Making the Case for Fine Arts in the Classroom

I posted this on my Paint Daily Texas blog (http://paintdailytexas.blogspot.com/) but thought it'd be a good starter for this as well. 

This summer I served as the Arts Integration Specialist for a Thriving Minds summer camp in Dallas.  It's a wonderful program where core content curriculum (math, language arts, science, and social studies) and fine arts disciplines (including dance, theater, music, visual art and more) are integrated by combining a teacher from each discipline together to team-teach a single class.  The content teacher has the class solo for the first couple of hours, then a fine arts teacher joins the class and they team-teach the same content from a fine arts perspective, and then the students have a studio time at the end of the day to just focus on the arts process.  This whole process really got me thinking about the value of arts education and how to get that across to the parents, teachers, and adminstrators I work with.  I came across this summary as part of a report on the Katy ISD website and thought it was worth passing along.

The following are findings reported in Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning  (Fiske, 1999) that should be noted by every parent, teacher, and administrator:

• The arts reach students not normally reached, in ways and methods not normally used.  (This leads to better student attendance and lower dropout rates.)
• It changes the learning environment to one of discovery.  (This often re-ignites the love of learning in students tired of just being fed facts.)
• Students connect with each other better.  (This often results in fewer fights, greater understanding of diversity, and greater peer support.)
• The arts provide challenges to students of all levels.  (Each student can find his/her own level from basic to gifted.)
• Students learn to become sustained, self-directed learners.  (The student does not just become an outlet for stored facts from direct instruction, but seeks to extend instruction to higher levels of proficiency.)
• The study of the fine arts positively impacts the learning of students of lower socioeconomic status as much or more than those of a higher socioeconomic status.  (Twenty-one percent of students of low socioeconomic status who had studied music scored higher in math versus just eleven percent of those who had not. By the senior year, these figures grew to 33 percent and 16 percent, respectively, suggesting a cumulative value to music education.)

I think that's pretty compelling evidence, but even more compelling to me is being in that classroom and seeing the light bulb turn on for a kid who's been struggling with some content.  In today's multi-media age of embedded videos, photo sharing, and sound bites, I think a gounding in the arts may be more important than ever.

First Day of School Dallas ISD

It's finally here!  All Dallas ISD students returned to school today.  I've spent the day helping with enrollment of new students and covering classes for breaks.  We won't start our art class rotation until Tuesday, but I've been working on a few finishing touches in my room.  Bushman is fairly old building and kind of plain in appearance.  We do what we can to make it seem more like home.  Last year our 3rd and 4th grade teachers started decorating their hallway.  They setup desks outside their rooms and decorated them using flowers and pictures.  They even made little laminated welcome doormats.  It really made a difference in atmosphere of the school and helped to create a warm, welcoming environment for their students.  This year our principal decided to make this a campus wide idea.  She gave us each a flower pot with "W.W. Bushman" and our room number written on it, along with a small tablecloth to use for our own display in the hallway outside our classrooms.  Several teachers have put plants or artificial flowers in their pots.  I decided to do something a little different.

I took my pot and tablecloth home this weekend and setup a still life with sunflowers.  Since I needed the painting to be dry enough to hang this morning, I used acrylic paints (even though I'm a die hard oil painter!)  I also took several old paintbrushes, dipped the bristles in acrylic paint, and let them dry.  I "planted" the paintbrushes in the pot, pushing the handles into a block of florist foam, and then filled in around the top with moss.  I hung the painting on the wall behind the desk, and the paintbrush boquet sits on the tablecoth covered desk in front. 

Very few of my students have ever spent much time around artwork (other than what we make at school.)  Every year we take the 4th graders on a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art, but there's usually very little in the way of a budget to try to take any other grade levels to museums or galleries.  One of my goals this year is to put up as much artwork around the school as possible.  I'm talking real artwork, paintings on canvas, framed drawings and photographs, sculptures, etc., not just the usual posters.  I hope my humble little still life will be the start of a W.W. Bushman Renaissance!

Here's the painting along with a snapshot of my table setup in the hallway:

"Bushman Sunflowers"
Mark Nesmith
Acrylic on canvas
16" x 20"