Intrinsic Benefits of Arts Education an exercise in Yes, And…
The one thing I would argue that much of the education community could agree upon is the value of the arts. Different populations will see value in different benefits, but the overall agreement on the part of the arts education community is that arts are good for the schools. Over the last twenty years much research has been done. In Arts Education and Instrumental Outcomes: An Introduction to Research, Methods and Indicators (2003), a paper commissioned by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO), a survey of research on the benefits of arts education nicely outlines the key research in support of the benefits of arts education. Based on the previous research stated we can assert that a strong arts education provides a student with intrinsic benefits such as self-confidence, critical thinking skills, and the ability to take risks and collaborate with others. Case studies of five secondary schools with a strong arts focus in the United Kingdom showed that students who were involved in at least one art form experienced enjoyment, relief of tension, knowledge about social and cultural issues, enhanced creativity and thinking skills, self-confidence, and improved skills of self-expression (Harland, Kinder, Lord, Stott, Schagen, Haynes, Cusworth, White, & Paola, 2000, as reviewed by Winner, 2002b as cited in O’Farrell & Meban, 2003). Additionally, based on the results of a figural creativity test performance (the Torrance creativity test) administered to 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th grade students in eighteen American schools, it was found that students who are highly involved in the arts performed better on the creativity measure. It is unclear from the study if the relationship is cause and effect or if there is a direct correlational relationship. Further, based on teachers’ ratings in three questionnaires, students who were highly involved in the arts were rated higher on expression, risk-taking, creativity and imagination, and cooperative learning (Burton, Horowitz & Abeles, 2000, as reviewed by Winner, 2002c as cited in O’Farrell & Meban, 2003).
Before the 1970s the presence of the arts was status quo and as accepted as the presence of math or language arts. Educational policy makers of the 1980s fought to keep or revitalize the arts after watching them cut from the classroom during the prior decade, but the emergence of the culture wars of the early 1990s began the great divide over the purpose for the arts and their value in the school day. The culture wars was a phrase coined in 1991 by sociologist James Davison Hunter who in his book Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America discusses the emerging division in American thought between liberals/progressives and traditionalists/conservatives.
“Culture wars” put pressure on arts advocates to articulate the public value of the arts. Their response was to emphasize the instrumental benefits of the arts: They said the arts promote important, measurable benefits, such as economic growth and student learning, and thus are of value to all Americans, not just those involved in the arts (McCarthy, Ondaajte, Zakaras & Brooks, 2005, p 2)
This new public debate introduced two camps within the field — those who valued arts for art’s sake and the intrinsic values that were an accompaniment and those who valued the public or instrumental by-product the arts produced that benefited society at large (i.e. economics and innovation).
UNESCO articulates intrinsic value as that related to the holistic development of the student and as that which impacts on the future development of society (O’Farrell & Meban, 2003, p 6). If we continue to educate students without providing cultural instruction or exposure to the arts, what will happen to the arts and society as a whole? UNESCO proceeds to define intrinsic outcomes such as the cognitive development of the student –one who interacts with the arts is more creative, imaginative, self-reliant, and confident (O’Farrell & Meban, 2003, p 6).
The Wallace Foundation in 2005 reviewed all research exploring the value of arts education and, strikingly, found intrinsic values to be absent from the findings. They parsed out intrinsic values were found to be empathy, social bonds, cognitive growth, and expression of communal meaning. At the time of the study these intrinsic values of the arts were not part of the public conversation, a discussion which up to that point spoke solely about the extrinsic value (McCarthy, Ondaajte, Zakaras & Brooks, 2005, p 7).
Leading research in the field of arts education also supports the following advantages of Arts Education: (1) Teaches to Transfer (artistic and cognitive skills developed while learning the art form transferred to non-arts content areas) (2) Enhances brain development (3) Impacts On Academic Achievement (4) Prepares Students for School, Work, and Life (5) Helps Close the Achievement Gap (AEP Working Group, 2010).
The exciting thing about this research is that even before we account for quality and look deeply at the scope and sequence of a skills based arts curriculum there is an abundance of value in students engaging in the Arts. As someone whose been committed to Arts Education for close to twenty-five years I can say that the trend is not that the arts are important the question becomes how can do more learning through the arts because that is where the magic happens. It is not an either or to arts in school or after but rather a yes, And to arts in the classroom and as a content area.
