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National News
Sources for Arts Education News: Austin, TX—June 13, 2005. A new Harris Poll released today on the attitudes of Americans toward arts education revealed that 93 percent of Americans agree that the arts are vital to providing a well-rounded education for children. Additionally, 54 percent rated the importance of arts education a “ten” on a scale of one to ten. The telephone survey was conducted as part of an ongoing public service
campaign—“Art. Ask for More.”—developed by Americans for the Arts, the Ad
Council, and the Austin-based advertising agency GSD&M. The results of the
survey were announced today by Peggy Conlon, president & CEO of the Ad
Council, during her keynote address at the annual convention of Americans
for the Arts in Austin, TX.
At the same time, it reveals uncertainty among “those involved in the life of a child” about how to become involved in advocating for arts education in schools:
With these results, the public service campaign will now expand its message about promoting arts education to a message of empowering parents with more specific tools on how to make a difference in the arts in their communities. “These results reveal the extraordinary impact that our campaign has had in just over two years,” said Ms. Conlon. “I am confident that our successful partnership with Americans for the Arts and GSD&M will continue to motivate parents and adults to champion arts education and recognize its importance in school and in the community.” Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, said, “These survey results show that there is a consensus among the American people that the arts are vital to a well-rounded education. They underscore the need to continue the effort to expand arts education in America’s schools and communities.” “It’s more than important, it’s absolutely vital that American children understand and appreciate art in its many forms,” said GSD&M President Roy Spence. “GSD&M has a long history as an advocate of the arts and education, and we are proud to have developed this campaign.” The Harris Poll was conducted by telephone in May of 2005 among 1,000 Americans, 18 years of age or older. The margin of error was + or -3.1 percent. The “Art. Ask for More.” campaign has been running in print, television and radio, and alternative media for three years. The campaign has received more than $110 million in national media donations to date and includes participation from 367 local partners nationwide. The success of the campaign is due largely to these hundreds of local Americans for the Arts partners. These advertisements have received placement in the New York Times, USA Today, Parade, and Time, as well as airing on the major broadcast TV, cable, and radio networks, and in the country’s top-100 media markets. For additional information on the survey or the campaign, please contact John Bianchi at 212.576.2700, x228 or jbianchi@goodmanmedia.com. By Debra Viadero Education Week Published: June 8, 2005 The public sat up and took notice in the 1990s when a pair of California researchers published a study showing that college students performed better on some mathematical tests after listening to a 10-minute Mozart sonata. The problem was that the effects evaporated soon after the final piano notes sounded. An hour later, the students were no better at those math tasks than they had been before their listening session. Researchers say that’s pretty much been the story all along for research seeking to show that what students learn in the arts spills over into mainstream subjects. With a few exceptions, that line of work never panned out the way arts education supporters had hoped. “The correlational studies showed whopping correlations, but the experimental studies showed nothing,” said Ellen Winner, a Boston College psychologist who reviewed the research literature in 2000. Now, though, a handful of new studies are taking a different—and some say, more productive—look at the same question. These researchers say the old “Mozart makes you smarter” studies asked the wrong questions and used measurements too narrow to capture arts learning’s full range of benefits. The trick now is to figure out how best to measure subtler benefits, such as persistence or the ability to conjure up mental images. See also
The researchers spent four years interviewing educators and students and observing and videotaping classrooms to figure out what students had gained from their experiences. Teachers, for example, said students became more confident and more motivated, learned to express and elaborate on their ideas better, and improved their classroom relationships.
As classmates pass by, a student strikes third
position at the barre during a ballet class at the Northwest Florida
Ballet Academie in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Over the next three years, Mr. Horowitz designed and tested survey scales to measure such improvements. Although all the schools reported improvements in children’s cognitive and social skills, the gains rated highest occurred in classrooms with long-running, well-established collaborations between artists and classroom teachers. Colleagues such as Ms. Winner remain skeptical. “There’s such a positivity bias because, of course, when you ask people, everybody’s going to say it’s great,” she said. In her own work with Harvard University’s Project Zero, Ms. Winner is approaching the problem differently. In one project, she and her research partner, Lois Hetland, are exploring whether the thinking skills taught to high school students in a magnet visual-arts program—such as the ability to think critically—transfer to their science classes. Ms. Winner also teamed up two years ago with Harvard neurologist Gottfried Schlaug to track changes taking place in younger children’s brains and cognitive skills as they learn to play musical instruments. The study involves a total of 70 children—30 who are studying piano, violin, or some other instrument, and 20 taking no music lessons. The children, all between 5 and 7 when the experiment began, undergo annual tests and brain scans via magnetic-resonance imaging, a harmless technique that uses radio waves to map blood flow and oxygenation rates in the brain. So far, results show that the children in the music-study group have more overall gray matter than the comparison group, according to Ms. Winner, but researchers have yet to pinpoint where that growth has occurred. Later, the researchers will compare the growth patterns they find with those for a similar group of children studying foreign languages. “It may be that any kind of intensive work with one-on-one lessons and homework every night produces the same kinds of changes,” Ms. Winner said. Clearer Standards “Kids say the standards for doing good work are clearer in the arts than they are in academics,” Ms. Wolf said of her study. Through diaries the students kept as part of the study, the researchers have also learned that the teenagers’ arts involvement structures their free time in constructive ways. Ms. Wolf has also been tracking the learning gains made by elementary pupils taking part in a Dallas-based program known as ArtsPartners. Like the New York City program, that venture enlists museums, theaters, and other arts groups to help raise academic achievement by integrating cultural opportunities into the curriculum. The study has found, for instance, that students who visit a museum produce measurably better writing than those asked to write on the same theme after reading a textbook. Still, some critics contend that the arts are important for their own sake, and they take offense at research casting such learning as a “handmaiden” to academic subjects. But experts and arts education supporters say it’s critical to document any spillover effects because the arts, in many places, are falling by the wayside in the push to hold schools accountable for improving students’ test scores in mathematics and language arts. Ms. Wolf said the trend toward establishing smaller high schools also threatens arts instruction in some schools. “We just wanted to enter the argument that maybe people ought to think twice about sacrificing the arts,” she said. Interesting ideas? Send suggestions for possible Research section stories to Debra Viadero at Education Week, 6935 Arlington Road, Besthesda, MD 20814; e-mail: dviadero@epe.org Vol. 24, Issue 39, Page 8 COMMENTARY Much of the research about arts education, though, is focused on little questions that do not suggest operational strategies for improving instruction: “Does story dramatization improve understanding by 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders?” for example. Some of the most widely touted research, such as that showing the strong correlation between arts learning and higher SAT scores, are suspect because of the high correlation between arts learning and higher income, the most powerful predictor of academic success. Encouraging studies that control for income, like those showing that low-income students who are active in the arts do significantly better than those who are not, are not fine-grained enough to distinguish between the arts activities that may provide these benefits. In school or out? Music, theater, dance, or painting? Original creation, exposure, or appreciation? Over the past two years, we looked for research that asked questions about arts education that matter in more fundamental ways, questions that could guide teachers and artists, schools and districts toward strategies that really deliver the benefits attributed to the arts. We sought research and evaluation that looked deeply into serious arts education programs over time, in multiple schools and classrooms, with particular attention to low- income students. Perhaps our most important finding was that not all arts education is created equal. While virtually all the studies and programs we reviewed showed meaningful benefits for students and schools, some clearly had more powerful effects on student outcomes than others. We found the most powerful effects consistently associated with programs that integrate the arts with subjects in the core curriculum. We also found that these programs are leading to sophisticated ideas of why and how they are so powerful—a theory of teaching and learning that brings the arts into the center of education and is consistent with developments in cognitive science. The effects are less pronounced, and may not occur at all, in conventional, stand-alone arts education. A study of 23 arts-integrated schools in Chicago showed test scores rising as much as two times faster than in comparable schools. A study of a Minneapolis arts-integration program showed that it had positive effects on all students, but was most powerful for disadvantaged learners. Gains in these integrated programs go well beyond the basics and test scores. Arts integration energizes and challenges teachers. One researcher said that the Minneapolis program was “one of the most powerful professional-development experiences for large numbers of teachers.” Students invest emotionally in arts-integrated classrooms. Their thinking capacities grow; they work more diligently, and learn from each other. In arts-integrated rooms, students often work in groups and turn classrooms into learning communities. These classroom changes lead to a cascade of broader school changes. Schedules shift to accommodate planning and sustained attention to important questions. Parents become more involved. Teachers collaborate and take on new leadership roles. Art and music teachers often become the fulcrum of multiclass projects. Arts-integrated schools make clear that the arts are not just affective and expressive. They are deeply cognitive. When the arts are an interdisciplinary partner with other subjects, they generate the conditions that cognitive scientists and education researchers say are ideal for learning. The curriculum becomes more hands-on and project-based. It offers students authentic and challenging intellectual work. Learning in all subjects becomes visible through the arts, and student work becomes the basis of thoughtful assessment. Teachers’ opinions and expectations of their students rise. Arts-integrated schools make clear that the arts are not just affective and expressive. They are deeply cognitive. They develop essential tools of thinking itself: careful observation of the world; mental representation of what is observed or imagined; abstraction from complexity; pattern recognition and development; qualitative judgment; symbolic, metaphoric, and allegorical representation. These same thinking tools are used in science, philosophy, math, and history. That is why arts-integrated schools reach higher academic standards. The best arts-integration programs demonstrate a strategy that can help close the achievement gap and make schools happier places. It is a strategy within reach of most schools and districts, even those in the poorest communities. What are its most salient principles and characteristics? We found that the best programs: • Draw on the artistic resources of their communities, building sustained
partnerships among schools, arts organizations, teachers, artists,
researchers, and evaluators. We have seen programs with these characteristics work. ________________________________________
The same day, in another low-income school, we watched 4th graders slump in their chairs, waiting to read a bit of advice to their classmates. They mumbled, “Don’t hit your sister,” and “Do your homework.” There was no children’s work on the walls, no evidence of learning. Instead, hallway posters reminded students of rules they must follow. “Stay in line.” “Don’t forget your uniform.” One asked, “What is freedom?” The answers implied that freedom is a reward for self-control. The best arts-integration programs demonstrate a strategy that can help close the achievement gap and make schools happier places. Education policymakers may have committed themselves to leaving no child behind, but the boredom and academic failure we saw in the second classroom is the norm in too many schools. The weight of educational habit and high-stakes testing constrain their focus to “basic” academic skills, testing, and discipline. In a postindustrial economy, this can only reproduce and deepen the cycle of failure. Arts integration is a far more productive strategy. Students will not be prepared for work in an economy that demands higher-order skills if their schools focus exclusively on the basics and measure learning with multiple-choice tests only. Students will not learn to think for themselves in schools that expect them merely to stay in line and keep quiet. They won’t be prepared to create the culture of their time if they do not create culture in their schools. Some worry that integrating the arts with other subjects will reduce art to the role of academic handmaiden to the core subjects. That is not what happens. Art engages the world. Artists make work about things, ideas, questions, relationships, emotions, problems, and solutions. Art is a powerful instrument for making and sharing meaning. Arts integration is modeled on the methods and purposes of real artists. We have found that it results in student artwork that is consistently more complex, interesting, and contemporary than work done in stand-alone arts classrooms. Arts integration is not simple or easy work. The pioneering educators and artists who do it swim against a tide of education policy, and work with meager resources. They need policy support at the federal, state, and local levels, not platitudes about the intrinsic goodness of art for children. Their work needs to be expanded to more classrooms, schools, and districts, and it needs to be more thoroughly studied. Preservice teachers should learn about arts integration, and arts classes should be required for certification. Art and music teachers should learn to integrate what they know about their art forms with other subjects. Arts education deserves far more than a meager $35 million line item in a federal education budget of some $65 billion. And integrated arts education should be the target of a healthy proportion of federal, state, and local allocations. Nick Rabkin and Robin Redmond are the editors of Putting the Arts in the
Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century. Rabkin is the executive
director of the Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College Chicago, and
Redmond is the associate director. By Jennifer Barger Playbill Arts The Kennedy Center launches a new $125 million arts education initiative. When Michael M. Kaiser, President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, was a child, his parents took him to see The Music Man. "Barbara Cook, as Marian the Librarian, sang 'Goodnight, My Someone,' and I knew that the arts were it for me," he says. "It's very important that, when a child is young, they're inoculated like that." Indeed, with its new $125 million education initiative, the Kennedy Center aims to give the performing arts bug to more than 11 million people across the country. The center's expanded programming targets not only young, would-be art lovers but also art managers, aspiring dancers and musicians, and even board members at other cultural institutions. "We've always been strong in this department, but we wanted to up the ante," says Kaiser. "The Kennedy Center is large and national in scope. We should speak to a lot of people." Since the Kennedy Center opened in 1971, "the need for arts education programming has only intensified," says Darrell Ayers, Vice President for Education. "In schools today, there's an emphasis on testing, so it's very easy for administrators to cut the arts out. But those of us who had experiences in school with dance or music know how those subjects helped us develop thinking skills and made us more rounded people." With the new initiative, the Kennedy Center will bring culture to the classroom in innovative ways. High-tech tools that help both teachers and students will include a broadband distance learning program, infrared listening systems that can provide commentary during rehearsals, and a slew of informative, often interactive content on the Center's ArtsEdge Web site. On the site (artsedge.kennedy-center.org), students and teachers can read interviews with artists like jazz pianist Billy Taylor, listen to storm-inspired classical music, or "open" the locker of a fictional Martha Graham dancer to find performance notes, a journal, and video clips. A new jazz Web site will include graphics, sound files, on-line discussions, and even an interactive map of Harlem pinpointing significant sites in its musical history. "Technology becomes a mechanism to reach more people," says Ayers. More traditional efforts also figure in the new education push. All teachers in the United States now receive a 15 percent discount when they buy tickets to Kennedy Center events (subject to availability). "We felt we had to put our money where our mouth is," says Kaiser. "If we want teachers to bring art into the classroom, they have to experience it themselves." During the 2002 Sondheim Celebration, Washington-area schoolchildren were encouraged to add their own ideas to the fractured fairy-tale musical Into the Woods, Jr. That show's success inspired the Kennedy Center to team with Disney Theatrical Productions and Music Theatre International to create new musicals for children and to provide support for teachers who wish to mount those shows. In the summer of 2006, D.C.-area grade-school students will attend theater arts classes at the Kennedy Center in the morning, then spend afternoons crafting and rehearsing shows based on such Disney movies as Mulan or 101 Dalmatians. "The program isn't about creating the next Les Mis," says Ayers. "The idea is to get young people excited about musicals. They come up with their own concepts. For instance, with Into the Woods, Jr. the students had the Rapunzel character kept in the Washington Monument!" When curious students become aspiring artists, the Kennedy Center also wants to help them learn and grow. The new funding enables international expansions to established programs such as Jazz Ahead, which allows young musicians to study with leading jazz pros, and the Summer Music Institute, which gives students opportunities to learn from National Symphony Orchestra members. The center's dance education programs will also expand. In its 12th year, the Dance Theatre of Harlem Kennedy Center Pre-Professional Program will now focus on professional training for grade- through high-school students who are interested in dance. "Parents watch as their children are transformed by this program," says Dance Theatre of Harlem Executive Director Laveen Naidu. "Students who come through it, whether they become professional dancers or not, gain more confidence and pay more attention in school." Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell, an annual training institute run by the famed ballerina (and Balanchine muse), will now become international and include young dancers from China and other countries. Often, these programs help turn aspiring artists into pros who later find themselves performing onstage at the Kennedy Center. Dance Theatre of Harlem program participants now belong to the company; Farrell's students have gone on to join the Pacific Northwest Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. "It's so interesting to see them develop as performers," says Ayers. The Center's Vilar Institute for Arts Management, a pet project of Kaiser's, will also be expanded. The institute's current offerings include internships and a ten-month fellowship program. The latter hosts ten arts managers for classes that are taught by Kaiser and senior Kennedy Center executives, as well as for hands-on work opportunities. "And starting next year, we'll have a program to train board members for performing arts organizations," says Kaiser. A new Web site for arts managers is also planned. It will feature on-line discussions, case studies, and other elements. The most visible element of the Kennedy Center's new commitment to education may be the new Family Theater. The 320-seat space replaces the Film Theater in December, opening with the world premiere of Alice, a Kennedy Center commission adapted from a children's book by Whoopi Goldberg. The new theater boasts good sight lines, fiber-optic capability for distance learning programs, wood-paneled walls, and a striking blue and gold color scheme. Having a space solely devoted to family productions means more performances and more kids in the audience. In the past, most young peoples' productions were staged in the Theater Lab, "which we had to share with other shows," says Ayers. "Every set had to be taken down in between shows! This new theater gives us a space specifically devoted to young people and families." It's just another way that the Kennedy Center is hoping to get people, particularly young ones, fired up about dance, theater and music. "Our goal is to inspire as many children as we can," says Ayers. "We want to make the arts a part of all children's lives." Jennifer Barger is a senior editor at WHERE Washington magazine and a frequent contributor to the Washington Post and Playbill Send questions and comments to the
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