriculum and instruction based primarily on verbal proficiency, arts processes are extremely powerful. "We saw huge changes for those with more kinesthetic, musical, and artistic tendencies," notes Oreck. His continuing research deals with developing arts assessments to evaluate learning in non-arts areas--using dance, for instance, to assess students' understanding of molecular bonding. "We have found that if you learn something through a theater game, you can still answer a straight test question," he says. "Does it work the other way around?"
What do the schools described above have in common? Their students are spending over 25% of their time in school studying the arts as separate subjects as well as integrated throughout the curriculum. It has been noted that through experiencing the arts they are developing the capacity for sound judgment, attention to purpose and ability to follow through on tasks, and the ability to consider differing viewpoints and defer judgment. They are exercising and developing mind, body, emotions,--and spirit!
