Arts Integration
A Powerful Way to Learn
Gullah musicians and dancers helped students in Lima explore culture and community
Elementary school students in the Lima City Schools understand culture and community more deeply after a month of learning activities that integrated the arts, social studies, and physical education. Mike Huffman, Director of Arts and Magnet Programs, says the centerpiece of their learning was several days spent interacting and performing with the Gullah Kinfolk—musicians and dancers descended from West African slaves who settled on the isolated islands and marshlands of the South Carolina coast.
"Such learning experiences—combining the arts with other ways of knowing to explore important themes that cut across the boundaries of disciplines—represent a powerful form of arts integration," says Mary Campbell Zopf, director of the Ohio Arts Council's Office of Arts Learning.
"Arts integration engages students cognitively, physically, and emotionally," says Patricia Stuhr, chair of The Ohio State University's Art Education Department.
Recalling the schools she studied in her work with the national Transforming Education Through the Arts Challenge (TETAC), Stuhr says: "Students were more engaged and remembered everything. Principals said teachers were invigorated. Everything just seemed more alive."
Michael Parsons, Ohio State University
"Arts integration also diversifies teaching to engage students with a range of backgrounds and learning styles," says Cindi Menefield, visual and performing arts curriculum manager for the Cincinnati Public Schools. For example, Menefield teaches line dancing while students are learning about mathematical patterns. The combination of learning about patterns and moving in patterns, she says, especially benefits tactile-kinesthetic learners.
In fact, the premise behind arts integration is respect for how children learn. "Integration occurs," says Ohio State University professor Michael Parsons, "when students make sense for themselves of their varied learning experiences, when they pull these together to make one view of their world and of their place in it. It takes place in their minds or not at all."
But can arts integration promote general academic success? Evidence is mounting, say Nick Rabkin and Robin Redmond, who edited Putting the Arts in the Picture. They cite five projects in urban school systems that are not only improving test scores but also helping students "become better thinkers, develop higher-order skills, and deepen their inclination to learn."
This article was published in April 2009, Volume 5, Issue 1.
