Justifying Arts in Curriculum

Teachers and administrators are often asked to justify the arts as part of a school's curriculum. Below are a few examples of research and findings on arts education I find interesting. I am always encouraged when I see documentation showing how important creativity, community building, courtesy, and music and dance skills are, and it seems that more comes out all the time. Please feel free to add to my collection! Email me with any ideas you have.

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A 12 year national study of education in visual and performing arts by UCLA Professor of Education James S. Catterall states that, "Students who proceed through arts-rich schools have better outcomes in both academic and social arenas than students who attend arts-poor, or arts-barren high schools. Intensive involvement in the arts during middle and high school associates with higher levels of achievement and college attainment, and also with many indications of pro-social behavior such as voluntarism and political participation."

Salinas, CA fifth grade singing folk songs while playing autoharp.

The Arts: Critical Links to Student Success Richard J. Deasy and Lauren Stevenson, Arts Education Partnership

Cutting school arts programs in an effort to boost student academic achievement will be counterproductive, a new analysis of research studies suggests, and may be particularly damaging to young children and students from economically disadvantaged circumstances.

In the No Child Left Behind Act" Congress named the arts as one of the core subjects that all schools should teach. These studies show the wisdom of that decision and the benefits of arts learning for every child. The studies and essays in Critical Links point to strong relationships between learning in the arts and fundamental cognitive skills and capacities used in mastering other subjects including reading, writing and mathematics. Skills important to social interaction - including empathy, collaboration, and tolerance for others - are nutured by the arts, the studies report. Critical Links explores positive attitudes toward learning developed by studying and practicing the arts, and the relationship of these motivations to academic performance and social behavior. Engagement in learning, paying attention, and persisting at tasks are among the attitudes cited in the studies.

Other reasoning skills cited in the Compendium studies include "problem solving," "conditional thinking" (the abiity to generate and test theories) and the components of creative thinking:" originality, elaboration, fluency and flexibility. The latter skills are used when we imagine and act on new ideas and possibilities. Critical Links further suggests that the arts can have an impact on the whole school by creating a learning environment conducive to more effective teaching. For instance, studies look at the positive effect on teacher innovation," "teacher awareness of student abilities," and the "professional culture" of the school. Critical Links was Published by the Arts Education Partnership (AEP), a coalition of more than 100 national education, arts, business, and philanthropic organizations. Copies of Critical Links can be ordered by calling the Council of Chief State School officers at (202) 336-7016. a PDF version is available on the Arts Education Partnership.

3rd grade autoharp class, Mendota, CA
Third grade students learn to sing folk songs before playing autoharp at McCabe School in Mendota, CA.

The activities in Evo Bluestein's music and dance program for younger students, help with phonemics--the understanding that the sounds of spoken language work together to make words. Children who have phonemic awareness skills are likely to have an easier time learning to read than children who have few or none of these skills.

Activities for all grade levels affect development of the vestibular system. Knowing where one is in space is the core ingredient of body concept, and some authorities insist that vestibular awareness of one's self in space is the basis for consciousness. One could write pages about the relationship of the vestibular system to other systems. For example, the auditory system (hearing) also has its receptors in the inner ear. Therefore it is not surprising that deficits in hearing are very frequently accompanied by over or under-sensitivity in the vestibular receptors.

show a motion!
Students make up a dance motion in a traditional African-American dance.

What Is Folk? from "Poplore" (U. Mass. Press) by Gene Bluestein, professor, California State University, Fresno

Who has not seen children expressing themselves poetically, dancing freely, singing their own tunes, filling pages with intriguing illustrations? But it is equally true that after five or ten years of education, students cannot read or write effectively, cannot draw and cringe at the thought that someone might ask them to sing or dance. Most Americans see these latter arts, among the elemental human capabilities, as cruel punishments when demanded in public. It is amazing that the inherited skills of humanity can survive at all under a school regimen that persistently treats practice in the arts as a frill easily eliminated from the curriculum. The need to be creative then finds outlets in noneducational areas and in subjects never taught in schools.....as a protest against a culture that finds no acceptable place for human creativity.

Dance Residency in Martinez, CA

Singing: The Key to a Long Life, from composer Brian Eno

I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness and a better sense of humor. A recent long-term study conducted in Scandinavia sought to discover which activities related to a healthy and happy later life. Three stood out: camping, dancing and singing. full story

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