Making a (Better) Case for the Benefits of Art Education (part 2 of 2)

I personally don’t need a statistic to tell me that art education benefits a child.  After 20 years of teaching drawing, and watching students transform almost instantly before my very eyes – I KNOW what art education does for a student. I have seen that transformation thousands of times in my classrooms. I have seen and experienced the benefits firsthand. But for those of you who have not been exposed to the direct benefits of art education – here is a list I think you’ll find very valuable. 

Elliott Eisner, a Professor of Education at Stanford University has identified 10 lessons which are clarified through the study of Art in the schools.

Ten Lessons the Arts Teach 

1.      The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
 

2.      The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.
 

3.      The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
 

4.      The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem-solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
 

5.      The arts make vivid the fact that words do not, in their literal form or number, exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.
 

6.      The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.
 

7.      The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
 

8.      The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.
 

9.      The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.
 

10. The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.

Making a (Better) Case for the Benefits of Art Education (part 1 of 2)

“The function of a school is not to help kids do well in school.

The function of a school is to help kids to well in life.”

Elliot Eisner 

In our business, we are on a never-ending quest to find that golden statistic…the one that proves (with black ink and an indisputable number) to policy-makers, school-boards, principals, teachers, and parents alike that ART education is vital in developing cognitive skills that will improve OTHER skills in the classroom. 

My question is: Why does art have to improve OTHER skills before it’s considered valuable in a school curriculum?  What about the skills that art as a studied subject itself can develop?  I am certainly not the first person to ask this question – nor will I be the last. There is a growing argument in the world of art education advocates and education advocates in general, that trying to link art education to other cognitive benefits, aside from the benefits of art in its own right, is actually hurting the cause instead of helping. 

When we make a case for art education on the basis that art education is going to make a child a better math student, we are forced to prove that ALL children who take art classes perform better in math than those who don’t.  And while there may be dozens of studies and articles that make that connection – art value can be difficult to present in the black and white, number-oriented format that a statistic-driven decision maker is looking for.  Therefore, when that statistic is not delivered in the format it was proposed, the benefits of art within itself tend to be put on the back burner, and discredited overall.  

This is not to say that I am not interested or that I don’t find immense value in the OTHER benefits that art education provides, specifically when art is taught with a set methodology and process as is the case in a Young Rembrandts classroom. There are many studies and articles on the subject (and I plan to share those that I have found most profound).  What I am saying is that the benefit of art within its own right also makes a compelling argument. 

A List to Live By

How to Talk so Kids Will Listen & Listen so Kids Will Talk was referred to as “the parenting bible” by the Boston Globe and I would have to agree. This book illustrates simple, clear communication methods of speaking to our children, for their best understanding and cooperation. It is a wonderful foundation for parents and teachers.

Brief Book Description: You Can Stop Fighting With Your Children! Here is the bestselling book that will give you the know–how you need to be more effective with your children and more supportive of yourself. Enthusiastically praised by parents and professionals around the world, the down–to–earth, respectful approach of Faber and Mazlish makes relationships with children of all ages less stressful and more rewarding.

You can find plenty of customer reviews and read an excerpt on http://www.amazon.com

Along with the original volume, I would highly recommend the companion volume to this book: Liberated Child, Liberated Children, in which authors Faber and Mazlish have focused on the principles of famed child psychologist Dr. Haim Ginott, and how his theories inspired the changes they made in their relationships with their own children. This publication has also been highly reviewed and has an available excerpt.

The last book I would recommend in this series (can you tell I’m a fan?) is How to Talk so Kids Can Learn: At Home and in School. As suggested by the title, this book is another great resource for both teachers and parents. Again reviews and excerpts are available.

As a teacher, parent and as a business owner whose customer is essentially the young child – these books have not only provided me with a tool to better understand and improve the communication with my own children, but have also provided me with a powerful insight into best communication practices in our classrooms as part of our teaching method.

I hope some of you will get a chance to read them, and that you will find them as useful and powerful as I have.

Demonstration Classes: Before & After Houses

As you can see from the images posted, we also conducted Before & After Demonstration classes using a house as the subject. Besides a face, a house is well recognized by young children as a familiar part of their world.

Like the classes where we talked through how to draw a face, we used the same Young Rembrandts step-by-step method to learn to draw a house. We talked about the many elements within a house – the door, the windows, the roof, even a chimney. The students, aged 3 ½ to 5 years, listened intently and added each element until their houses were complete.

As I moved around the room instructing where needed, a group of young boys completed their houses. After looking over their drawings with them, I asked a simple question: “What kind of day is it outside your house?” This question spurred them to think and discuss their options. I heard one exclaim, “It’s sunny by my house!” I responded with encouragement to allow the creativity to flow. I moved away from this group to check on other students in the class.

When I returned to this group of boys, I saw one took my question even further to create a complete story around their house. As you can see below in the “After” drawing, the student added a sun. In addition, he moved to the other side of his drawing and added a rain cloud and eventually rain drops from the cloud. Then he moved back to the opposite side and inserted a rainbow below his sun. This child was given the opportunity to tell an elaborate story all around his original drawing – encouraging him to communicate fully with the tools at his fingertips. Very empowering for a young learner!

Demonstration Classes: Before & After Faces #2, #3 (part 4 of 5)

Looking at the above images continues to illustrate how added instruction and guided observation to drawing greatly enhances the child’s ability to create more detailed drawings.

Set #1 shows the how the child realized that “we have necks” and added a neck to the After drawing.  Also, the hair, eyes and mouth also show increased detail.

Set #2 also shows greater detail, especially in the eyes with eyelashes, and in the mouth with well defined teeth.

To be continued . . . check back Monday, March 10, 2008 for part 5.