The Arts: More Important Than Ever

Michael Hinojosa, general superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District, is hiring 140 new arts teachers this year. It’s the latest and perhaps most remarkable step in a 10-year effort by policymakers, educators and community leaders to ensure that every student in Dallas has access to quality arts learning experiences in and out of school.

Woah, there. 140 new arts teachers? WTF? What happened to No Child Left Behind? Math, math, math. Reading, reading, reading.

Exactly what are they onto in Dallas?  Or, what are they on?

Well, turns out, that when it comes to young people and learning, the arts are as central to creating successful outcomes as any subject--even more so.

The truth is that the arts help students in multiple ways, and especially in profound ways, create the kind of foundation upon which a young learner can stand, gather and excel--especially within the infrastructure of the brain.

Really, the arts education rationale reveals, more than almost any other critique, the poverty, cynicism and mechanistic world-view underlying the "standards and accountability" movement. You see, the truth is that children are human beings, too. And before a human being submits themself to master a topic, an equation, any piece of random information--to basically devote themselves to something--there needs to be a full-blown rationale for the underlying importance of what they are about to do.

Check out this article published recently in Education Week: 

Nonetheless, arts advocates and many of the researchers taking part in the project see the report’s overall findings as important fodder for ongoing efforts to dissuade schools from dropping arts instruction in the face of pressure under the federal No Child Left Behind law to raise students’ test scores in mathematics, reading, and science.

“What we are seeing here is that we have quantitative data that confirm our assumptions about the interrelationships in the way children learn,” said poet Dana Gioia, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, at the Dana conference. “And the purpose of education is to realize the full human potential of every child.”

The original three-year study can be found here.

Unfortunately, the assumption out there in policy land is that the reasons for learning exist, ipso facto, in the mind, actions and effort of the young learner. That like some wind up toy, they come out of the box already programmed and ready to mindlessly perform whatever tasks a teacher puts before them.

In fact, though, as a lifetime learner and educator, I can tell you that this is not true. Not even close. And this is the misunderstanding about learning that is currently driving America's education system over the cliff.

More than ever, young people need a reason, a rationale, and a values-based motivation in order to push ahead in their studies.

And nowhere does that rationale grow clearer or stronger than in using the arts to catch, excite and capture the heart of young people.  And, as the study above suggests, the connections fostered by art, also stimulate brain development, which in turn allows for new dendrites and pathways to form within the corpus callosum.

We already know, or should, that when we work with learners in terms of understanding their values, what they truly believe is important, we engage their whole person. When they engage in terms of self-discovery, they get in touch with their authentic self, come into full appreciation of who they are meant to be in this world. They are now ready to commit heart, body and soul to the passionate exploration of issues. Without that level of commitment, we get only minimal levels of engagement, nothing that ever approaches mastery or excellence.

The arts--singing, dancing, poetry, drama, visual mediums--these were the very first forms of human expression that excited the soul and drew groups together around what they cherished, believed and embodied. Children, more than adults even, need this fundamental connection to human expression in order to understand the fullness of being alive and what connects them to their ancestors.

This is especially true for people of color, I think. Because their culture, their values, their most basic perceptions of life have been undervalued, denied, shunted aside, arts are the one medium that allow them to recapture the essence of who they are and what they believe. In dance, in song, in words, in images, the soul finds its place of home and onlookers understand more about the central place of their particular form of human expression than words can really do justice.

In many cases for people of color, this is the only real means to validate their existence.

Let me say it again: when a young person comes into full possession of who they are on a values level, they are so much more capable of achieving levels of excellence and mastery in academic performance. It is only the half-hearted, regimented, unconnected efforts at scholarship, driven by a lack of clarity, meaning and relevance that keeps performance levels low.

And, for those of you who do not yet "see" the value in understanding our humanity and our cultural values, you can at least be satisfied with the tangential benefits of arts education as listed in the article above:

• Imagination. To write or act in a play, design a building or write a song, we must visualize new possibilities for human thought and action and the use of materials. This engages the cognitive capacity of imagination.
• Innovation and creativity. When imagination is put into action, the results can be a piece of music, a hybrid car, or a cure for cancer. Getting the results takes discipline, persistence and resilience. One needs to stay on task despite challenges and frustrations of setbacks.
• Engagement and achievement motivation. Imagining and pursuing a personal vision is profoundly engaging. It’s an act of self expression and an act of communicating meaning and feelings to other. Students become goal-oriented and self-directed.
• Conditional reasoning. As a painting instructor once told me, “You don’t start until you have an image of where you are going.” Nor do you write a song or a play word by word. You have to have an idea or story in mind of what you want to make and be prepared to adjust it as you go along. This is conditional reasoning, proceeding by trial and error. It’s theorizing about actions, outcomes and consequences, defining and generating optional approaches and solutions to problems and conditions.
• Symbolic understanding. Reading, writing and doing math are processes of grasping and using symbols. So is playing the notes on sheet music, assembling colors and shapes into a portrait. Understanding and using multiple modes to represent and communicate ideas and feelings helps us get better at all of them. That’s one of the links between the arts and literacy.
• Critical thinking. To make and appreciate a good piece of music, a poem or a play, you have to develop and apply criteria and standards for making judgments about quality — evaluate your products or performances and those of others to determine whether they are any good. Fix what’s wrong.
• Collaborative learning and action. Rehearsing and putting on a play, practicing and performing in a chorus and dancing in a musical are collaborative processes of acquiring and manifesting knowledge and skills. You are committed to pursuing a common goal and working toward it. It’s teamwork.

New teachers: no matter what other professionals or administrators or parents may say about the arts, know this: there is nothing more important you can do for your students than connect them up to that most mysterious and profound form of human expression found in the arts. It is literally the one thing that can change their life for the better, forever.

We are so much more than a future worker waiting to toil their life away for low pay and bad health care.

And the arts are the one area of our existence in which this truth is openly revealed, held aloft and celebrated--not for corporate profit or what material gain might ensue. But for the sheer truth of it.

And reverence for the naked truth is never a bad thing, especially when it comes to learning. In fact, I would submit, this is the real core of a quality education.