“The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature and help to shape our identity...The arts are not a frill and should not be treated as such...What is there that can transcend deep differences and stubborn divisions? I suggest the arts. They have a wonderful universality. Art has the potential to unify. It can speak in many languages without a translator. Art does not discriminate—it ignores external irrelevancies and opts for quality, talent and competence. There is a direct relationship between the arts and self-esteem... An artist creates beauty and others enjoy it . . . and thus, regard for self is enhanced... The arts can lift us all up.” Barbara Jordan, politician and educator, Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy, 1993

While success in most anything in school might be assumed to have similar spillover effects, it appears that the arts can attract students who have been pushed away from other opportunities for success in school.   Richard J. Deasy, Ed., Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, Arts Education Partnership, 2002, 155

"Arts education…is essential for all students, not just the gifted and talented. When taught well, the arts provide children with opportunities to develop creativity, to learn the tools of communication, and to create multiple solutions to problems. The arts provide individuals a language that is universal, one that cuts across the disciplines and helps to bring more coherent meaning to our world.” Betty Castor, as Florida Commissioner on Education, 1990

From 1991 to 2000, these cumulative research findings, among others, emerged from Milwaukee’s Arts in Community Education (ACE) Partnership, a program involving grades K–8 in area arts organizations and schools in eight districts. By integrating the arts across the schools’ curricula—beginning in kindergarten and continuing through each school’s highest grade—ACE helped students:
        •   Assume increased ownership of collaborative learning experiences.
        •   Apply higher levels of thinking skills across the curriculum.
        •   Gain and show knowledge of subject matter in ways that matched the way they learn best.
        •   Confidently express what they know and why.
ACE also helped students with exceptional challenges to be included in ways that fit their special learning needs.
Dr. Gregory F. DeNardo, Associate Professor of Music Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ten Years of Assessing Student Learning in the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s ACE Partnership, Wisconsin School Musician, 2003.

Beliefs, attitudes and assumptions permeate every aspect of the lives of students with various disabilities . . . Arts teachers advise their colleagues that success in working with students with various disabilities begins with believing each young person is capable of succeeding in the arts. Young people who believe they can draw, sing, paint, act, perform, play, compose or create will be able to do so regardless of their abilities or disabilities.   Dawn Ellis, researcher, A Broad Brush: Access and Arts Education Insights from School Districts, a national research report, VSA arts, 2002

[continue reading]

© 2007-2008 Woodruff Arts Center, All Rights Reserved
Funding for Woodruff 's Education Initiative was generously provided by The Goizueta Foundation, Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, Inc., The Kendeda Fund & an Anonymous Donor.

This site is best viewed with a resolution of 800x600 (or higher) and supports Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Firefox 1.0+