Culture Counts: The Case For The Arts And The Humanities In Youth Development

• LEARNING AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
• SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

LEARNING AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Organized youth activities can deter risky behavior in adolescents, according to a recent national study. Students who participate in band, orchestra, chorus or a school play, for example, are significantly less likely than non-participants to drop out of school, be arrested, use drugs or engage in binge drinking. Unfortunately, this same study also notes that today's most vulnerable youth spend less time in activities like these and are therefore deprived of their benefits.¹

Quality youth programs, whether organized around the arts and the humanities, sports, science or outdoor exploration, are a crucial source of supportive relationships and vital experiences. Arts and humanities programs are particularly potent in promoting youth development. We see this most clearly in educational settings when the arts and the humanities are fully integrated into the curriculum.

Several integrated educational models currently exist in the United States. The Duke Ellington School of the Arts in the District of Columbia provides its high school students, most of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds, with the chance to attend a school where academics and the arts share the school day equally. In Kansas City, 7 public school districts, 11 arts organizations and 35 donors have banded together across state lines to form Arts Partners, an initiative to integrate community arts resources into the school curriculum. Schools benefiting from this approach have seen the transforming effect of the arts and the humanities on the quality of education and on student achievement.

While humanities disciplines such as history, literature and language have long been accepted as part of the standard school curriculum, the enlightened educator who understands the value of the arts has had insufficient educational theory and research upon which to base his or her insight. In the last several years, this gap has begun to close.

Studies are exploring the role of arts education in the development of higher order thinking skills, problem-solving ability and increased motivation to learn. Other studies are finding correlations between arts education and improvements in academic performance and standardized test scores, increases in student attendance and decreases in school drop-out rates. The following points elaborate on the important ways culture counts in the development of children and youth.

The arts and the humanities draw upon a range of intelligences and learning styles. Experts believe that people do not possess a single general intelligence, but several different kinds: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal.² Schools by and large focus on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences. In so doing, America's educational institutions may consign many children to under-achievement and failure. As eminent psychologist Howard Gardner notes, "[S]tudents with strengths in the spatial, musical, or personal spheres may find school far more demanding than students who happen to possess the 'text-friendly" blend of linguistic and logical intelligences."³

The arts and the humanities provide children with different ways to process cognitive information and express their own knowledge. Using processes different from traditional approaches, the arts and humanities provide children with unique methods for developing skills and organizing knowledge. Each arts and humanities discipline has its own distinct symbol system, whether it is nonverbal, as with music or dance, or uses language in a particular way, as with creative writing or oral history. Exposure to these alternate systems of symbols engages the mind, requiring analysis, synthesis, evaluation and application.⁴

The arts have the potential to enhance academic performance. The arts give youngsters a richer reservoir of information upon which to draw in pursuing other subjects, such as reading, writing, mathematics and history. "Drawing helps writing. Song and poetry make facts memorable. Drama makes history more vivid and real. Creative movement makes processes understandable."⁵

By honing nonverbal skills such as perception, imagination and creativity, the arts also develop vocabulary, metaphorical language, observation and critical thinking skills.⁶ The elements of sound, movement, space, line, shape and color are all concepts related to other subject areas such as math and science. The concepts taught in the arts permeate other scholastic disciplines, and a child's comprehension of an artistic concept can extend across the academic curriculum.

Furthermore, the teaching methods used in many arts and humanities programs provide alternative approaches to learning. For example, some children can process and retain information more effectively when they learn by doing, engage in apprentice-like relationships and use technology such as in computer graphics and videography.⁷

The arts and the humanities spur and deepen the development of creativity. By their very nature, the arts and the humanities place a premium on discovery and innovation, originality and imagination. As such, they can be powerful vehicles for stimulating creativity in young people, a valuable trait throughout their lives.

Businesses today increasingly look for workers who can think and create. Clifford V. Smith, Jr., president of the GE Fund, is typical when he says, "Developing business leaders starts in school. Not in assembly-line schooling, but rather through the dynamic processes that the arts-in-education experience provides."⁸