Arts Equal Smarts
An education in the arts has a positive impact on all other areas of the curriculum.
Steve Russell

The arts may be the most important element of your child’s education. If there were no schools at all children would learn about their world almost exclusively through the arts, that is, through make-believe, drawing, painting, poem, song or dance. And within our schools, especially at the kindergarten and primary levels, the arts play an essential role in learning. Can you recite the alphabet without falling into a familiar song pattern? The importance of the arts as a process for learning never leaves us.

Children who study the arts are:
• four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement
• three times more likely to be elected to class office
• four times more likely to participate in a math and science fair
• three times more likely to win an award for school attendance
• four times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem

Our natural way of creating meaning from experience (some call that ‘learning’) is to construct that meaning through some form of art. As children grow older, and as schools move from “learning to read” into “reading to learn”, the emphasis in schools shifts from the process of learning to the content of learning. It is easy for parents and teachers to lose sight of the natural ways of learning–dramatic play, drawing, singing and dancing. We must continue to encourage the use of the arts as learning vehicles and as ways of knowing the world that help students construct meaning for themselves.

Brain research supports this view and the importance of the arts. One of the keys to activating more of the brain is to get students actively involved in their learning. This is often called ‘engagement’.

More engagement in the learning process means more learning retention, or deeper understanding of the material being studied. The objective for teachers and parents who want children to learn well is to engage them – to involve them in their learning through head, hands and hearts (intellectually, physically and emotionally). Many researchers are now saying that the arts provide the best opportunities for highly engaging learning. The brain is fully activated when students are involved in effective arts activities.

The social benefits of participating in the arts should also not be overlooked or forgotten. The sharing and collaborative learning that takes place when students participate in music and drama/dance activities are essential to their development of effective group skills, which will be more and more important in senior grades and in the world of work.

Industry is calling for arts skills. Most parents don’t expect their children to make a living through the arts, even though Canada’s arts and cultural occupations grew by 25% between 1981 and 1991 and continue to expand. But even those not directly employed in the arts benefit from learning through the arts. “The skills the arts teach – creative thinking, problem solving and risk taking, and teamwork and communications – are precisely the tools the workforce of tomorrow will need,” says Richard Gurin, president and CEO of Binney & Smith, Inc. And in its Employability Skills Profile, the Conference Board of Canada identified the most desirable employment skills in the Canadian workforce as the ability to communicate, think, learn for life, work well with others, adapt and be creative. These attributes are developed through arts education.

Our children will learn better if we support their participation in arts education. They will also develop skills that will help them throughout their lives and they will be happier adults. Students in high-arts programs have been shown to have higher self-esteem and higher academic achievement. Dr. Avis Glaze, former director of the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board and now Ontario’s chief student achievement officer and CEO of the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, has advocated for arts education throughout her career: “The research is clear. The arts enrich the lives of students. Students engaged in education in the arts see an improvement in test scores. Math, reading and science marks improve. Abstract reasoning and spatial skills improve. There is an improvement in self-esteem, self-confidence, cooperation, and the self-motivation necessary for success in life. The arts encourage creativity. They have a positive impact on all other areas of the curriculum. There is no doubt in my mind that arts education is education at its best.”

So what should parents know about arts education? The arts are good for your children. Encourage your child to learn through the arts. Show interest in and pride in your child’s art, stories and games from a very early age and as they continue to refine their skills throughout their school years. Continue to encourage them to play, sing, dance and create. Nurture an interest in the arts inside and outside of school. Remember that the arts are good for the brain and the most natural way in which children construct meaning from their experiences in school and in life. Most of all, don’t neglect the child inside yourself: enjoy the arts and the artist in you too!

Steve Russell is the arts consultant for the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. He lives in Peterborough with his wife and two children.