What do you, as an administrator, see as the benefits of an arts education? Who are the beneficiaries?
I truly believe that in a school where the arts are woven into the school culture, that there is a non-violence culture at work. -- RC
The entire school and community benefits from arts education. -- GE
All Benefit. The arts are a vehicle which provides opportunities for all students to give and receive culture in society. An appreciation of "the arts" helps us to retain our civility. -- JG
Joy, learning, possibility, and the beneficiaries are the children and the culture. The arts express and represent the life of a culture. -- DH
The school and community benefit through additional learning opportunities:
it is an additional way of communicating. Studies have also shown that students who participate in the arts perform better in school. -- TR
The creative expression fostered through the arts benefits all students. -- MT
A. Factual knowledge to be gained.
B. Practical skills that can be learned.
C. Acceptable avenues for expressive demonstration.
D. Means of relaxation and recreational activities.
E. Part of the whole needed to put life into a clearer perspective.
-- TW
Quick Reference List: The Benefits of Arts Education:
Americans for the Arts
Early Childhood Research Supports Arts Education
also YouthARTS Resource Initiative
www.artsusa.org/education
1-800-321-4510, x241
1-202-371-2830 fax: 1-202-371-0424
Arts Education Partnership
Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning
also The NAEP Arts Report Card
Speeches and press conferences by Richard Riley, US Department of Education
1-202-326-8693 fax:1-202-408-8076
www.aep-arts.org/memres/publications.html
The College Board
2000 College-Bound Seniors: A Profile of SAT Program Test Takers
www.collegeboard.org (go to Search, type "profiles" click on Next Page at end of page)
Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network
Champions of Change
available online at www. artsedge.kennedy-center.org/professional_resources/advocacy/
also Eloquent Evidence: Arts at the Core of Learning -click on Quick Links to access www.artsedge.kennedycenter.org/professional_resources/advocacy/evid/eloq-evid.html
National Assessment of Educational Progress
The NAEP Arts Report Card
www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/arts/arts.asp
or at www.aep-arts.org/highlights/Naeprelease.html
call 1-877-4ED-PUBS
President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities
Gaining the Arts Advantage:
Lessons Learned from School Districts That Value Arts Education
also Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning
email:pcah@neh.gov
202/682-5409 fax: 202/682-5668
www.pcah.gov/gaa/ (for PDF download)
for ordering the full report or brochure of Gaining the Arts Advantage contact by email: pubs@ccsso.org
for accessing the online versions go to www.aep-arts.org
CONCLUSION - Executive Summary
These Champions of Change studies demonstrate how involvement with the arts provides unparalleled opportunities for learning, enabling young people to reach for and attain higher levels of achievement. The research provides both examples and evidence of why the arts should be more widely recognized for its current and potential contributions to the improvement of American education.
Similarly, the experiences we offer too many young people outside of school are often limited in their purpose and resulting impact. They provide recreation, but no sense of creation. They provide recess, but no sense of success. Arts learning outside of schools can also enhance the sense of accomplishment and well-being among our young people.
This research provides compelling evidence that the arts can and do serve as champions of change in learning. Yet realizing the full potential of learning in and through the arts for all American children will require heroic acts from all segments of our society. With the 21st century now upon us, we, too, must be champions of change; we must meet and exceed the challenge of giving our young people the best possible preparation we can offer them. To do so, we must make involvement with the arts a basic part of their learning experiences. In so doing, we will become champions for our children and their children.
Edward B. Fiske, ed. Champions of Change, The Impact of the Arts on Learning. The Arts Education Partnership and the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities (funded by the GE Fund and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation), 2000. Used with permission.
For more information on Champions of Change,
an important report on the impact of the arts on American education:
contact: Christopher Beakey
202/667-0901 #191
chris@twbg.com
Arts Education Partnership
One Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
http://www.aep-arts.org
President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities
100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 526
Washington, DC 20506
email: pcah@neh.org
http://www.pcah.gov
or access the report online at www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org/champion.
Why is Champions of Change newsworthy?
New concrete data from well-respected researchers and universities - many of whom are not known for their research in arts education. Much of this research validates what we already know about the arts - we have needed more concrete evidence to give education decision makers.
- Seven studies, each conducted by a team of researchers
- Studies focus on qualitative and quantitative data, some studies focus on program evaluations
Answers many why and what questions:
- Why do the arts help many students achieve in school and life?
- What are the impacts that the arts yield to provide student success?\
Policy implications
Consider your needs and questions:
- Do you need research about specific art forms?
- Types of students?
- Types of programs?
- Methods of teaching or professional development?
presented at the Arts in Education Annual Conference 2000
by Sara Goldhawk,
used with permission
for more information contact: Sara Goldhawk
c/o CCSSO
One Massachussetts Ave., NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20001-1431
202/336-7028 fax: 202/408-8076
http://aep-arts.org
What are the benefits of an arts education?
Arts education programs have enormous beneficial impact on the intellectual, creative and social development of young people. Study after study provides evidence that arts education:
- raises overall academic achievement
- improves student engagement in learning and persistence in problem solving
- develops creativity
- enhances self-esteem
- expands individual understanding of different people and cultures
The College Entrance examination Board reports that students who study the arts outperform non-arts students on Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SATs). The longer a student has been involved with the arts, the higher the SAT score - on both verbal and math sections.
Across the country, arts programs for at-risk youth decrease involvement in delinquent behavior, increase academic achievement and improve young peoples' attitudes about themselves and their futures.
In a study of 150 biographies of scientists, MacArthur Fellow Robert Root-Bernstein found that almost all great scientists and inventors have been active in the arts since their youth. According to Root-Bernstein, History shows that sciences and technology have never flourished in the absence of a similar flourishing of the arts . . . A consensus is emerging that scientists and engineers need skills associated with, and often learned from, the arts . . . if we let the arts atrophy in this country through lack of public support, we will also lose an important part of the creative base from which the next generation of scientific and engineering breakthroughs will emerge.
excerpted with permission from The Arts Impact: Education, Community and Economic Development, developed by ArtServe Michigan, 1999.
for more information contact:
Kim Zalarski, Director of Communications
17515 West Nine Mile Road, Suite 250
Southfield, MI. 48075
(248)557-8581
fax: 557-8581
email: artserve@ArtServeMichigan.org
www.ArtServeMichigan.org
Why Do Schools Need the Arts?
An arts education contributes to the quality of education and builds critical thinking skills.
- An arts education engages students and invigorates the process of learning.
- An arts education sets many "hooks" to capture a student's attention, appealing to many levels of experience at the same time.
- An arts education teaches students how to draw on new resources to empower their lives.
- An arts education teaches critical thinking skills (see Appendix A).
- An arts education builds bridges between the learning inherent in the art form and the acquisition of academic skills and concepts.
An arts education connects young people to themselves, their culture, and their civilization.
- An arts education speaks to and helps children build the capabilities that help them grow as unique individuals.
- An education in the arts helps children experience and understand their cultural heritage.
- Through an education in the arts, children can learn to present ideas and issues in new ways; to teach and persuade; to entertain; to design, plan and make things beautiful.
- An arts education provides children with an avenue to the incomparable.
Appendix A
Thinking Skills in the Arts Curriculum
- Arts education encourages nonalgorithmic reasoning, i.e., a path of thinking and action that is not specified in advance, a characteristic that often leads to novel solutions.
- Arts education trains students in complex thinking, i.e., thinking in which the path from beginning to end is not always visible from the outset or from any specific vantage point --as, for instance, when a student learns a piece of music, or has to solve unforseen problems with the use of materials.
- Arts education encourages thinking that yields multiple rather than single solutions, as when an actor tries different ways of portraying a character, each with its own costs and benefits.
- An arts education asks students to use multiple criteria in creating a work of art, which sometimes conflict with each other, as when artistic goal fights with clarity of communication.
- Arts education involves thinking that is laced with uncertainty. Not everything that bears on the task is known, for instance, whether a particular kind of paint will achieve the desired effect.
- Arts education requires self-regulation of the thinking process itself, as when students are forces to make interim assessments of their work, self-correct, or apply external standards.
- Arts education involves learning how to impose meaning, finding structure in apparent disorder, as when purpose emerges from seemingly random movements in a modern dance.
- Arts education also involves nuanced judgment and interpretation, as when playwrights work to find exactly the right words to establish a character, signal a turn of plot, or achieve an emotional effect.
Source: Lauren B. Resnick, Education and Learning to Think, Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1987.
excerpted from The 1999 Whole Schools Institute: Educating Through the Arts. Mississippi Arts Commission. Used with permission.
For more information contact:
Betsy Bradley, Executive Director
The Mississippi Arts Commission
239 North Lamar Street, Suite 207
Jackson, MS 39201
(601) 359-6030
