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6 Facts That Show the True Importance of the Arts

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6 Facts That Show the True Importance of the Arts Advocacy % %

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For decades, teachers have proclaimed that arts education is important. However, with the increasing focus on STEM education, the arts are not always recognized as a vital component of 21st century learning.

Although the emphasis on STEM is essential to meet the needs of our ever changing economy, at Art in Action we believe that putting the "A" into STEAM best prepares children with the skill set they will need to become successful, well-rounded thinkers. Here are 5 critical skills students learn through an arts education.

1. Creativity: In a word full of trained professionals and highly educated workers, creativity is one of the top skills that set someone apart from the pack. Of course, being qualified in your field is important, but having the ability to think imaginatively and bring fresh ideas to the table are essential to innovation and progress. Art education allows students to express themselves and think outside of the box.

2. Collaboration: Working together for a common purpose teaches children that their contribution is important, which is perfect for the collaborative nature of the arts. By working collaboratively on a project, students learn to communicate more effectively, compromise when necessary, and work hard even if their role may seem small. All of these skills are vital in any work environment where teams come together for a common goal.

3. Confidence: The arts create a safe space for students to explore their talents and build their confidence. Students who are shy in a normal classroom setting may gain the assurance to stand up and talk about their artwork. The sense of pride gained through a finished product encourages the students to keep trying and striving to accomplish more. With this confidence, they are more likely to take risks and step out of their comfort zone to try new things in other areas of their lives.

4. Cultural Awareness & Empathy: The arts provide a unique platform to discuss many different cultures, socioeconomic levels, and current events. Through the arts, students have a place not only to learn about different cultures than their own, but also to ask questions and be more informed about the daily struggles and realities of people who may seem different. By learning about other people, children are able to develop their ability for empathy, essential in working with people from all walks of life, and realize that we have more in common than not.

5. Critical Thinking: When students are making a work of art, the process includes conceptual and interpretational thinking that helps build their critical thinking skills including observation, reasoning, and problem-solving. During the creative process, children use logic and problem solving to strategize how to reach their intended outcome. Critical thinking skills are also in play when observing and analyzing famous works. This ability to think critically to solve problems in a unique way is key to the 21st century workplace.

For Art in Action students, the benefits of receiving an arts education are far-reaching, and essential preparation for success in the 21st Century. Through the they explore, students are able to hone their critical thinking and creativity while learning how to better work with others for a common goal.

Looking to explore how how the "A" fits into STEAM? Try out this free mini science lesson combining art with marine biology!

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Why is Arts Education Important for 21st-Century Learning? 5 Reasons to Go from STEM to STEAM

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For decades, teachers have proclaimed that arts education is important. However, with the increasing focus on STEM education, the arts are not always recognized as a vital component of 21st century learning. Although the emphasis on STEM is essential to meet the needs of our ever changing economy, at Art in Action we believe that putting the [...]

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IAA is still a public school, but now parents from outside the North End can choose to send their kids there. "Parents are interested in the arts model, interested in a different approach," Riley said. The first year most kids still came from the neighborhood, but gradually the socioeconomic levels have evened out. Wealthier families are choosing to send their kids to IAA because of its program. Riley says the majority of students still walk to school -- it hasn't lost its sense of place in the community -- but now only about half the students qualify for lunch programs.

The program is also helping connect parents from immigrant communities to the school. "Art is a big part of many of their cultures, so I think they appreciate that experience," Riley said. "I think they like the community vibe of the school."
ART IS NOT EXTRA, IT'S INTEGRAL
Art is not a second thought at the Integrated Arts Academy (IAA). Instead, artistic learning goals are held up as equals to academic standards and teachers work hard to design lessons that highlight content through art.

"If you pick a subject area like science, social studies, math or literacy and you integrate it with an art form, what you do is connect the two and find ways to really integrate the two so they lean on each other," said Judy Klima, an integrated arts coach at IAA. An arts specialist co-plans and co-teaches alongside the general education teacher to help ensure academic learning is happening through an art form and visa versa.

For example, one third-grade science unit on leaf classification integrated visual arts into science. The teaching team used the close observation of leaves in science to teach about realistic versus abstract art. Students drew realistic drawings based on a leaf's edge pattern. Then they made abstract art based on the scientific qualities of the leaf.

"When you engage hands-on and you are creating your own learning, you are deepening your level of understanding about a specific topic," Klima said. In this case, students thought differently both about classification and characteristics, as well as about the differences between art forms.

Teachers rotate through visual art forms, music, dance and theater. One fifth-grade class came up with dramatic renditions of the Revolutionary War. They used the facts in their social studies curriculum to build scripts and then discussed the dramatic connections through volume, tone of voice and perspective.
TRANSITIONING TO AN ARTS FOCUS
The Integrated Arts Academy's success has come with a lot of hard work. "If you taught in a traditional method and then you come to arts integration, you have to change everything," Klima said. "You really have to understand creativity and that it's critical to students' understanding." While all IAA teachers were given the option to stay at the school when it became a magnet, some chose to leave.

"The classroom is a teacher's island," Riley said. "They have their students and their curriculum, teaching the way they teach. The arts integration really pushed us to collaborate. Opening up our practice and reflecting on it is a big part of what we do." He said that's not the norm at many U.S. schools. And that's why he knows the collaboration necessary to integrate arts into academics doesn't necessarily come naturally to many people.

In his role as school leader, Riley has focused on building up educators' capacity to effectively collaborate. "You can't just tell people to collaborate," he said. "You have to put the structures and skill-building in place." IAA has two teacher retreats a year where teachers create art and try out lessons together. It's a time for community-building and collaboration, a space for teachers to stretch themselves as artists, too.

The school has also formed strong partnerships with the arts community in Burlington, taking advantage of its expertise through artist-in-residency programs and in turn helping to create a more vibrant arts scene. They've even started bringing graduate students in from across the state interested to learn and practice arts-integration strategies. While only in its second year, Riley hopes the Art Connect program can help spread these ideas to schools where participating teachers land.
ART AS DIFFERENTIATING TACTIC
At Cashman Elementary School in Amesbury, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Peterson doesn't have the benefit of a schoolwide focus on arts integration to bolster her commitment to the practice. But she perseveres because she sees the approach making a difference for her fourth-grade students.

"I have to keep remembering and reminding myself that this is one of the best avenues to take. Because when kids are learning through the arts, they end up getting a deeper understanding and the concepts end up sticking much better," Peterson said. Her strong suit is music -- she used to teach piano. When she went back to the general education classroom, she thought music could bring some joy and creativity to the academics she taught.

Peterson might ask her students to listen to "Sabre Dance" by Aram Khachaturian several times, often during snacks or at another transition time. As a class they talk about the dynamics of the music, its tempo and instrumentation. Then students draw cartoons illustrating a story they've developed based on their interpretation of the music. Peterson asks students to develop a setting, plot and storyline, ultimately having them write out their story.

"They're definitely more invested because they're pulling from their own experience and it's their own interpretation," Peterson said. They write elaborate stories and then talk about the differences in each student's interpretation of the music.

"Arts integration seems to be the best form of differentiation out there because it taps into so many different interests and abilities and forms of learning," Peterson said. In the writing example, kids who hate writing happily develop complicated storylines and write pages upon pages of their own ideas.
WHY ISN'T ARTS INTEGRATION MORE POPULAR?
As with most deviations from what has been done in schools for hundreds of years, many teachers see art as secondary to the academic standards they must get through. Even Peterson said she feels that pressure, but she knows she can teach the standards through art in a way that also gives students some independence to stretch their creativity.

Arts integration can also be a hard model for teachers to buy into if they don't feel like they themselves are competent artists. "Art scares people who are not in the arts," said Michelle Baldwin, a lead teacher at the private Anastasis Academy, where art is central to everything done in the classroom. "If they don't have a lot of experience or don't feel like they are good at anything in the arts, it becomes a personal insecurity issue."

But she points out that teachers don't have to be experts to open up the door for students. There are experts willing to share their knowledge online, not to mention collaborations with local and state arts organizations to support this kind of work.

Elizabeth Peterson often feels out of her depth in visual arts, but that doesn't mean she discourages it in her class. "I'm not a very good illustrator, but if you bring it into your classroom, some of your students might be," she said. "Having an atmosphere of being open to various art forms is all your students need."

Despite calls for more art in schools, artistic ability often isn't recognized as a skill equal to computer coding or engineering by society. Many parents want their kids to study something that clearly leads to a stable job. Until the arts are held in high esteem, they will always come second in traditional schools, Baldwin said.

"Even if parents say they value the arts, they still have that ingrained industrial method of education that people have a hard time letting go of," Baldwin said. And, in her opinion, it's very hard to be creative within the narrow limitations of what traditional school and its standards ask kids to do. "You can't be creative when you are in a box, when you have no way to make your own choices and decisions," she said.

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How Integrating Arts Into Other Subjects Makes Learning Come Alive | KQED

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Several schools, including ones in high-poverty areas, are making art critical to the learning of more academic subjects. They're seeing remarkable student improvement as a result of arts integration.

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Science units are sometimes culminated with some kind of "art project" that often includes a "craftivity," where students cut and assemble something, like a penguin or a polar bear, for example. Teachers can easily take it further with a direct draw lesson that breaks the animal down to its essential shapes. If studying habitats, what about drawing or painting them as an assessment tool? Drawing is a great way for students to show what they know, as it encourages them to include details they might otherwise overlook.

Studying the human body? What a perfect opportunity for incorporating a lesson on drawing people or doing self-portraits. Include a math component here by focusing on the proportions of a human body. A human head is approximately 1/8 of the total body height. Fractions, anyone?

What if students are asked to construct 3D models, with or without plans or a template, out of a variety of materials (cardboard, construction paper, aluminum foil)? What a great introduction to sculpture as an art form!

There is so much math in art! From the precision of perspective drawings to the looseness of the abstract impressionist's shapes and lines, to the geometric use of shapes in paintings from artists like Piet Mondrian and Pablo Picasso, math and art often intersect. Math instruction can be supplemented with art lessons that include concepts from geometry, measurement, or fractions.

Simple abstract art lessons that incorporate math include simple shape tracing activities that may use repetition, overlapping, and lots of patterning. Students can reinforce their understanding of patterns with many different kinds of art lessons and techniques such as printmaking, drawing, and stamping. An art activity as simple as tracing shapes and filling each one with a different pattern can be made very simple for younger students and more challenging for older students.

Think geography, regions, and landforms. A logical connection here is to have students draw or paint landscapes. If you are lucky enough to be at a school that has mountains or other interesting landforms nearby, this art lesson can be taken outside for "plein aire" drawing, requiring students to observe the environment. Take clipboards and some colored pencils. Or draw with crayons, then bring the drawings in and paint over them with watercolors for a lesson in wax-resist, color mixing, and color theory.

When learning about communities, students can create drawings of cityscapes, perhaps on black paper with white chalk drawings for a lesson in using negative space. For a more artistic adventure, take an extra half hour for students to do a quick watercolor wash in warm or cool colors, and then cut out their cityscapes and glue them onto the watercolor wash for a "sky" background. A lesson like this can also include patterning and symmetry, bringing in another math component!

What elementary classroom teacher hasn't asked students to draw an illustration for a story and then been disappointed with drawings that are small, incomplete, and messy? Given just a little more time and some basic instruction and tips, students can turn out quality illustrations to enhance any kind of student work.

A friend once asked me to do a lesson on making book covers with his 3rd grade students because he was disappointed in the covers they were making. I had the students do some close looking at several picture book covers, did a quick overview of people drawing strategies, and made some composition suggestions, like using bold colors and large drawings. And I gave them white paper. It took less than three hours, and my teacher friend was thrilled with what they had produced, compared to their original attempts.

Looking at and talking about art, starting with picture book illustrations and moving on to great art works, can help teach, reinforce, and review language arts concepts, such as making comparisons (Picasso vs. Klee), identifying main ideas (what's going on in this painting?), finding details (what do you see?), and distinguishing fact from opinion (what you see vs. what you think). Discussions about art works can build vocabulary, encourage students to talk about their observations, teach about other cultures, and give students ideas for their own illustrations and other art work.

Integrating authentic art instruction across the curriculum is a win-win: It lets students express themselves, teaches them responsibility and problem-solving, gives them an alternate way to interpret and enhance what they learn, and more. Perhaps most importantly, it engages and includes those visual learners who need pictures to help them interpret and understand the world around them.

Authentic art instruction requires student creativity to drive the finished product. It includes looking at famous art works as historical, cultural, and meaningful. It facilitates students to think about line, color, texture, value, and space. It increases vocabulary, generates discussion, facilitates problem-solving, and can teach respect for the ideas of others.

Moving beyond simple cut-and-paste craftivities (which also develop important skills, to be sure) and carelessly-drawn stick people (a lazy habit) and into authentic art lessons that foster creativity and self-expression does not require vast amounts of extra time, and the benefits are tremendous.

Asking students to think and work like artists presents opportunities that foster self-expression and problem-solving and can help them find new and creative ways to demonstrate their learning. Download my free resource for teachers, Making Time for Art, for more ideas and suggestions for creating an art-friendly classroom, and check out my blog, Creating Art with Kids, for narratives on art lessons.

And go ahead... Make some time for art!

Renée Goularte is a retired elementary teacher, a former art instructor, a working artist, and a writer. She has taught all elementary grades from K-5 and with special groups, including GATE, ELL, and at-risk students, and is dedicated to helping non-art teachers bring more authentic art instruction into their classrooms. Read more about her art lessons on her blog, Creating Art with Kids, and get more ideas for integrating art across the curriculum with Making Time for Art, a free resource from her TeachersPayTeachers store.

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Integrating Art Across the Curriculum - Minds in Bloom

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Minds in Bloom presents Renée Goularte, a former art-instructor, a working artist, and a writer, with her post on integrating art into your curriculum. If you are a teacher, chances are you've said it: "We have no time for art." Chances are equally good that you believe that art is important.

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For example, students may create "mood mandalas" by drawing and coloring symbols to convey their inner worlds. They can also paint their worries on small "comfort" boxes and fill the container with personal items that bring solace. Others list their insecurities in "place book" journals, including healing words, like "Learn to accept your flaws and learn to accept beauty." All group members receive "place books" where they privately record their thoughts and feelings.

During each gathering, Wardrip shares phrases like, "Remember, you don't feel better by feeling less" and "Your thoughts are always valid." Using these prompts, she invites students to begin a discussion. Although they're not required to participate, most of them do. For many students, being surrounded by a community of nonjudgmental listeners helps them open up, and kids who once felt afraid begin to feel brave, according to Wardrip.
Mental Health is Personal
Mental illness is a topic Wardrip knows intimately. For nearly a decade, she silently battled depression, hiding her psychological pain from family and friends.

"My depression never made sense to me," she says. "I didn't understand why I felt hopeless when I had a good life. I stayed quiet because I didn't want people to think less of me."

It wasn't until Wardrip began a graduate school program, Creative Pulse at the University of Montana, that she began to heal from her depression. Creative Pulse is a master's program, teaching educators how to integrate art, creativity, movement and mindfulness into the classroom.

"In my program, I was challenged to do the most important thing I could do for myself, which helped me open up about my depression and suicidal tendencies. I firmly believe the program saved my life," says Wardrip.

During her graduate studies, she relied on art and mindfulness to help her access and express emotions she had kept bottled up for years. Eventually, Wardrip opened up to close family and friends. Her journey taught her that shame often prevents people from seeking psychological care.

Unfortunately, Wardrip's experience is not unusual. Although depression and anxiety are the most common mental health concerns, surveys have found that 80 percent of adolescents with a diagnosable anxiety disorder and 60 percent of depressed kids do not receive treatment. In fact, a recent survey conducted by Kaiser Permanente found 55 percent of people view depression as a personal weakness, and 24 percent of millennials believe most people can recover without professional services, like psychotherapy.*

"I realize how stigma is silencing, especially for adolescents. I want to be a role model for our students, which is why I began Creative Courage," says Wardrip.

Many of the kids in Wardrip's 10-week group struggle with depression, anxiety and gender dysphoria. Others feel lonely and out of place. All of these students are searching for someone who can understand their suffering.

To help create a safe space, Wardrip begins each meeting with a wellness check-in, followed by a guided meditation and an art-related activity. Her group combines creative process with psychological theory.
Art Equity
According to the American Art Therapy Association, artistic expression may decrease anxiety, feelings of anger and depression. This creative process can also enhance cognitive abilities, foster greater self-awareness and help students regulate their emotions.

Despite these findings, there's an equity gap in arts education. A survey conducted in 2012 by the Department of Education discovered students in low-poverty schools were more likely to receive art instruction than kids attending high-poverty schools. While proposed federal cuts could eliminate art education in many schools, teachers like Wardrip advocate for art inclusion.

"Art teaches kids problem-solving and decision-making skills," says Wardrip. "Creativity also promotes identity development, helping students find their 'place' in the world."

Wardrip finds that by the end of the 10-week course, students begin to heal. Her data from last year's group suggest participants' symptoms of anxiety and depression lessened by 40 percent. To measure this change, each group member completed an anxiety and depression questionnaire: one before the group began, and another after completing the course.

For many of these kids, art becomes a tool, helping them to share their authentic selves in a community that understands.
Juli Fraga is a psychologist and writer in San Francisco. You can find her on Twitter @dr_fraga *This post has been updated to more accurately reflect the results of the survey.

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How Making Art Helps Teens Better Understand Their Mental Health | KQED

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For example, students may create "mood mandalas" by drawing and coloring symbols to convey their inner worlds. They can also paint their worries on small "comfort" boxes and fill the container with personal items that bring solace. Others list their insecurities in "place book" journals, including healing words, like "Learn to accept your flaws and learn to accept beauty."

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Teaching Art for Social Change: An Interview With Art Teacher Meredith McDevitt

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Arts Integration In School: 10 Reasons Why It's Important - Seneca Academy

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At Seneca Academy, arts integration has always been part of our curriculum, whether fine arts, music, drama, or movement.

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Creating art relieves stress, encourages creative thinking, increases brain plasticity, and imparts other mental health benefits. And anyone can do art.
"Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life."
- Pablo Picasso

There are a lot of misconceptions floating around about art.

Some think you have to be creating paintings or sculptures to be considered a real artist.

Others believe that you are either born with talent - or not.

Many who don't consider themselves to be artistic feel that there is no point in creating art since they won't be satisfied with the results.

Another myth is that you have to work with an art therapist to get any therapeutic benefit from doing art.

But we are all born with an innate desire to express ourselves and art encompasses a wider range of activities than you might imagine.

Here are some of the best ways in which creative expression can benefit mental health - making you a happier, healthier person.

How Creating Art Relieves Stress

Activities like painting, sculpting, drawing, and photography are relaxing and rewarding hobbies that can lower your stress level and leave you feeling mentally clear and calm.

Creating art provides a distraction, giving your brain a break from your usual thoughts.

The average person has 60,000 thoughts per day and 95% of them are exactly the same day in, day out! ( 1)

When you get totally immersed in a creative endeavor, you may find yourself in what's known as "the zone" or a state of "flow."

This meditative-like state focuses your mind and temporarily pushes aside all your worries.

Leonardo da Vinci proclaimed that "Painting embraces all the ten functions of the eye; that is to say, darkness, light, body and color, shape and location, distance and closeness, motion and rest."

Creating art trains you to concentrate on details and pay more attention to your environment.

In this way, it acts like meditation.

A popular art trend for stress relief is adult coloring books.

This idea was first popularized in France, a country that's number one in per capita consumption of antidepressants, tranquilizers, and sleeping pills. ( 2)

Some coloring books are created with stress relief in mind and have become an acceptable adult form of artistic expression.

Many art therapists are supportive of the movement and would like to see coloring become a gateway to reach those who could benefit from art therapy. ( 3)

So far, this has worked to gently transition veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) into art therapy. ( 4)

Art Encourages Creative Thinking

Dr. Lawrence Katz is an internationally recognized pioneer in neuron regeneration research and author of Keep Your Brain Alive: 83 Neurobic Exercises to Help Prevent Memory Loss and Increase Mental Fitness.

He found that mental decline was due mainly to the loss of communication between brain cells, not from the death of brain cells themselves. ( 5)

Dr. Katz coined the phrase "neurobics" to describe brain exercises that use your senses in new and novel ways, and creating art certainly fits this definition.

Art enhances problem-solving skills. ( 6)

Unlike math, there is no one correct answer in art.

Art encourages creative thinking and lets you come up with your own unique solutions.

Out-of-the-box thinking also stimulates your brain to grow new neurons.

Contrary to popular belief, creative thinking does not mean using the right side of your brain.

Creativity involves getting both hemispheres of your brain to communicate with each other. ( 7)

The concept of left-brain right-brain dominance never had a strong foundation in science in the first place, and now this theory has been totally debunked.

It also promotes the stereotype that you can't be both analytical and creative, which is obviously not true.

Some of the greatest minds of all time, including Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein, were simultaneously analytical and creative.

The most complicated functions that humans perform, such as thinking creatively, learning a language, or playing or listening to music, all require whole-brain thinking. ( 8, 9)

Art Boosts Self-Esteem, Provides a Sense of Accomplishment

You may stick your kids' artwork on the refrigerator door to boost their self-esteem.

Hanging your latest work of art on the wall can instill the same feeling in you.

Creating art increases the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine.

Dopamine has been called the "motivation molecule."

It boosts drive, focus, and concentration.

It enables you to plan ahead and resist impulses so that you can achieve your goals.

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It gives you that "I did it!" lift when you accomplish what you set out to do.

Dopamine stimulates the creation of new neurons and prepares your brain for learning. ( 10)

You don't have to produce fine art to reap the benefits of creating.

Crafting hobbies of all kinds - knitting, quilting, sewing, drawing, photography, woodworking, gardening, and do-it-yourself home repair - increase dopamine, ward off depression, and protect the brain from aging. ( 11)

How Art Affects the Brain: Increased Connectivity and Plasticity

Every time you engage in a new or complex activity, your brain creates new connections between brain cells.

Your brain's ability to grow connections and change throughout your lifetime is called brain plasticity, or neuroplasticity.

Creating art stimulates communication between various parts of the brain.

In this way, creating art has been proven to increase psychological and emotional resilience and resistance to stress. ( 12)

It's thought that intelligence depends more on the number of brain connections than the size of your brain. ( 13)

How Art Makes Children Better Students for Life

Educators and parents alike have long suspected that music and arts programs make better students.

Now, with neuroimaging, science can finally back this up.

Children with musical training perform better in math, language, and reading. ( 14, 15)

Early music lessons enhance brain plasticity and increase blood flow to the brain. ( 16, 17)

There's evidence that the brain-enhancing benefits of music lessons received during childhood can follow through adulthood and last a lifetime. ( 18, 19)

The benefits of visual art programs are equally impressive.

Art lessons increase brain plasticity, fluid intelligence, IQ, and attention.

They improve overall behavior and reduce impulsiveness. ( 20)

Unfortunately, educational budget cuts have slashed music and arts programs across the US in recent years.

Considering the lifelong benefits of art training, this is a short-sighted policy.

Viewing Art Increases Empathy, Tolerance, and Feelings of Love

A study of over 10,000 students found that a one-hour trip to an art museum changed the way they thought and felt.

Students who visited a museum not only showed increased critical thinking skills, they also exhibited greater empathy regarding how people lived in the past and expressed greater tolerance towards people different than themselves. ( 21)

Professor Semir Zeki, a neurobiologist at the University College London, discovered that simply the act of viewing art gives pleasure, much like falling in love.

Brain scans revealed that looking at works of art triggers a surge of dopamine in the same area of the brain that registers romantic love. ( 22)

For most of us, it's not possible to visit an art museum every day, but you can get your daily dose of culture with the Daily Art app.

This app shares an interesting background story on one painting masterpiece each day.

Creating Art Improves Quality of Life for Dementia Patients

Art enhances cognitive abilities and memory, even for people with serious brain disorders.

Dementia is mainly thought of as a memory loss problem, but patients also experience other symptoms such as agitation, aggression, anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

Drug treatment for dementia symptoms is generally not very successful.

When dementia patients are encouraged to create visual art, they derive obvious pleasure from it.

It improves their social behavior and self-esteem, and reduces psychiatric symptoms. ( 23)

Dr. Arnold Bresky is a physician who has created a program called the "Brain Tune Up" that utilizes art therapy for Alzheimer's and dementia patients. ( 24)

He reports that 70% of his patients experience improvements in memory when they draw or paint.

He believes that these activities increase connectivity between the right and left hemispheres of the brain and help to grow new brain cells.

Art Eases the Burden of Chronic Health Conditions

Millions of people deal with chronic health conditions and the stress, anxiety, and depression that accompany them.

In The Connection Between Art, Healing, and Public Health: A Review of Current Literature, researchers analyzed and reported on the findings of over 100 studies done on the benefits of art on physical and psychological health.
They found that music and visual arts affected patients in these positive ways:

Art let patients forget about their illness for a while, allowing them to focus on positive life experiences.

Creating art enabled them to maintain the identity of who they were before they got sick.

Creative pursuits gave them a sense of achievement.

The creation process helped patients express their feelings.

Art reduced stress by lowering levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Dr. John Graham-Pole is a retired pediatric oncologist who wrote poetry to process some of the grim realities he faced working at a hospital. ( 25)

He developed informal art workshops to help both patients and staff cope better with whatever was happening to them through writing and painting.

He believes that "Art is a social determinant of our health. It doesn't cure a particular disease, but benefits whatever ails you."

Art Exercises to Do at Home

Albert Einstein said that "Creativity is intelligence having fun."

If it's been a long time since you had fun expressing yourself creatively, you might not know how to begin.

If that's the case, check out this list of 100 Art Therapy Exercises.

You don't have to have any particular artistic skills to get started.

Some of these exercises are craft-like, such as making a dreamcatcher.

If you are more into "cut and paste" than drawing or painting, there are several ideas for creating collages.

For those who are more analytical, you can start by creating a mind map to visualize your thoughts or feelings.

If you don't want to share what you are doing with others, use sand, chalk, or water to create temporary art.

Buddhists create intricate sand mandalas, circular designs with concentric shapes, that are intentionally swept or washed away upon completion.

These creations are a meditation on life's impermanence.

Keep in mind as you create that using art therapeutically is about the journey - not about the end product.

Creating Art vs Art Therapy

Anyone can benefit from creating art, but sometimes it's best to seek professional help.

Art therapists are health care professionals with backgrounds in both art and psychology or counseling.

They usually have a masters degree and must complete 1,000 supervised hours working with clients.

Art therapy can be used to improve physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

You should consider art therapy if you are experiencing any of these situations: ( 26)

high-stress occupation

mental health disorder

learning disability

brain injury

chronic illness

Art therapy is also recommended for children or teens who are having personal problems or trouble in school.

Art used as therapy has successfully helped people with anxiety, depression, addictions, PTSD, chronic pain, cancer, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder, dementia and Alzheimer's, and other serious physical and mental health conditions.

If you feel you could benefit from art therapy, you can find an art therapist in your area using Psychology Today's search tool.

The video below, Can Art Be Medicine?, shows some real-life examples of how art is used as therapy.

Particularly moving is the story of a Marine with PTSD who used art therapy to express his pain in a safe way and lift his emotional burden in a way that nothing else had been able to do.

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The Mental Health Benefits of Art Are for Everyone

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Creating art relieves stress, encourages creative thinking, increases brain plasticity, and imparts other mental health benefits. And anyone can do art. "Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." - Pablo Picasso There are a lot of misconceptions floating around about art.

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Art education matters, so what’s the problem? | Laura Mack | TEDxSalem

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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"Ya gotta have art!" That was the slogan for the Detroit Institute of Arts back in the 1970s (forever immortalized by this joyfully catchy commercial), but the sentiment has never been truer.

You do need art. We all do, and not just for high-brow reasons.

Over the past few decades, there has been a growing movement in public education and government circles to cut funding to the arts.

However, if you actually take the time to look at the data available, you'll find the arts have a very tangible, measurable, and essential impact on our lives. It doesn't matter if you're an elementary school student or if you haven't been in school for decades-the arts enrich all of us, sometimes in ways we'd never suspect.
Here are five BIG reasons why art and arts education are more important now than ever
1). Art Benefits Students... ALL Students

You've probably heard that arts curriculum is beneficial to students, but did you know that it benefits all students, even the ones who aren't particularly artsy?

The work of advocacy organizations like Park West Foundation and Turnaround Arts -programs that specialize in bringing the arts to underperforming schools-has proven that both right- and left-brained kids really do benefit from arts education.

A two-year study revealed that students who participated in programs like Turnaround witnessed an overall 22.5 percent increase in math scores and 12.6 percent improvement in reading scores. If that wasn't enough, there is further evidence that schools with arts programs do better on standardized test scores as well.

2). Art Makes You Healthier

The National Endowment for the Arts recently released research from the University of Michigan, which notes that: "Older adults who both created art and attended arts events reported higher cognitive functioning and lower rates of both hypertension and limitations to their physical functioning than did adults who neither created nor attended art."

It's nice to know continued involvement in the arts doesn't just benefit youngsters. Even when you're grown, art literally makes your smarter, stronger, and faster!

3). The Arts Put America to Work

Yes, art can nourish our souls, but it can nourish our families as well. The next time you hear someone suggest that arts funding isn't an essential expense, remind them that the nonprofit arts and culture industry drove $166.3 billion of economic activity during 2015, according to the Americans for the Arts' fifth Arts & Economic Prosperity study.

This activity includes 4.6 million jobs and $27.5 billion in government revenue every year. (Wow.)

4). Art Makes Us Happier

The arts can make your kids smarter, they can make you stronger, and they can put money in your pocket, but they're not done yet-they can also make you feel better too.

Research from the University of Western Australia suggests that exposure to the arts for just two hours every week can drastically improve your mental health and overall well-being. It can be active exposure, like painting a picture, or passive exposure, like strolling through a gallery or museum.

Regardless, in the words of the researchers, "Arts engagement increases happiness, confidence, self-esteem and reduces stress and social isolation."

5). Art Teaches Us How to Dream

We're reminded of this fact on a daily basis at Park West Gallery-how art has that unique ability to inspire deeper meanings. Take, for example, this picture sent to us from one of our collectors, Rebecca Blackman, of her young son Romeo:

"From an early age we encouraged Romeo to express his deepest feels with his art, way before he could even speak, and because of this he has grown very fond of art and the art world alike," Blackman says. "Every passing day, new creations are being made by Romeo, which is really amazing to see, his imagination taking off, and his natural talents flourishing."

Even if you're not as talented an artist as Romeo, there's something about art that teaches us to imagine, aspire, and dream. Can you think of anything more important than that?

Whether you appreciate art on a physical or a metaphysical level, we hope everyone realizes the importance of arts education for people of all ages and continues to support the arts. Because, remember, you gotta have art.
Every year, we observe National Arts in Education Week, a celebration of "the transformative power of the arts in education," which truly stresses how vital the arts can be to young people and society as a whole. You can learn more about National Arts in Education Week and, if you'd like to know more about the work being done by the Park West Foundation to support arts education and the welfare of young adults, you can learn more here.

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5 Reasons Why Arts Education Is Important For EVERYONE

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Why is art important? Not only does it enrich our souls, but it also adds real, tangible value to almost every aspect of our society. Here are five big reasons why art and arts education are more important than ever.

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Why Art is Important to High School Students

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The Importance of Art Education | StarTalk

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How Technology is Remaking Arts Education

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STEAM - The Importance of Arts in Education

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A #JETSpress production. Created by Sam Whitaker and Becky Miller at James Clemens High School in Madison, Alabama.

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New evidence of the benefits of arts education | Brookings

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New findings provide strong evidence that arts educational experiences can produce significant positive impacts on academic and social development for students.

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Today is another Why do the Arts Matter post here at Artist Strong. There is so much talk right now in the Education world about the importance of the arts. But where is the practice? We can talk all we want, but if we don't put money where our mouths are, we are still saying the arts are unimportant. This series of articles, called Why Do the Arts Matter? are meant to be a tool you can share with others to promote and argue why it is so important to support and celebrate our arts programs and culture.
Art is an emotional outlet for the artist.
There are SO many reasons why the arts are important. Today, let's talk about art as emotional outlet.
This is perhaps the most widely accepted and understood use of the arts. When people talk about art, often the notion of emotion or message is discussed. Often the lives of the artists are also discussed as context for emotional artworks.

Artists that immediately come to mind include Frida Kahlo and Vincent van Gogh. In fact, the tie between emotion and the arts is so strong that people often jump to the conclusion that artists are emotionally unstable!

This article also resonates personally because I know many a time in my life where I have accessed my artist skills to channel and digest emotional events or moments in my life. When there has been a loss in my life, art has been a way to reflect and say goodbye to someone I love. When I faced major illness, art was a way to take a break from the fears of surgery and its possible complications.

Let's look at Frida Kahlo. She was a passionate, determined and sickly artist. At one point in her young life Frida was involved in a cable car accident where a pole pierced through her uterus and body nearly killing her. For the rest of her life she was in constant pain and discomfort and had dozens of surgeries to try to alleviate her discomfort.

Her health was so poor she often spent her days laying on a bed. And it was here, laying down, that she would paint. If you take any time looking at her journal you can see how art was a means for her to channel her frustrations, fears and hopes. And taking a look at any of her paintings, people often describe her work as violent, intense, emotional.

Look at this unfinished work entitled Frida and the Cesarean. What kind of choices did Frida Kahlo make to enhance the emotion expressed in her work? Her work was largely autobiography, yet it resonates with others enough that her journals are published, she is in art history texts and her artwork are in museums across the world.

Or consider Vincent van Gogh. The man was poor and mentally ill, but entirely driven by his art. Letters to his brother always talked about his drive to succeed as an artist, but also his need to make art. When he was committed to an asylum, he would spend hours and days painting to channel his anxiety and depression.

The connection between emotion and the arts is strong enough a branch of psychology now deals with using the arts to help people through treatment of Post Traumatic Stress or for empowerment and communication after cases of abuse.

While some in psychology question the validity of art therapy, institutions are growing in their respect and use of the discipline to help people of all ages. For example, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia uses art and music therapy with its patients. And here is an article by the National Institute of Health about using art therapy to work with adolescents.

Today I've only really addressed how art is an emotional outlet for the individual. What are the implications for our community and society for having this outlet for the individual?

If we celebrated the use of art to help those with mental illness or emotional struggle, would we better protect and support the individual and their families?

We have a mental health crisis in the United States that we are ignoring. Could we sooner identify people with emotional need? Could the art people make channeling their emotions help others connect and relate to be a more open and accepting society?

Why Do the Arts Matter? Because the arts are a means of emotional expression for people in an increasingly stressful, busy, and confusing world. The arts allow people to channel their emotions to the benefit of themselves and others to live more fulfilled lives. It makes our world a better place to live.
ARTIST STRONG reflection: What other artists do you know that use art as means of emotional channel? What institutions help us harness the arts for those going through emotional struggle?

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Why do the Arts Matter? Art as an Emotional Outlet.

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Today is another Why do the Arts Matter post here at Artist Strong. There is so much talk right now in the Education world about the importance of the arts. But where is the practice? We can talk all we want, but if we don't put money where our mouths are, we are still saying the arts are unimportant.

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BY Karen Wang

Recently my son Louie came home from school with a decoupage vase filled with handmade paper flowers. He explained that he tore strips of paper, dipped them in a glue mixture and spread them on the vase to make a pattern. He said that he folded tissue paper and attached it to green pipe cleaners to make the flowers. My husband and I listened attentively to his detailed description, but we had to ask, "Where did you make your art project?"

"In speech with Mrs. P," he replied.

I thought to myself, that speech therapist is a genius.

But my husband was dismayed: "Why aren't they doing speech in speech therapy?" he asked.

"This IS the speech therapy. I'll bet those students didn't stop talking during the whole project," I said.

Sometimes its the extras that count

Special education is full of data and goals; "extras" such as fine or performing arts often fall by the wayside in the drive to achieve those goals. But more and more teachers, therapists and organizations are recognizing the fact that some students learn most effectively through the arts.

For example, there are cases of non-verbal students who can sing before they learn to talk. Social and adaptive skills can be taught through drama, as demonstrated in the Friendship Circle's drama program, in which participants write and perform their own musical. Science, math and other academic subjects can be made more accessible through drawing, painting, sculpting and mixed media. And that's just the beginning. The arts may offer a quantifiable strategy to develop skills and knowledge for students in special education.

So, what's the evidence?

Research has consistently demonstrated that involvement in the arts increases student achievement across all subject areas, as well as social and adaptive skills. Part of this is due to the multi-sensory nature of the arts: memory and cognition improve when academic content is combined with color-coding, movement, rhythm, sound phrases, textures and other sensory input.

For example, when my son draws a diagram, map or visual interpretation for homework, he is more likely to remember the key terms and concepts. Medical studies have found that participation in creative arts reduces stress, which in turn enhances the ability to learn. In addition, because procedural memory is more reliable than short-term memory, the daily drills and routines of music, dance and drama classes allow a person with special needs to retain that knowledge and experience.

But for therapeutic goals, music therapy has the largest body of evidence to support its efficacy for students in special education, especially those with autism . Scientists hypothesize that music engages the mirror neuron system in the human brain, which supports development in sensory-motor integration, speech and social skills. Music therapy can be individualized to accomplish goals in fine motor skills, speech, social skills, emotional processing and memory.

Bringing the arts into self-contained classrooms

Many self-contained classrooms already take time every day for music and movement. Some school districts also have a music therapist either on staff or under contract to provide services for students in special education. In these cases, the therapist comes to the classroom and provides lessons tailored to the students' needs and goals.

My friend Libby campaigns and fundraises every year to bring music therapy to her 7 year old son Sid's classroom, because she has seen the positive effects firsthand: "Since he started music therapy, I have noticed that Sid has been trying to communicate more, his eye contact is better, he seems to want to connect with me more. One song he learned at music therapy is "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles. He has been singing that around the house non-stop!"

Not Just for Music Therapists

Therapists in other fields such as speech and social work can also use the arts to work on specific goals. When I was listening to my son explain the art project that he made in speech therapy, I understood that he was working on the following goals:

receptive language

comprehending and following a multi-step process

requesting items needed for each step

using "I" statements to describe preferences in color and style

using appropriate third-person pronouns to describe the work of other students

tolerating different textures (wet, dry, sticky)

developing fine motor skills

Projects may be modified for different purposes, depending on the situation. For example, a facilitator may choose to focus on emotional aspects of creativity or creative problem solving skills, or, in the case of drama therapy, emerging literacy skills through the practice and recitation of a script. The book " Making Art Special: A Curriculum for Special Education Art " by Helen Shafton has more than fifty adaptable lesson plans that can be coordinated with classroom goals.

Using the arts as the means for inclusion

When I went to parent-teacher conferences at my son's middle school last year, his art teacher confessed sheepishly, "I didn't even realize that Louie had special needs until it was time to collect the projects, and I asked him why his wasn't finished. He followed instructions just fine and worked cooperatively with the other students. He just needed extra time for his work."

I wasn't sure if I should be pleased or dismayed. On the one hand, Louie was sitting with friends and the teacher had the same expectations of all students, regardless of ability. On the other hand, the teacher really should have looked at Louie's IEP at the beginning of the semester!

Because art, music and drama classes are based on creative expression instead of test scores, they are usually the first choice for inclusion. Students with special needs can assist the teacher with organizational duties just like all the other students. They have the opportunity to explore creative media in small groups alongside general education peers. Since there is more than one "right" answer, students have the opportunity to appreciate and enjoy each other's work - that's social inclusion at its best.

Last month Louie performed in his school's spring choir concert. I am in frequent contact with the teacher, who sends home notes and worksheets to help Louie practice. As a result, my son has developed a strong sense of competency and confidence, and it's difficult for me to keep a dry eye while he sings his heart out on stage. The arts provide the perfect opportunity for him to give his personal best.

In a 2011 lecture for the National Art Education Association, special educator and art educator Beverly Levett Gerber said, "Art education for students with special needs is filled with 'No's' - 'No money, no time, no space, no materials, sorry - never done that before.' Special education taught me the value of working with others...Together, art educators and special educators can be a powerful voice."

So don't accept "no" for an answer. Get creative today.

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The Importance of the Arts in Special Education - Friendship Circle - Special Needs Blog

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Special education is full of data and goals; "extras" such as fine or performing arts often fall by the wayside in the drive to achieve those goals. But more and more teachers, therapists and organizations are recognizing the fact that some students learn most effectively through the arts.

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Why is Art Important in Schools | Parenting Tips & Advice

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Why is art important in schools? Simple creative activities are some of the building blocks of childhood development and help prepare your child for life! Read more on PBS KIDS for Parents.

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Every chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts must advocate for arts education. The arts need a voice in power, say people in the field, someone in the corridors of influence to argue the benefits of teaching the nation's students about classical and jazz music, ballet, and sculpture. With No Child Left Behind (NCLB) emphasizing math and reading, business and manufacturing leaders calling for workplace readiness in our graduates, and politicians citing lagging international competitiveness in science and math, the Arts Endowment chairman must utilize the bully pulpit more than ever before. Dance, music, theater, and visual arts show up ever further down the priority ladder, and arts educators feel that they must fight to maintain even a toehold in the curriculum. The Arts Endowment chairman, they insist, must help.

It is no surprise, then, that in a November 2009 profile in the Wall Street Journal, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Rocco Landesman offers pointed remarks when arts education comes up. Examine closely what he singles out about the field:

When [Landesman] starts talking about his ideas for integrating the arts in education, his rhetoric becomes less bipartisan: "We're going to try to move forward all the kids who were left behind by 'No Child Left Behind'-the kids who have talent or a passion or an idiosyncratic perspective. Those kids are important too and they should have a place in society. It's very often the arts that catches them."

The emphasis falls on the unusual student, the difficult kid, not on the arts as a subject for study. Landesman doesn't defend arts education as a rigorous discipline that builds concentration and requires practice, practice, practice. Nor does he say, We need arts education to keep alive the legacy of American art-Thomas Cole, Martha Graham, Duke Ellington... He doesn't highlight the provocative stuff with something like, We need arts education to train young people to comprehend innovative, boundary-breaking art. Instead, the purpose is salvation. Some students don't fit the NCLB regime and other subjects don't inspire them. Talented but offbeat, they sulk through algebra, act up in the cafeteria, and drop out of school. The arts "catch" them and pull them back, turning a sinking ego on the margins into a creative citizen with "a place in society."
Saving Kids with Art
To educators outside the arts field, it sounds like an odd approach to a school subject. If you want to advocate a field, you have to justify it as a discipline. It has to form a body of knowledge and skills that students study at least partly for its own sake. In the case of the arts, a graduated curriculum would incorporate technical skills and art history and theory, just as English language arts integrate literacy skills and the lineages of English, American, and world literatures. Yes, arts learning may have social and moral and professional benefits, but if people don't value the materials of the fields themselves-if they can't say that if High School X doesn't acquaint students with Renaissance painting, classical music, and modern dance, its graduates will be undereducated-then arts educators lose in the competition for funds and hours in the day. Arts education remains an extracurricular, and school administrators focused on math and reading can push it aside: The arts are fine, so let kids who are interested in them study in an afterschool program like band practice.

The arts-saves-kids rationale crops up frequently near the centers of political power. I heard it repeated time and again while working on arts education policy at the Arts Endowment from 2003 to 2005. In gatherings such as the thrice-yearly meetings hosted by the Arts Education Partnership (AEP), a venture funded by the Arts Endowment and the U.S. Department of Education, arts education directors at state arts councils, officers at foundations, community arts school leaders, and various education-school professors outlined programs and research that related arts in classrooms directly to students in classrooms, especially to low-income, minority, at-risk, and underserved populations. Participants tended not to be classroom teachers, but to come from a network of public agencies, nonprofits, and academic centers, such as the Arts in Education Program at Harvard University. Their job was promotion, not instruction, their audience funders and politicians and school administrators, not students. They didn't talk much about the arts canon (Shakespeare, Beethoven, etc.) or the interpretation of forms and contents (how to understand ancient tragedy, modern dance, etc.). Nor did they offer practical strategies for teachers and administrators who want to maintain the arts but face budget cuts and faceless bureaucracies. Instead, they talked about where to find money, how to build alliances, react to new policies, and firm up political support. And their preferred mode of vindication was to cast arts education as an agent of social change and individual transformation. As Dick Deasy, director of the Partnership (who retired in 2008), liked to say, "Teachers don't teach a subject-they teach kids."

In 2004, for instance, the Arts Endowment sponsored a summer institute organized by the Ohio Arts Council in Dayton. The stated aim was to bring educators from around the state together to hear about ways of strengthening arts curricula in schools. The headline speaker the first day was Harvard professor Jessica Hoffman Davis, who gave a rousing summary of what arts learning does for kids, stating at one point that the arts, among other things, allow schools to get away from letter grades. In the breakout sessions, participants had a common reply: "That was great, but we already believe in the arts. We need to find more classrooms, more resources, more money!"

In such discussions, the social dimension, the salvation purpose, overrode more mundane concerns. In a plenary session of the September 2003 AEP forum at Lincoln Center in New York, Kurt Wootton of Brown University offered a representative vignette in histrionic detail. After asking everybody in the room to say hello to people sitting nearby and to explain why they were there, he illustrated why the arts are "uniquely positioned to create social opportunities for learning." (The address is reproduced on AEP's web site in You Want to Be a Part of Everything: The Arts, Community, and Learning.) His proof came in the form of the story of Carlos, "a real gangster." According to one of his teachers, Carlos was "the bad boy of the neighborhood," a tough kid who "didn't take s- from anyone." He spent his first two years of high school on suspension, in detention, and now and then in class. Teachers dreaded his presence and administrators threw up their hands.

But in English class, something special happened. Carlos read at a 5th-grade level, but in discussions of Othello and Of Mice and Men, "he always had something interesting, and more often comical, to add to the class." As the year progressed, his commitment did, too. With the help of a visiting theater artist, the students began to design and rehearse a pastiche of scenes from works they had read along with accounts from their own lives. The year would culminate in a schoolwide performance.

After three weeks of rehearsals, the teacher realized, Carlos had not missed a single session. Amazing, but even more so was what the teacher noticed later that day on the school's daily attendance sheet. At the top of the "out of school suspension" list stood Carlos's name! He had been kicked out of school for 10 days and had already served 7. And yet, his theater attendance was perfect. Carlos was sneaking back into school for theater.

When Wootten finished Carlos's story, the room erupted in applause. It had all the ingredients of arts education advocacy and some enticing rebelliousness as well: a caring teacher who doesn't give up on sliding students, a bad kid with a heart and a brain, a visiting artist in a tough school, and a minority group member defying administrative powers for love of theater.

One can appreciate the motivation that theater inspired in the young man, but the story had some dark undertones unrecognized in the speech. I asked one man who had to deal often with school administrators about what a principal would say. He shook his head and replied, "If a principal suspended a student, he did so for a pretty good reason, and if he knew that the kid was sneaking back onto the grounds, he'd be furious."

One could hardly imagine the story stirring teachers in other fields, either, for it didn't validate the arts as an academic discipline. A history teacher might respond, "You think the arts are more 'motivational' than history?" A math teacher might say, "Getting an 'A' on an algebra final raises self-esteem just as much as doing a self-portrait in art class." If arts advocates instead emphasize the material-Shakespeare, major and minor chords, etc.-other teachers might show respect for their position, even if only to avoid appearing anti-art or anti-intellectual.

But such tactics don't obtain at AEP or similar meetings. Turnaround tales and the like carry too much emotional freight to be displaced by talk of art history. Perhaps those engaged in arts ed lobbying believe that class- and race-based melodramas best sway elected officials and philanthropic organizations. Or perhaps they genuinely find the social and personal benefits of arts instruction more compelling than the arts themselves.
Arts as Discipline
When Dana Gioia took control of the Arts Endowment in January 2003, he didn't share the arts-as-salvation outlook. One of the first things he told his education staff was of his preference for the Core Knowledge curriculum. While he believed that arts education enriches young people's minds and transforms their lives, he felt that arts education had the strongest impact when students encountered lasting works of force and beauty. Students needed to experience great art-classic and contemporary-to acquire a solid foundation for their own general education and creativity. Otherwise, arts education would remain a sidelight in the curriculum, marginal and ineffective. How to impart the importance of artistic tradition without estranging arts ed advocates?

Gioia launched two reforms. First, he asked David Steiner, whom he hired to direct the Office of Arts Education, and me to review grant guidelines and suggest ways to strengthen their content requirements. We came up with a simple, but far-reaching stipulation: applicants for arts education grants had to align their programs with national or state standards and evaluate student learning by them. Awards to " Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth " must "apply national or state arts education standards," we insisted, and "Students will be assessed according to national or state arts education standards."

This created a challenge for arts organizations applying for Arts Endowment awards. Many of them had evaluation plans already in place, but those usually amounted to questionnaires issued to students at the end of the program that measured their attitudes and enjoyment. Or, they involved observations by evaluators who measured participation-for instance, how many kids talked in class. They did not focus on learning outcomes. From now on, they'd have to.

Arts advocates didn't protest the change, in part because the field had already embraced outcome measures: the National Standards for Arts Education. The project was supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. Department of Education, and the National Endowment for the Humanities; a consortium of arts teacher organizations developed comprehensive standards for dance, theater, music, and the visual arts. Significantly, the designers weren't primarily engaged in advocacy and fundraising. The final version appeared in 1994, and ever since it has garnered solid esteem, even though its premises run against the child-centered dramaturgy described above. Above all, arts educators wanted to establish strong disciplinary standards for their respective fields, both to regularize arts instruction across the country and to win higher recognition for the fields in the overall curriculum. Wisely, the designers insisted on the fundamental place of art history in the document. "In this document," they wrote, "art means two things: (1) creative works and the process of producing them, and (2) the whole body of work in the art forms that make up the entire human intellectual and cultural heritage." They define a "good education in the arts" as including "a thorough grounding in a basic body of knowledge."

Furthermore, the standards "help ensure that the study of the arts is disciplined and well focused," and that "arts instruction has a point of reference for assessing its results." Assessments in the document follow not from social and personal impact, but from knowledge and skills. For instance, dance standards for grades 9-12 include this skill test: "Students choreograph a duet demonstrating an understanding of choreographic principles, processes, and structures"; and this content test: "Students create and answer twenty-five questions about dance and dancers prior to the twentieth century." Music 9-12 includes this one: "Students classify by genre or style and by historical period or culture unfamiliar but representative aural examples of music and explain the reasoning behind their classifications."

Gioia's other reform was to develop separate arts education initiatives based squarely on art historical content. These programs were a primary instrument for building congressional consensus on Arts Endowment funding overall:

* Shakespeare in American Communities -tours by theatrical companies to smaller towns and thousands of schools across the United States to give performances of Shakespeare plays and run workshops for students. The program included a toolkit for English and theater teachers that contained educational materials; by 2008, the toolkit had been delivered to teachers of more than 24 million students.

* American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius -a multidimensional program providing, among other things, educational materials to schools on the high-culture heritage of American art.

* Poetry Out Loud-modeled on the National Spelling Bee, a competition at the school, state, and national levels for high-school students, who memorize and recite a poem selected from a list of works both contemporary and classic, John Donne to Allen Ginsberg. Winners receive college scholarships and cash prizes for their schools' libraries. In 2008, 250,000 students participated, and media coverage included a front-page story in USA Today and a segment on CBS News Sunday Morning.

The content of art and artistic tradition was at the center of each initiative. When Gioia first unveiled Poetry Out Loud, some state arts officers protested because it didn't allow students to present their own compositions. Gioia's reply was, in effect, "That isn't what the competition is about." With this particular effort, he wanted to encourage more reading of great poems, not more writing of adolescent verse.

Other figures in the arts education network considered Gioia's programs tame and conservative, a Bush administration retreat from edgy and provocative art. On PBS NewsHour, for instance, after Gioia cited the Shakespeare initiative, interviewer Jeffrey Brown remarked, "Of course, for some people, though, this is the essence of 'safe.' Shakespeare? Who's against Shakespeare?"

Gioia's sage reply hinted at the social benefits of art while still honoring the art itself: "I could come up with 100 adjectives for Shakespeare before 'safe' would be the one I would offer [Regan and Goneril safe? The climax of Hamlet?].... I was in a production in New York and we had all these New York insider theater people as half the audience and then in came 50 kids from the South Bronx. They were seeing Richard III. This production alarmed, excited. It was provocative. It wasn't safe. It opened up possibilities in life and imagination to these kids that they weren't getting otherwise."

It helped, too, that the initiative gave 2,000 actors in 77 theater companies employment, and that Gioia was able to fund the Shakespeare project without taking any funds away from existing theater grant categories. Moreover, the Arts Endowment's allocation from Congress grew steadily, jumping $20 million from 2007 to 2008 alone. Even if they bristled at the high-art, standards-based nature of Gioia's approach, arts education advocates had to appreciate the resources he steered their way.
Beyond the Divide
For all the talk about why the arts are important and how they must be funded, the most successful support tactic I have encountered came from an actor/director in Los Angeles, Pierson Blaetz, co-director of Greenway Arts Alliance. The Greenway Arts Alliance runs a theater on the grounds of Fairfax High School, a large public school in the middle of West Hollywood. Living in the neighborhood during the'90s, Blaetz and co-founder Whitney Weston became interested in bringing more arts to students, but had to figure a way to provide the two necessities, space and money.

The project was an ingenious act of entrepreneurship. Blaetz and Weston surveyed the Fairfax High School campus and saw hidden value. First, they spotted an unused, roomy student social hall that lay separate from the main buildings and could serve as a venue for practice and performances. Second, they noted that the campus had an asset that was not in use on weekends: land. Fairfax High sits on expensive real estate right next to the L.A. Farmers Market. On Saturdays, while locals and tourists flooded the market, Blaetz noticed, acres of Fairfax High sat quiet and empty. What if, they proposed to school administrators, they leased and renovated the student hall and ran a weekend flea market at the school? They would charge a small admission fee, have merchants pay for spaces, let students work it, and pass the proceeds to the school. In return, Fairfax High would integrate Greenway into the curriculum and support its professional activities.

Administrators agreed, and now the Melrose Trading Post opens every Sunday in the Fairfax High parking lot with as many as 4,000 customers browsing some 200 stalls filled with antiques and collectibles. Meanwhile, students take courses at Greenway in drama, dance, and film, including theater classes for low-skilled 9th- and 10th-grade readers. Students also join Greenway in various productions after school, and their weekly Poetry Lounge is one of the most popular slam events in the country. While Greenway's curriculum emphasizes its work with "at-risk high school students" and the power of the arts to "motivate youth" and impart "essential life skills," it also aims at "skills, knowledge, and/or understanding of the arts consistent with national and state arts education standards." In other words, while nodding to the social benefits of the program, Greenway recognizes the bottom line: demonstrated learning of the art, history, and practice of theater itself.

The Greenway Arts Alliance is an obvious model for arts education. Greenway has received support from public agencies, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the City of Los Angeles, but it has staked its continuance year-to-year on private enterprise. The program has thrived for years, and Fairfax High principal Ed Zubiate couldn't be happier. Money comes in each week, affording the school needed resources, while the Fairfax curriculum expands nicely into the arts. In addition, 15 students have paid employment at the Melrose Trading Post each semester, and adults in the area with no connection to the school visit the grounds to attend performances (thus enhancing the school's community profile). The relationship is symbiotic, not one of arts educators beseeching a few crumbs and class minutes.

Blaetz says that there are thousands of schools across the country ready for the same kind of creative economizing. A school might run a small farm that teaches students ecology and agriculture-and sells produce on weekends. The strategy transcends arts education and poses a logistical question about all schools. Why are they sitting on underused resources year after year, while scrambling to fund the arts and other programs?

When I shared Blaetz's story with arts education advocates, not one of them followed up. I mentioned it to several attendees at AEP meetings and received blank glances in return. I'm not sure why, but I can guess. The people I encountered prosecute their mission by appealing directly to federal, state, and local governments and to nonprofit foundations for help. Blaetz went first to the free market. That approach is simply foreign to the network of arts ed folks hovering around public agencies and philanthropic groups.

That's too bad, because what arts education needs in a time of fiscal crises are fewer advocates and more entrepreneurs.
Mark Bauerlein is professor of English at Emory University.

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Every chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts must advocate for arts education. The arts need a voice in power, say people in the field, someone in the corridors of influence to argue the benefits of teaching the nation's students about classical and jazz music, ballet, and sculpture.