What is "arts literacy"? I must confess that although I may know it when I see it or hear it, after a year spent working on a new national study, Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons from School Districts That Value Arts Education (President's Committee on the Arts, 1999), I am, alas, no closer to a satisfactory definition.
Suffice it to say for now that (1) our students are not growing up with it—as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1997 arts assessment of U.S. 8th grade students found in measuring what students know and can do in the arts (Persky, Sandene, & Askew, 1998), and (2) they need to be.
U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley underscored the first point when he called the NAEP arts assessment results "discouraging" and added that they "fully justified a call to action" by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to "restore the arts to all of our schools." The second point—that our young people need to be arts literate—is harder to prove. But just think about today's world and how hard it is to keep current. Now envision tomorrow's world: Beyond global. More complex. Faster. Ambiguous. Visual. Virtual.
Tomorrow's world will demand a quick mind. Focus. Discipline. Imagination. Grasp of the big picture. Attention to detail. Teamwork. Knowing good work from bad.
How will we educate our students to thrive in such a world? Through the arts. As Joyce Hergenhan, president of the GE Fund, observes, Tomorrow's workforce—and, especially, its leaders—will need broad abilities beyond technical skills. There will be a demand for people who are creative, analytical, disciplined, and self-confident—people who can solve problems, communicate ideas, and be sensitive to the world around them. Hands-on participation in the arts is a proven way to help develop these abilities.
And what are young people learning when they learn the arts? To use their minds in verbal and nonverbal ways. To communicate complex ideas in a variety of forms. To understand what someone else is trying to tell them in words, sounds, or images. To imagine new possibilities and to do the hard work of making them happen. To appreciate quality.
The Case for Arts Literacy
Today, thanks to a growing body of research, we are able to make the case for arts literacy not only with eloquent words, but also with concrete examples of school programs that link arts learning with the challenges of the real world.
Ramon C. Cortines, executive director of the Pew Network for Standards-Based Reform at Stanford University, writes in the introduction to Gaining the Arts Advantage, Educators say they want materials and activities that are "constructivist," that is, concrete and hands-on. They seek materials that are multi-modal, multicultural, appealing and challenging to the classroom's diverse range of learners. They look for activities that provide not just one means of assessment but multiple ways to track and evaluate a student's progress. They want materials that promote critical thinking. They look for activities that are interdisciplinary. Research confirms what we always knew intuitively: the arts teach all of us—students and teachers alike—innovation, novelty, and creativity. We learn to be wondrous. (President's Committee on the Arts, 1999, p. 6)
- In Las Cruces, New Mexico, the community is rebuilding education in and through the arts, starting with kindergarten. Elementary visual arts teacher Bonnie Hosie's experience with children learning about colors explains why Las Cruces has made that commitment.When Hosie teaches the standard color wheel lesson, she makes it active by mixing color in two ways—once in pencil, next in finger paint. Her classroom demonstrates the kind of wondrous learning that is the heart of arts literacy: "I can remember," she told the study's researchers, "when one student looked up to me and held up his paint-covered hands and said, 'Orange! Red and yellow make orange!' He looked back down at them and never forgot. Weeks later, he would still look at his hands to remember color mixing."
- In Miami–Dade County, Florida, a school district in which reading, writing, and mathematics learning strategies are integrated with the arts curriculum, 5th graders participate in a sketchbook/journal program to encourage them to express themselves clearly and creatively, visually and verbally.A few years ago, the 5th grade social studies, language arts, and visual arts teachers cooperatively planned a unit on conflict and resolution. The unit began with a visit to the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach, which specializes in decorative and propaganda arts. But the field trip didn't end there. After viewing artworks related to the First and Second World Wars and perusing books that chronicled the conflicts of this century, the students returned to their respective schools and began the real work of the unit.Fifth-grade students in participating schools came together to create a large-format book on conflict and resolution. They conducted interviews with family members and acquaintances, exploring how these relatives and friends had experienced conflict and resolved it. Then they wrote those chronicles as stories and as historical accounts.At Biscayne Gardens Elementary School in Miami, students stitched a fabric book cover that evoked both chaos and calm. Inside, students painted canvas pages with vivid shapes and lines that echoed the cover. At the center of each page, they mounted a photograph on transparent acetate, which made it possible to see fragments of student handwriting on the sheets beneath the photographs.In addition to developing their arts literacy and language skills and increasing their knowledge of human behavior and history, the students also learned a valuable economics lesson. The Wolfsonian curators were so impressed with the high quality of the students' books that they purchased them for the museum's permanent collection.
- In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a comprehensive education partnership called Arts in Community Education (ACE) between the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and 25 private and parochial schools in eight school districts brings learning through music into K–12 classrooms. The goal of ACE is the advancement of each student's overall learning through a series of culturally diverse arts experiences structured around a coordinating theme for each grade. For example, kindergartners learn about the "Family of Music" (composer, conductor, performer, audience)—a theme that emphasizes social development and the relationships found within all types of "families." Third and fourth graders develop cultural awareness, sensitivity, and pride by exploring cultural heritages and cross-influences in communities in Wisconsin and around the world. Fifth graders become "Ace Inventors" and explore interdependence in artistic and scientific processes and problem solving.
- In Maine Township 207 in Illinois, the play's the thing at Park Ridge High School. The school offers a wide range of speech, drama, broadcasting, creative writing, art, photography, and music courses. After 50 years of development, the school's arts courses, explains Maine's Fine Arts Curriculum Guide, teach students where to look and what to look for in gathering support for an idea. They also help students learn to give, to accept, and to follow constructive criticism; listen courteously and critically as others speak; become more logical, more direct, and more creative in organizing thoughts for presentation; learn to control the fear of speaking or performing before an audience, and, as a result, become a more confident person. (President's Committee on the Arts, 1999, p. 61)Maine Township sufficiently values this kind of arts education that the school district now requires that all seniors take tests in the areas of dance, music, theater, and visual arts to gain a sense of their competency and familiarity with the arts. More than 85 percent of the students tested annually meet or exceed the standards set forth by the district's fine arts staff. In light of the NAEP 1997 arts assessment, this test result from a top U.S. high school is particularly instructive.
Brent Wilson, a professor of art at The Pennsylvania State University, sums up the role of the arts in learning, Arts students, with the help of their teachers, undertake big projects. They produce a play, present a concert or dance recital, create an advanced placement theme-based portfolio, mount exhibitions. In doing so, students master an enormous number of artistic skills, direct a myriad of aesthetic and expressive qualities toward given ends, and symbolize human behaviors and emotions in a great variety of ways. In artistic creation, means and ends are continually interrelated. Each small element is connected to the creation of a complex but coherent whole work. (President's Committee on the Arts, 1999, p. 16)
Interestingly, Brent Wilson's thoughts are echoed by the representative of a realm that may not be so far removed from the arts. When Doug Sessions of Hewlett-Packard visited the new School for Arts and Academics, in Vancouver, Washington, he observed that the interdisciplinary approach to instruction, the project-oriented focus, the sense that students are working in teams, collaborating, and, too, the high expectations in terms of the core subject areas, that's something that comes through. You know, you don't have to be here very long to see that there's an ethic of high performance. It's kind of an unusual place for Hewlett-Packard to look for math and science achievement, but the whole package is here. That's what we want. That's the way our employees work. (President's Committee on the Arts, 1999, p. 33)
That, in so many words, is the link between arts literacy and the real world.
No Excuses
Making the case for arts literacy is only the means to a more important end, however. Providing a comprehensive, high-quality education that gives every student the arts literacy advantage by developing his or her skills in the "four Cs"—communication, culture, cognition, and creativity—should be our aim.
But it is not a goal that can be met through after-school programs or summer camps or even private lessons, as valuable as those learning opportunities are. Our public schools must educate children to be fully literate, which in the 21st century will clearly include arts-derived knowledge. So, in the best of all possible worlds, every school would provide education in the arts in the same way that it provides education in reading and writing the English language.
But how? you may ask. After all, aren't there vast differences among school districts' tax bases and budgets, state regulations, and professional requirements? In fact, aren't there many factors that make it possible for one district to offer the necessary arts education but nearly impossible for another district to do so?
The usual excuses that community members might make for not providing our students with the best possible arts education—"too little money," "too many students," "too few arts teachers," and "too many other requirements"—don't hold much water when we have real-life lessons at our fingertips (see http://www.pcah.gov/gaa).
The school district of Las Cruces, New Mexico, among many others, can tell us a thing or two about being creative with resources, and Miami–Dade County, Florida, knows a great deal about handling the pressures of population growth. Minot, North Dakota, has an interim solution to the temporary absence of elementary visual arts teachers. Olathe, Kansas, can address the challenge of advancing arts education while meeting new state requirements for scholarships.
Examining Our School Districts
What members of my community in Loudoun County, Virginia, are finding most useful in the study is a new framework for looking at our school district. The study identifies 13 interrelating factors essential to sustaining district-wide arts education. These factors serve as elements for evaluating our own district's strengths and weaknesses to ensure that all our students become arts literate.
For example, we can ask ourselves, Is there a consensus in our community that enables our school board and administration to fund arts education? Does our district's central office provide sufficient leadership for the arts programs? Does our district have a cadre of building principals who see the arts as a core school subject? Do we have strong arts teachers who continue to practice their art inside and outside the school? Are our community arts and cultural organizations active presences in the district schools, including the use of school performing arts venues?
The biggest lesson of Gaining the Arts Advantage is this: We cannot be passive observers and shift the responsibility of educating arts-literate young people in our communities. Gaining the Arts Advantage lets none of us off the hook because, the study finds, the strongest factors in determining whether a district provides arts education are the community's insistence, support, and participation.
- How much time each day and each week are children taught the arts?
- Are teachers trained in the arts?
- Do schools have curriculum and supplies for arts classes?
- Do other teachers work with arts specialists to plan joint lessons for students?
- Does the school board have a policy indicating that the arts are as important as other school subjects?
For the first question, there is no one correct answer, but arts educators generally believe that if the arts are part of the core curriculum for students in the elementary years, then students ought to be engaged in arts learning for 15 percent of their time in school.
For questions 2–5, school boards that aim to be arts literate should be able to answer, Yes.
How did your school district fare?
If your school district scored well, keep up the good work (but know that you can never rest on your laurels).
If your school district did not pass muster, then you will need to insist on arts education and participate to make it thrive.
