Making the Case for Arts Education in Our Schools

Christine Goodheart Lecture 1Arts Powered SchoolsTuesday, June 19, 2007

What is the power of the arts in What is the power of the arts in our lives?our lives?

What is the power of the arts in What is the power of the arts in our schools?our schools?

What new possibilities for teaching What new possibilities for teaching and learning open when artists and and learning open when artists and teachers work together? teachers work together?

How can teachers and artists link How can teachers and artists link work in the arts to a broad range work in the arts to a broad range of other school goals?of other school goals?

What is the power of the arts in our

lives?

Without music life would be a mistake - Nietzsche

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.- Albert Einstein

Joy

We cannot participate in the human conversation or have a true understanding of human history without engaging in the study of the arts. The arts are one of the defining human activities.

The history of a people is found in its songs.- George Jellinek

Life is short, art is long.- Hippocrates

Understanding Our World

Understanding Ourselves

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.- Thomas Merton

Where words fail, music speaks.- Hans Christian Andersen

If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.- Edward Hopper

Most of us go to our grave with our music still inside of us.- Anonymous

Languages for Shaping and Expressing our

Feelings and Understandings

The Development of Empathy

We recognize our commonalities and come to understand and appreciate our differences.

When I dance, I cannot judge, I cannot hate, I cannot separate myself from life.- Hans Bos

Imagination

We develop the capacity to “see things as if they could be otherwise.”

The Arts Teach Us to SeeThe real voyage

of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another.– Marcel Proust

What is the power of the arts in our

schools? 

To sing well and to dance well is to be well-educated.- Plato

Development of Integrated Curriculum

The arts can be integrated into classroom curriculum in ways that support both arts learning and learning in other content areas.

ARTSEDGE — the National Arts and

Education NetworkSupports the placement of the arts at the center of the curriculum and advocates creative use of technology to enhance the K-12 educational experience. ARTSEDGE empowers educators to teach in, through, and about the arts by providing the tools to develop interdisciplinary curricula that fully integrate the arts with other academic subjects.

http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org

To work in the arts, students are required to:

• notice carefully• analyze and interpret diverse texts• think critically• pose questions• make decisions • generate multiple solutions• identify patterns• make connections

Intellectual Skills

Habits of Mind

• Persisting• Thinking and

communicating with clarity and precision

• Managing impulsivity• Gathering data through

all senses• Listening with

understanding and empathy

• Creating, imagining, innovating

• Thinking flexibly• Responding with

wonderment and awe

• Thinking about thinking (metacognition)

• Taking responsible risks• Striving for accuracy• Finding humor• Questioning and posing

problems• Thinking interdependently• Applying past knowledge

to new situations• Remaining open to

continuous learning

Identified by Costa and Kallick

Creativity

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

- Scott Adams

Social and Emotional Growth

• Students who participate regularly in the arts develop self-confidence.

• They see themselves as capable of doing work that is personally satisfying and publicly acknowledged.

• Serious work in the arts requires persistence, students develop self-discipline and come to understand what it means to make multiple revisions to achieve high standards.

• Because so many art forms are collaborative in nature, students develop the crucial ability to work on a common project with others.

Active Engagement

The development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost sole interest of studies…. Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty and ready to be penetrated by the object; then bringing to mind the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of. - Simone Weil

Connections

To engage with works of art is to go in search of fresh connections, unexpected meanings, to engage in acts of continuing discovery.- Maxine Greene, Variations on a Blue Guitar

The Arts Contribute to Better Teaching

Engagement in the arts helps educators develop a broader repertoire of strategies to engage diverse students in learning. Powerful educational practices are inherent in the arts • Collaborative learning• Portfolio assessment• Revision• Long-term projects• Performances of understanding

The Arts Create Community

Whether engaged as audience in a powerful common experience or engaged in creating art with others, the arts open pathways for dialogue. And because the arts deal with central aspects of the human experience, those who participate in arts experiences can come to understand one another in new ways.

The Arts Create an Exciting School

Environment• Team planning• Exhibitions and performances of student work• Parent participation• Community partnerships• Special events• Guest artists

Beauty

A school should be the most beautiful place in every town and village – so beautiful that the punishment for undutiful children should be that they are disbarred from going to school the following day. – Oscar Wilde