For the second year in a row, I had the pleasure of attending the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest (ISAS) Arts Festival, this year in Austin. This multi-day celebration of the arts brings together high school students and educators from across the Southwest to perform for each other and learn from one another. The phrase that came to mind as we ran from plays to concerts to art exhibits was “an embarrassment of riches.” The level and consistency of student talent boggled the mind, and the most difficult part of the festival came as we wrestled with deciding what to attend and what to miss. Do we stand in line for a half hour with 400 other students and teachers so we can see a performance of the musical Chicago, or do we walk over to the gym to view the amazing student-produced photography, sculpture, and painting? What should we choose--the orchestral concert featuring music from popular video games like Halo and The Hunger Games movie or the debut of student-created videos?
Perhaps one of the most enjoyable elements of the festival was watching students from different schools, who were total strangers, easily coming together and enjoying each other’s company. Their enthusiasm infected all of us. At one point I said to a colleague that any educators or legislators who are considering cutting the arts in their schools should come to this festival and see the talent and exuberance of the students; they would change their minds immediately.
For the past two decades, several factors have threatened the teaching of the arts in schools. As high-stakes testing has become more and more the chosen method of assessing a school’s success or failure, proponents of the arts have found themselves continually battling to demonstrate their relevance. In addition, as states and schools have confronted a lagging economy, the arts are all too often one of the first areas to be cut. A fixation on quantifiable data, a focus on giving students job-ready skills, and a perception that the arts are dispensable have all combined to place the arts in schools on the defensive.
According to a 2009 article, “Why Arts Education is Crucial and Who’s Doing It Best” by Fran Smith, “In California, for example, participation in music courses dropped 46 percent from 1999-2000 through 2000-04, while total school enrollment grew nearly 6 percent, according to a study by the Music for All Foundation. The number of music teachers, meanwhile, declined 26.7 percent. In 2001, the California Board of Education set standards at each grade level for what students should know and be able to do in music, visual arts, theater, and dance, but a statewide study in 2006, by SRI International, found that 89 percent of K-12 schools failed to offer a standards-based course of study in all four disciplines. Sixty-one percent of schools didn't even have a full-time arts specialist.”
However, compelling arguments for preserving the teaching of the arts in schools remain, and they range from the ethereal to the quantitative. In the same way that schools continue to teach English and other languages to help students see and communicate, the arts offer us another method for observing and conveying what is beautiful and what is troubling. Just as a literate person should be able to speak in a variety of ways, the arts offer our students another language. We might say that not providing our students with the arts effectively blinds them and essentially silences them at one of the most formative times in their lives.
In addition, as research has shown, participating in the arts helps students to be successful in other areas. While the arts should not require justification by showing how they assist students in the academic realm, they do in fact have residual benefits. As Smith further says, “Many of these models are based on new findings in brain research and cognitive development, and they embrace a variety of approaches: using the arts as a learning tool (for example, musical notes to teach fractions); incorporating arts into other core classes (writing and performing a play about, say, slavery); creating a school environment rich in arts and culture (Mozart in the hallways every day) and hands-on arts instruction. Although most of these initiatives are in the early stages, some are beginning to rack up impressive results. This trend may send a message to schools focused maniacally, and perhaps counterproductively, on reading and math.” He also quotes Tom Horne, Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, who says, “If they're worried about their test scores and want a way to get them higher, they need to give kids more arts, not less. There's lots of evidence that kids immersed in the arts do better on their academic tests.”
Teaching the arts improves our students’ educational and personal experiences in many ways. It gives them a voice at a time in their lives when they are desperately attempting to find out who they are, what they believe, and how to share their personalities and souls with others. It offers them a lense to see their world and a context for making sense of things that may not be immediately sensible. It helps them to be successful in a variety of areas, including those that may not be readily apparent, like math or science. Perhaps, most importantly, giving students an education in the arts provides them with a path to becoming well- rounded and fully realized human beings who will make our world a better place for themselves and others.
