Arts and the Brain
Much research has been done on arts in the classroom. Arguments have been made on arts integration versus arts for art’s sake. Studies have been conducted correlating higher test scores for those students who encountered the arts in their schooling. Neuroscience and neurological research has been done supporting the connection between the power of the arts and the development of a child. Yet time and time again the arts are not included, in any function, in a student’s day at school, both in school and out of school time. Or if and when they are included they are sidelined to ‘specials’, extracurricular or electives. Imagine a world in which learning occurred through the arts. Imagine a school day in which students learned the concept of fractions connecting to musical notations. Plain and simple the arts elicit an emotional response for a student and when a student has an emotional connection to learning they remember the content.
Neuroscience research by Zull and Kolb supports the integration of these domains in development, as do many previous theories of learning from pioneers such as Vygotsky, Piaget, Dewey and Gardner. A 1999 study in Chicago Public Schools by Catterall and Waldorf provides strong support for arts education but falls short on its implementation of scope and sequence and required hours.
Cumulatively, all the research articulates how students’ strongest weapon is their ability to think creatively and that imagination is a skill, just as any other, in need of training and development. Piaget’s widely accepted theory of assimilation and accommodation is rooted in the belief that this function occurs through the creative process. Piaget saw assimilation and accommodation, mechanisms of the development of thought, also as mechanisms underlying the creative process (Ayman-Nolley, 1999, p. 268).
James Zull (2002) shared his research on the brain with the release of The Art of Changing the Brain, and it builds on Piaget’s earlier notion. Zull lists four essential components to changing the brain for effective learning to occur: practice, emotion, problem solving, and engagement. His research indicates that when a teacher dispenses with explaining everything to a student, it frees the student’s brain to experience the emotions necessary for effective change to occur. When the teacher does not explain information to the students, it transfers the power from the teacher back to the student, and studies in neuroscience tells us that positive emotions in learning are generated when the student is able to generate ideas on his or her own (p. 70). This process occurs in the frontal cortex of the brain, which is also responsible for voluntary movements. “Voluntary movements of course are owned or chosen. The biochemical rewards of learning are not provided by explanation but by student ownership” (p. 72).
The final element to changing the brain for effective learning is to engage the entire brain, specifically in the four regions of the cerebral cortex. If educators can engage all four areas, then more neurons will fire and more networks will be created, which is the key to deeper learning. The arts fit the Zull cycle perfectly –particularly the study of theatre. It is in the nature of the rehearsal process for student actors to take a script and practice their role: blocking and interacting with other actors. Through the process of getting into character, they are asked to evoke and connect to the emotions of the character they are playing. Throughout the rehearsal process they are asked to problem solve situations that arise –typically when blocking is not working or is too complicated. In these cases, they are called upon to make critical decisions. The entire process of putting on a theatrical performance requires the student actor to be fully present — they are always fully engaged. Zull’s work is based heavily on the work of psychologist David Kolb (1984) and his cycle of learning theory, which addresses teaching to the whole brain. His cycle of learning theory includes four steps that correspond with the four areas of the cortex. The cycle includes: (1) experience — gathering information through experiencing the situation with our senses into the sensory cortex (2) reflection –making sense of the experience through the back integrative cortex (3) abstraction — making meaning out of the information and creating personal connections through the front integrative cortex (4) active testing — acting on the ideas through the motor cortex.
Heathcote’s Mantle of the Expert approach builds upon this idea. To fully illustrate the connections between the educational theorists and arts education practioners I will be using a personal and pivotal learning experience from the 6th grade. I have vivid memories of studying the Industrial Revolution by taking on the role of factory workers working on an assembly line making wooden cars and airplanes, which we then sold to raise money for the class. Students build belief that they are experts in a certain enterprise or field through experiences — we knew the inner workings of factory life and could speak as experts on the intricacies of our work. We were committed to the role and when the Unit ended we had reached fulfillment and indeed had engaged in a lasting learning experience. “Students who don the mantle of the expert and its responsibilities are in an active state of attention to a range of projects and plans of action. They begin to generate their own knowing and most significant, this knowing is always embedded in a fertile context” (Heathcote, & Bolton, 1995, p. vii).
The critical element to teaching is student engagement in the curriculum and the power of the learning experience for the student. Dewey states In Arts as Experience (1934) how often educational experiences for students are unclear, both in their meaning and purpose. He argues that a true experience occurs when it reaches a fulfillment in the student: “we have an experience when the material experienced runs its course to fulfillment. Then, and only then, is it integrated within and demarcated in the general stream of experience from other experiences” (37). Dewey defines fulfillment as the point where the learning experience has reached a natural ending; “the process (the experience) continues until a mutual adaptation of the self and the object emerges and that particular experience comes to a close,” (p.45). I assert that the inclusion of arts education naturally encompasses the learning cycle of both Kolb and Zull and provides the learning experience that is necessary for deep learning, as Dewey suggests. the process (the experience) continues until a mutual adaptation of the self and the object emerges and that particular experience comes to a close.”
KOLB MODEL Adapted to The Arts
Ayman-Nolley, S. (1999). Perspective on the dialectic process of creativity. Creativity Research Journal , 12(4), 267–275
Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. New York, NY: The Berkley Publishing Group.
Heathcote, D., & Bolton, G. (1995). Drama for Learning: Dorothy Heathcote’s Mantle of the
Expert approach to education. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman.
Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Zull, James E. (2004, September). The Art of Changing the Brain. Educational Leadership, 68–72
