The arts make student learning visible. The visual and performing arts may captivate even the most disengaged youngsters by stimulating creativity, curiosity, imagination, and self expression. Research studies point to strong relationships between learning in the arts and increasing students’ cognitive skills in other subjects, including reading, writing, and mathematics.
With shrinking budgets and growing emphases on achievement tests, the arts have suffered in many schools and classrooms across the country. Yet, the arts are natural partners with all subjects and offer exciting ways to involve families and the community with students to promote learning, positive attitudes, and success in school. Some schools are reinstating the arts during the school day and in after-school programs.
Visual Arts
In the new edition of Promising Partnership Practices 2007, Discovery School #67 in Buffalo, New York, describes Art Extravaganza to showcase children’s art work in the styles of Picasso, Monet, O’Keefe, Warhol, and other artists. Pre-K to 7th grade students learned about great masters in art and then emulated the artists’ styles in their own work. Parent participation was important as parents mounted, labeled, and displayed the art work from more than 500 students.
At the L’Etoile du Nord French Immersion School in St. Paul, Minnesota, art triumphed over money in the program, Art in the Classroom. When the small school could not hire an art teacher due to a limited budget, educators found ways to weave art into the curriculum. They set up an Arts Committee, partnered with the Minnesota Institute of Art and the Walker Modern Art Center, and trained 20 parent volunteers to conduct art lessons in French or English. Every classroom, K-6, had two lessons for students to observe, discuss, and do art. Some also took field trips to the museum and center.
Peforming Arts
Bullard TALENT K-8 School in Fresno, CA, focused on the performing arts with a middle grades musical. The annual event is a collaboration by students, parents, and community partners, and is enjoyed by over 4000 students at all grade levels, by families, the community, and other schools in Fresno. The production proceeds with casting, rehearsals, costume development, and other tasks for students, volunteers, and donors. Students not only gain dramatic skills, but also learn discipline, perseverance, and respect for others.
In last year’s Promising Partnership Practices 2006, there are other examples. The After-School Enrichment Program at Frederick Law Olmsted School #64/56 in Buffalo, New York, provided students with creative activities, such as dance, crafts, yoga, and cooking. Likewise, Spooner Elementary School in Spooner, Wisconsin conducted a High Five After-School Program where students took part in drama and crafts. And, at Machen Elementary School in Hampton, Virginia, Many Stars are Born involved more than 100 students in a drama production and all other students in backstage and support roles, along with parents and community partners.
Not a luxury, the arts are vitally important in schools. These and other NNPS members are showing that the visual and performing arts can enliven and extend student learning in innovative and interdisciplinary ways.
Marsha D. Greenfeld
mgreenfeld@csos.jhu.edu
NOTE:
Also see NNPS’s TIPS Volunteers in Social Studies and Art program for the middle grades to organize. Parent and community volunteers for art appreciation. On the NNPS website, click on the TIPS section to find Social Studies and Art.