Research Supports Arts in Education
Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Autumn, 2000 by Jenifer Milner
THE ARTS-IN-EDUCATION MOVEMENT IS NOT NEW. IN THE UNITED STATES, “A STUDY OF MORE THAN 30 YEARS OF AMERICAN ARTS IN EDUCATION HISTORY REVEALS CYCLES OF boom and bust, periods full of rhetorical promise and bursts of activity followed by long stretches of dashed expectations, withdrawn support and in some instances, abrupt abandonment of promising projects, programs, and initiatives.”
This waxing and waning of arts in education reflects to some extent quality-of-life versus man-as-commodity thinking. A society encouraging personal freedom, self-esteem, and contemplative living embraces the arts for their intrinsic worth, whereas a society driven by competition seeks knowledge and skills to increase one’s advantage and employability.
The drive towards traditional schools and a Three Rs education is more understandable in light of our floundering economy. (Traditional schools exist in Surrey, Langley, and Abbotsford; Richmond’s school board just approved the formation of a traditional school; and Vancouver’s school board will face the issue in the fall.) But who benefits the most from teacher-led traditional schools — students or parents?
Many of the problems associated with our school system today stem from a lack of student satisfaction: high dropout rates and truancy, poor grades, vandalism, and violence. Stressed educational budgets mean stressed teachers, less resources, more constraints, and inappropriate facilities. The list goes on.
It is ironic that arts in education appears to be something of a political bandwagon. The case for the arts in schools, once marginalized or slashed entirely from classrooms to save money or de-valued as an inconsequential frill, is gaining support. A substantial body of research now proves student satisfaction and engagement in learning increase with participation in the arts.
James Catterall, a UCLA researcher, studied 25,000 students in grades 8 to 10. He discovered that students “highly involved in arts programs” fare better in other subjects too and are “much less likely to drop out” of school or become uninterested in school life. Catterall’s study also shows that students from low-income families who participate in arts experiences are more likely to do better academically than those who do not.
Not only do students’ attitudes, attendance, abilities, and grades dramatically improve when the arts become part of their school life, but “research shows that arts education programs result in measurable gains in student motivation and achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics” — exactly what traditional school proponents want to accomplish.
With exceptions like Art Starts in Schools, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing the arts to B.C.’s school kids, arts programming in Greater Vancouver Regional District schools has flourished independently and, for the most part, outside the core curricula. ArtStarts, a funding program administered by ArtStarts on behalf of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, is the first local foray into integrating the arts across the curriculum.
Thousands of dedicated parents, teachers, artists, arts organizations, and community groups are dedicated to producing arts programming or establishing arts-integrated curricula; they are to be commended. Research supports the benefits of arts in education to society, business, government, and schools. But let’s not lose sight of what arts experiences mean to children.
“Arts teachers daily ask their students to engage in learning activities which require use of higher-order thinking skills like analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Arts education, then, is first of all an activity of the mind.
“Creative activity is also a source of joy and wonder, while it bids its students to touch and taste and hear and see the world. Children are powerfully affected by storytelling, music, dance, and the visual arts. They often construct their understanding of the world around musical games, imaginative dramas, and drawing.”
Sounds like the arts provide just about everything to nourish our children.
Jenifer Milner is the communications manager of the Vancouver Alliance for Arts and Culture.
Jenifer Milner “Research Supports Arts in Education“. Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada. FindArticles.com. 21 Feb, 2010. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1319/is_2_33/ai_71634790/
