Arts Education. Do the students really learn?
Faust and Marsalis brought up some excellent points on what exactly these
disciplines teach students. It "nurtures judgment as well as
mastery", teaches "ethics and values as well as analysis",
enables "constructive collaborations across national and cultural origins
and identities". Although I enjoy the general subjects in education
it is difficult for me to find a subject where students use such high level
thinking. Their high level thinking often is individual.
I adore that they ask us this question, "How do we prepare students for
the future?" I'm pretty sure that none of us can predict what will
happen to us tomorrow let alone what the world will be like in 50 years.
World War II ended about 69 years ago. That is not an incredible
amount of time and look at the technology we have, global warming issues, and
even how nation's relationships have changed. I think that we prepare
them by opening their minds to new ideas, keeping them active in their world,
and reminding them to value humanity.
Faust and Marsalis encouraged students to take risks and make mistakes.
(That might not be the thing to try on a standardized test. I bet students
would challenge the questions asked and formulate their own unique answers.)
But why shouldn't we challenge our students to question the materials we
give them. A quote from Miles
Davis, "If you hit a wrong note it's the next note that you play that
determines if it's good or bad." Miles! You nailed it!
Spontaneity! Creativity! Freedom! The world's greatest
discoveries come from mistakes. If you never take a risk you will be
stagnant in your life. I know that I want my students to take risks and
get frustrated in their journey through my classroom. That's how I know
that I am challenging them to think, actually think.
Over break I talked to a friend who is directing a children's choir. The
text of one of his selections is in Hebrew so he has translates it and
discusses its importance throughout his rehearsals. He asks for opinions
on the music's meaning and includes a multicultural experience for the
students. One of his coworkers asked if he was actually going to teach a
lesson about the Hebrew language. My friend tried to persuade his
coworker that he is teaching
that content during his rehearsals. It took a lot of explaining to
convince the coworker that content is being taught all through the rehearsal
process. We teach as we create and perform. We teach content that
is relevant to the process. Art, music, dance, and theatre involve many
different topics all at the same time. What better way to teach problem
solving and collaboration.
A recent
article from USA Today discussed "The
Art of Learning". It was co-written by Drew Faust, the
president of Harvard University, and Wynton Marsalis, world renown trumpeter.
Faust Marsalis are presenting a lecture series on the importance of arts
education. Advocates of arts education work tirelessly to show the positive
effects that the arts have but seldom do school districts put arts education as
a priority. Most often sports teams acquire more funding and are often
cut after the music, theatre, dance, and art programs.
Maybe
that's why some may not understand why it is important to teach the arts?
If you are putting on a Shakespearean play how much information can you
spew out to tell them what your students are learning? "Well we've
been analyzing the script and trying to figure out why Shakespeare made certain
word choices. We also researched the time period where the play is set
and created a report on that. Oh, right, I completely forgot that we
created our own set. We managed our money to buy materials and measured
out how much wood we would need to buy. But for safety's sake we had to
make sure that the set would hold our weight." Reading, Language
Arts, History, Math, Physics and those are only the ones mentioned in this
false situation.
I leave
you with this quote on arts advocacy:
". . . the arts have
been an inseparable part of the human journey; indeed, we depend on the arts to
carry us toward the fullness of our humanity. We value them for themselves, and
because we do, we believe knowing and practicing them is fundamental to the
healthy development of our children's minds and spirits. That is why, in any
civilization - ours included - the arts are inseparable from the very meaning
of the term 'education.' We know from long experience that no one can claim to
be truly educated who lacks basic knowledge and skills in the arts."
–National
Standards for Arts Education
<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11577149/?claim=7q8e8sax75y">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>
