"Music is a more
potent instrument than any other for education, and children should
be taught music before anything else." -Plato
" Art education is not a luxury,
it is a spiritual necessity." -Alexandra York, American Renaissance
for the Twenty-First Century
The notice comes home in the
backpack. Polite, low-keyed, and easy to miss, the notice says that,
due to district budget cuts, your child's school is cutting the art
class. Or music. Or theater.
Reading the notice, you might
shrug your shoulders: In the back-to-basics era, and with all the
news about American students lagging behind technologically, the
school must make more time for reading, math, and science. Art is a
luxury we may not be able to afford for our kids, right?
Wrong.
Remember how Johnny's math scores
soared when he learned how to read music to play the guitar? Or how
Sally's self-confidence went through the roof when she won that part
in the class play?
Across the country, artists and
anthropologists, educators and children's advocates, parents and
corporate leaders, are speaking out about the importance of the arts
to child and youth development. Recently publicized brain research
has taught us that kids learn earlier than we expected; now, a new
round of research shows us that the visual and performing arts play
an essential role in how children learn to read, write, and do
mathematics. Even if a child's drawing of a summer vacation never
hangs anywhere more prominent than a refrigerator door, that act of
creation can unlock a young mind in ways that scientists and
educators are only now beginning to understand.
These experts now consider arts
education to be the "Fourth R," as essential to learning as reading,
writing, and arithmetic - and, in fact, integral to the learning of
these subjects. The arts are basic to a child's biological,
emotional, and educational development.
The Gifts of the Arts
While many supporters of the arts
correctly believe that music, painting, sculpture, theater and other
arts should be provided for their own sake, the new research reveals
what many educators had known intuitively for years. Exposure to the
arts help students build self-confidence, express their creativity,
and perform better in math and reading.
· In 1997, the UCLA Graduate
School of Education and Information Studies published the results of
a national arts study that showed a positive relationship between
standardized test scores, English grades, and other educational
methods. The study revealed that students in eighth and 10th grade
who had "high involvement" in the arts, in and out of class,
consistently outscored those with low exposure to the arts. Students
with high arts exposure were also less likely to drop out of school.
· University of California at
Irvine researchers discovered, in a study beginning in 1993, that
students who took piano lessons scored an average of 34 percent
higher on tests of spatial-temporal ability, which educators consider
a vital skill for understanding math and science. After only six
months of playing the piano, three- to five-year-olds showed dramatic
improvement in spatial reasoning tests.
· Researchers Gordon Shaw of
UC Irvine and Frances Rauscher of the University of Wisconsin at
Oshkosh, tested college students in spatial-temporal reasoning; one
group meditated in silence, one listened to relaxation tapes and the
third listened for 10 minutes to Mozart's Sonata in D Major for Two
Pianos. The latter group scored eight to nine points higher than the
others. Shaw and Rauscher call this the "Mozart effect."
While much of the new research
reflects the impact of arts education in school, research by Shirley
Brice Heath underscores the need to look at a child's total learning
environment beyond school, in the home and neighborhood. A professor
of English and linguistics at Stanford University and a senior
scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,
Heath decided in 1987 to delve into the non-school hours and learn
more about what kids were doing on their own. As she told Connect for
Kids' Susan Kellam, children only spend about 25 percent of their
time in school; outside school, children are usually beyond their
parents' direct influence. "Let's look at what things kids are doing
out there by themselves and see what difference that time makes in
terms of providing confident, considerate, pro-social, pro-civic
folks," she said.
To do that, Heath examined 120
community-based organizations across the country, in impoverished
neighborhoods and high-crime zones. These organizations provided
services in three categories: athletic-academic, community service,
and the arts. Among her findings, the arts carry "a particular power
for learning achievement both in the arts themselves and in closely
related competencies upon which successful performance and knowledge
in the arts depends."
How the Arts Stimulate
Learning
Why do the arts make such a
difference in how students learn and perceive the world?
Part of the answer is biological.
Researchers Shaw and Rauscher believe music stimulation actually
forms new and permanent connections in children's brains. San
Francisco neurologist Frank R. Wilson "has demonstrated a correlation
between music study and muscular development, physical coordination,
sense of timing, mental concentration, the ability to hold up under
stress, memory skills, and vocal, visual, and aural development," the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. Wilson points out that 90 percent
of the cerebellum is devoted to the precise hand-arm movements
necessary for playing a musical instrument.
In the Arts Education Policy
Review (July 17, 1998), Shaw and other researchers write, "Recent
studies have demonstrated that sophisticated cognitive abilities are
present in children as young as five months. Similarly, musical
abilities are evident in infants and neonates. Music then may serve
as a 'pre-language' (with centers distinct from language centers in
the cortex), available at an early age, which can access inherent
cortical spatial-temporal firing patterns and enhance the cortex's
ability to accomplish pattern development."
Even without the neurological
evidence, educators know that different children learn differently,
and that the arts can be a way to enhance creativity in high academic
achievers and stimulate the learning process in children who
otherwise might be left behind.
In 1983, Harvard University
Professor Howard Gardner introduced the now widely-accepted theory of
"multiple intelligences." Gardner says there are at least eight forms
of intelligences: language, logic, musical, spatial, bodily,
naturalist, interpersonal and intrapersonal. "A good educational
system ought to nourish and nurture the range of intelligences, which
include several featured in the arts," Gardner recently said.
"Otherwise, we will be neglecting important forms of human potential
and stunting the cognitive development of youngsters." All
youngsters, he argues, should be exposed to such important creators
as Rembrandt and Picasso, Mozart and Duke Ellington, Shakespeare and
Toni Morrison. He also favors encouraging each child to master a
single art form well enough to be able to create with it-not only as
a means of creation, but as a way of learning about the
world.
Indeed, arts education is not only
important psychologically and neurologically, but culturally as well.
Alexandra York, president of the American Renaissance for the
Twenty-First Century, contends that fine arts training can "help
children develop emotional and moral sensibilities and the discipline
that goes with mastering a craft." Her organization wants to make
fine arts a mandatory part of every school's core curriculum. " Art
education is not a luxury, it is a spiritual necessity," she said,
quoted in recent Indianapolis Star editorial supporting arts
spending. "At its apotheosis-aesthetically, philosophically and
psychologically-art provides a spiritual summation by integrating
mind and matter. Thus it is the very souls of our emotionally
abandoned, value-starved youth that we can rescue through art
education-one at a time."
Despite the importance of the arts
to learning, arts education has experienced debilitating cuts over
the past two decades. As many as one-third of the nation's public
school music programs have been dropped, and many more programs
throughout the country remain in jeopardy. For example, in Milwaukee,
budget cuts mean that "many students in the city's public schools
reach their teen years without ever having touched a musical
instrument or paintbrush," according to the Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel. Even as the economy has rebounded, increased demand for
smaller class sizes and computers have prevented the full recovery of
arts education.
Yet, the nation is experiencing
signs of a fragile renewal of arts education-one that could dissipate
without additional public and private support.
Time for a Renaissance
"I think it's about time for a
renaissance," William Bassell, Long Island City High School principal
tells Newsday. "An entire generation is graduating without knowing
the depth and beauty of music."
Indeed. That renaissance-or at
least a forward holding action-has already begun, lead in part by the
private sector and foundations, and by enterprising teachers,
principals, and parents.
Some principals, determined to
make up for the shortfall in public funding, have sought outside
grants, asked parents to help with art and music teaching, or
partnered with cultural institutions in their communities. Teachers
have taken donations of art supplies and musical instruments from
private companies.
The music-video TV network VH1
launched its Save the Music Foundation two years ago. Its goal: to
raise public awareness about the benefits of music education, collect
used instruments for public schools, and raise corporate and private
contributions for purchasing new instruments. With the help of Time
Warner Cable of New York, the foundation netted $1 million worth of
instruments for New York schools during the first year, resulting in
more than 70 new music programs. Individual artists are also getting
involved. Rocker (and sometimes painter) John Mellencamp will donate
profits from a new book of his paintings-to be published in October,
1998-to the foundation. "We started the initiative to save the
crumbling music programs in the nation's public schools," VH1
president John Sykes told Billboard magazine in April. "But now we
have studies showing that exposing children to music education at
elementary-school age helps them in learning math and science. Simply
put, music education wires the brain."
Some school districts have
encouraged private art and music instructors to offer on-campus
after-school classes for a fee, and a new national program will
encourage a similar approach. Others believe that a true arts
education renaissance must take place within the whole community, not
only in the schools.
"We can't expect schools to do
everything in that little bit of time that they have the kids," says
Stanford's Shirley Brice Heath. "Let's think instead about how the
children can have learning environments outside of school that would
push their creativity in ways that we can never afford to do in the
schools."
Karen Pittman, vice president and
director of US programs at the International Youth Foundation (IYF),
say that the arts provide a youth with a wide exposure to people of
different backgrounds and ages. "In schools you're sorted by age,
grade, cognitive skills," she told Kellam. "When you go into the
arts, you have the opportunity to go with a real mix of kids."
She adds, "If I could wave the
wand in the air, I would ask for training in music and arts to be
considered as important for American kids as cognitive development.
To be part of the total education-People are becoming aware of the
importance of the arts in youth development. And, she says, people
are thinking about standards to re-gear that activity at a higher
level. "We're at or near a mini movement around the arts."
In fact, good models for
community-based programs abound, but they remain a patchwork in need
of wider support. Increasingly, foundations are asking essential
questions about the benefits of such programs and looking to
technology as a key component of arts funding.
While the arts can and should be a
part of a child's whole environment, increased public support for
spending on school-based arts education is also, especially as part
of public-private partnerships.
Such support may be on the way.
California Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, in
her report, ARTS WORK: A Call for Arts Education for All California
Students, calls for an infusion of state school arts funding over
three years, and for the private sector to help local school
districts with their arts curriculum. She cites the correlation
between arts education and ''enhanced student achievement." She adds,
''When the arts are a strong component of the school environment,
academic scores in all areas improve, while dropout rates and
absenteeism decline. The arts teach students vital skills-imaginative
and flexible ways of thinking, self-discipline, teamwork, and
self-confidence.''
If it results in tangible change,
that philosophy is long overdue, says Kay Wagner, director of visual
and performing arts for the San Diego Unified District, one of the
largest districts in the country.
"When I came here in 1983, we had
four music teachers for over 100 schools. Things have improved
somewhat. Now we cover 140 schools (most of them with at least 2,000
students) with 20 teachers. A district this size should have 60 music
teachers," says Wagner. The other arts remain in even worse shape.
"We still don't have art teachers at all our schools. People still
think the other teachers can teach. But untrained teachers and
volunteers can do more harm than good. We need trained professionals.
And we have a long way to go."
So do countless other communities
across the nation. However, the arts education renaissance is
growing. With a strong new push by philanthropy, business, school
boards, community-based programs and parents, the arts could return
to the educational stage. And children could soon be bringing home a
different kind of notice from school: one that describes an array of
new ways to learn the "Fourth R."