Rich In-School Arts Programs lead to creative, cognitive, and personal competencies

Attribution

Judith Burton, Robert Horowitz, and Hal Abeles (1999), "Learning In and Through the Arts: Curriculum Implications," Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning, Arts Education Partnership.

Item Text

Studying over 2000 public school students in grades 4-8, a group of researchers from Teachers College Columbia University found significant relationships between rich in-school arts programs and creative, cognitive, and personal competencies needed for academic sucess. They found

• Students in high-arts groups performed better than those in low-arts groups on "measures of creativity, fluency, originality, elaboration and resistance to closure."
• "Pupils in arts-intensive settings were also strong in their abilities to express thoughts and ideas, exercise their imaginations and take risks in learning."
• "Students in high-arts schools were "described by their teachers as more cooperative and willing to display their learning publicly."
• "In schools with high-arts provision, these competencies also emerged in other subject areas."
• Teachers of non-arts subjects commented on "abilities such as thinking creatively and flexibly, imagining ideas and problems from different perspectives, taking imaginative leaps, and layering one thought upon another as part of a process of problem solving."
• "In arts-rich schools, pupils are also seen by their teachers as curious, able to express ideas and feelings in individual ways, and not afraid to display their learning before their teachers, peers, and parents."

The study also found that arts add the kind of richness and depth to learning and instruction that is critical to healthy development only in schools where

• arts provision is rich and continuous,
• administrators are supportive,
• teachers are enlightened

"In the arts, whether visual, music, dance, or drama, the ability to explore myriad ideas; envision and try out unusual and personal responses; consider objects, ideas, and experiences in detail; and be willing to keep thoughts open long enough to take imaginative leaps, are all important."

"Schools should develop and offer...a critical mass of arts subjects in visual arts, music, dance, and drama. Within this provision young people must be allowed to study as fully as possible across the arts disciplies. Our results show very clearly that the habits of mind and personal dispositions needed for acedemic success were nurtured in high-arts schools where young people had pursued several arts over a duration of time."

"There was a negative correlation between schools with a paucity of arts instruction and all cognitive and personal dimensions of our study. Thus schools interested in nurturing complex minds should provide a critical mass of arts instruction over the duration of young peoples' school lives."

Links

www.aep-arts.org (under Publications)

Submitter Information

• Name: MENC Staff
• Email: advocacy@menc.org