Whole Child Education

This month, the Whole Child Blog has been focusing on the critical role of the arts throughout a whole child education. The arts play an essential role in providing each student with a well-rounded education that meets the needs of the whole child. Although classes strictly focused on music, visual arts, drama, dance, and art history are critical, integrating the arts across the curriculum is also key to ensuring that students are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

Listen to the Whole Child Podcast with guests Peter Yarrow, recording artist and founder of Operation Respect and United Voices for Education; Mike Blakeslee, senior deputy executive director and chief operating officer of (Whole Child Partner) MENC: The National Association for Music Education; and Vanessa Lopez, an exceptional arts educator from Roland Park Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore, Md.

Learn about the connection between creativity and the brain with guest blogger Judy Willis, ASCD author and expert on learning-centered brain research. Read the first, second, third, and final posts in the series.

Find resources for arts and arts-integrated educational content for students, families, and educators looking for lesson plans, multimedia-enhanced instruction, and performance footage on Whole Child Partner the Kennedy Center's ARTSEDGE website.

Watch musician Peter Yarrow and conductor Plácido Domingo talk about their belief in the importance of the arts and the value of a whole child approach to education.

Think about the research-based benefits of arts education experiences and how the arts engage students in ways that other subjects may not, providing ways into learning that compliment learning styles and encourage creative risk taking.

Discuss whether or not public education is educating children out of their creativity after listening to an engaging presentation by Sir Ken Robinson. How can schools do a better job of recognizing and encouraging creativity during class to stimulate thinking and as preparation for the future work arena?

Support and advocate for all core academic subjects—English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography—that make up a well-rounded approach to education.

Sign the Whole Child Petition to tell your state board of education that it must do more to educate the whole child.

Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter to find more resources, research, and stats, including links to

• A free Artful Teaching & Learning Handbook for blue prints to create a versatile arts education model from the Perpich Center for Arts Education (PCAE).
• Whole Child Partner Americans for the Arts' fact sheet about the benefits of arts education for children.
• Six issues of the University of California's Journal for Learning through the Arts: A Research Journal on Arts Integration in Schools and Communities. Check out the current issue's spotlight on arts and geography.
• An issue of KidSpirit Online, a magazine and community for 11–15 year olds everywhere, focused on self exploration and finding one's spirit in art.
• Findings from an IBM study showing creativity to be the most important leadership quality for success in business.
• A research paper on integrating the arts and how the arts impact social, cognitive, and academic skills.

What could a focus on the arts look like at your school? The PS22 Chorus is an elementary school chorus from Public School 22 in Staten Island, N.Y. It is composed of 60–70 fifth-graders, and is directed by Gregg Breinberg ("Mr. B."), who started blogging and created a YouTube channel to promote the benefits of keeping the arts an integral part of the school curriculum. As of this month, the chorus's videos have been watched more than 23,000,000 times.

In Choral Director, the choral director's management magazine, Mr. B. talks about the importance of integrating the arts throughout the curriculum:

I hope that these kids take away a confidence, a sense of empowerment, and a sense that anything is possible. That last bit is certainly more along the lines of the last few years because of the amazing opportunities we've had, but I don't want this chorus to be just about the exposure that these kids are getting. I do think it's so important that this is blowing up at a point where our budget is a mess and music and arts programs are being cut left and right, so in a sense, globally, with the success, I'd love to keep people thinking about how important music is. I don't think anyone can miss by watching how those kids sing how important it is to them, how it keeps kids wanting to come to school. Every kid in my chorus will tell you that they look forward to coming to school. That's something we take a lot of pride in because we just happen to be a school that really subscribes to the arts.

We've also used the music to teach other areas of the curriculum. The kids learned PEMDAS through rhythm equations that I made. I try to keep things fun and keep the students on their toes. I want them to love music, learn, be engaged, and I want them to come to school. When you take the arts out of schools, there's a risk of drop outs, especially among children who maybe don't have great parental support and might be saying to themselves, "Why am I going to this place where I'm not succeeding, I'm made to feel like an idiot, there's nothing I do well in this life, and I have to come back tomorrow to feel like an idiot again?" I want to reach these kids, and a lot of the children in my chorus do not necessarily succeed in other academic areas as well as they and their families would like. It's so important that we tap into other avenues that kids are capable of succeeding in. I think that every one of these kids in my chorus has something to offer. Maybe they don't have that prodigious, exceptional vocal talent, but there's more behind the music that these kids are tapping into within themselves. They're amazing people and that's a part of it, too. I want them to be open to each other. I want them to be open to life and to new things.

How are you or how is your school integrating the arts throughout the curriculum? What are the benefits to students?

Post submitted by Judy Willis, ASCD author and expert on learning-centered brain research and classroom strategies derived from this research. Connect with Willis on ASCD EDge and on her website, RADTeach.com, and follow her on Twitter.

When a high school eliminated the last-period guitar instruction elective available to students who had attended all of the day's classes, there was a significant dropout of the students who tolerated their other classes to enjoy the pleasure of that guitar class. What a shame at a time when we are experiencing the highest high school dropout rate our country has ever had. For the first time in our history, for students in high school, it is now more likely that their parents will have graduated than they will graduate.

The number one reason students give for dropping out is boredom. More specifically, they report that the information is not interesting and not relevant, and they have no personal interactions with teachers. This response is understandable, because high-stakes testing has turned many classrooms into places of mind-numbing lectures and drills about information students do not value. In these conditions, the most successful students are not the most intelligent or creative; they are the students who most successfully memorize facts and procedures.

Students are not only bored by failure to connect through interest or relevance, but they also develop the belief that they are not good at the subject and never will be. Because students correlate intelligence and aptitude for a subject with what they perceive as value—test scores—they interpret what may only represent their lower success at memorizing and retrieving facts as a lack of intelligence and aptitude. This expectation results in the negativity that reduces their brains' likelihood of extending effort on that subject.

In survival terms, withholding effort when there is low expectation of success is beneficial. For example, it is a beneficial response for preserving the life of a fox in a region with limited prey to avoid chasing a rabbit running rapidly uphill. The energy expended is not likely to result in energy restored when the chase fails to yield a meal. The human brain weighs 3 pounds and uses 20 percent of the body's oxygen and glucose. It has the same survival mandate as the fox to limit energy and effort when low yield of success is predicted based on past experiences.

The cycle for disengagement and the self-fulfilling prophecy of failure is sustained because, without effort, the student does not keep up with the foundational knowledge needed to understand the subsequent lessons when the facts are ultimately connected into a larger concept. This student might have had excellent skills at creative problem solving and concept construction, but the bigger picture was not evident at the time the facts were given and their memorization was tested.

To promote engagement and effort, students need early opportunities to find personal pleasure and relevance in the material they need to learn. Knowing from the start that they will produce representations of the learning creatively is an inoculation against boredom and low effort. When creative representation of learning through the arts is introduced from the beginning, sustained or interspersed throughout a unit, and recognized by the students as valued because these representations are part of their assessments of learning, the brain perceives a greater possibility that effort will be rewarded by pleasure and success.

When students have choice in their representative productions (drawing, computer art, skit, script, rap songs), the brain is no longer disengaged by perception of low yield of pleasure or success and is not stressed by mistake anxiety, because of the options to participate through strength. The representation of learning through creative arts promotes pleasurable expectations because there is not a single correct response or product. Students have increased engagement with minimal mistake anxiety.

In terms of acquisition of knowledge, their creative work reflects processing through the higher brain executive functions—symbolic representation of information that is not the mimicking of sensory input (information) in the same way it was received requires analysis, relational thinking, and prediction.

Younger students cannot legally withdraw physically from school, but their brains have alternatives to serve the same purpose of avoiding the stress of boring, frustrating experiences. In the absence of expectation of opportunities to experience pleasure, the brain seeks to create its own pleasure. When students don’t have opportunities to think, explore, interpret, discover, and create as part of the class instruction, their brains seek alternative sources for creativity. Unfortunately, these are often the behaviors we consider acting out.

Children's brains have memory associations that link the creative arts with the pleasures of play or enjoyable experiences. You've seen the reduction in acting out or zoning out from students not engaged by passively listening to classmates' reports or shared, whole-class reading when they have the option of sketching representations of the content they hear while listening. The incorporation of creating art reduces the brain's need for engagement that results in students defacing desks and books. The opportunities to act (as in skits) reduce the reactive, lower brain's response of acting out when in the stress state of boredom and frustration.

This is the last in a four-part series on creativity and the critical importance of the arts in providing students with a well-rounded education that meets the needs of the whole child. Read the first, second, and third posts in the series.

You've heard the comments: The arts are nice to have but not necessary to have. We have an afterschool program that integrates the arts so that they don't take away from the curriculum. If a kid can't read, does he really need music? And on and on. Yet NCLB includes the arts as core content, and there is plenty of research pointing to the value of arts education not only as a stimulant for student engagement and deeper learning in other core content areas, but also as a valuable curriculum all on its own.

What makes a subject or discipline a "major discipline?" In his book Arts with the Brain in Mind, ASCD author, former teacher, and leader in the brain-based-learning movement Eric Jensen tackles this question and arrives at the conclusion that the arts are not only fundamental to success in our demanding, highly technical, fast-moving world, but they are also what make us most human, most complete as people.

The book describes what findings from neuroscience and cognitive science research are teaching us about the need for the arts in our schools and presents instructional strategies and classroom activities that promote the musical, visual, and kinesthetic arts in school, as well as recommendations for assessing arts instruction. Do the arts help develop the brain? Are there special age-groups important for introducing the arts to children?

Jensen grades the arts on a series of seven criteria:

1. Is the discipline assessable?
2. Is it brain based?
3. Is it culturally necessary?
4. What is the downside risk?
5. Is the discipline inclusive?
6. Does it have survival value?
7. Is it wide ranging?

What do you think? Do the arts receive a passing grade?

"Make the goal high test scores, and you get a majority of students who get higher test scores and a minority who are turned off by learning and school. Make your priority better human beings, and you'll not only get better test scores; you'll also get cooperative, self-disciplined, creative, and compassionate students with a real love of learning." —Eric Jensen

Eric Jensen is also the author of Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids' Brains and What Schools Can Do About It and has been a guest blogger for the Whole Child Blog and a featured guest on the Whole Child Podcast, where he addresses student risk factors, including health and safety issues and cognitive, social, and emotional challenges.

World-renowned tenor, conductor, and general director of Whole Child Partner the Washington National Opera, Plácido Domingo believes in a whole child approach to education.

The arts stimulate the very qualities that make us human and are an essential component in a whole child approach to education. Arts education engages young people in critical skills essential to success in the 21st century economy and global society: the ability to communicate [and] empathize for other human beings, the development of abstract thought, and the ability to work as part of a team.

For the world of opera is not just for singers, orchestral musicians, or dancers—you can also sew costumes or apply makeup on the performers; you can design, build, and paint the set; you can work on lighting, moving the set, or promoting the opera. The job opportunities are immense. So, opera isn't just about singing. There is a role for virtually everyone.

The stories of diverse cultures told through the arts give young and old alike tools to understand a complex, global society rich in history, convention, and beauty. Finally, the arts allow us to express our feelings in a healthy way, and sharing emotions is the bond that ties children to their families, friends, and community. People who are emotionally bonded to each other make up a healthy and empathetic world.

I hope you will join me in making the story of arts a priority in our schools and thus help make our world a better and more beautiful place.

If you stand for whole child education, you can speak out for it, too. Contact your senators, and ask them to support the National Whole Child Resolution, S. Res. 478, which makes a whole child approach to education a national priority and designates March as "National Whole Child Month." Don't forget to sign the Whole Child Petition to tell your state board of education that it must do more to educate the whole child.

As supporters of a whole child approach to education, we believe that each student must receive equal access to a credible, comprehensive, and well-rounded education that includes instruction in all core academic subjects—English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography—delivered at appropriate times throughout the school experience. Credible and comprehensive instruction should also apply to physical education and health education.

Each of these subjects is crucial to a student's learning in its own right, and no single subject should be considered more important than another. Indeed, the combination of the subjects and the interrelationship among disciplines enhances learning and understanding for each student. Moreover, a well-rounded education provides students with the academic preparation and knowledge to succeed in the increasingly global marketplace and in our own complex and ever-changing society.

In July 2010, ASCD and major education organizations representing a wide array of subject areas released consensus recommendations for how the federal government can better support core subjects beyond reading and math during a policy briefing on Capitol Hill. The policy recommendations are a response to the No Child Left Behind Act's singular focus on student performance in reading and math in addition to the Obama administration's Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) blueprint and FY11 budget request, which continue to prioritize reading and math over other subjects.

As part of her testimony, educator, artist, writer, theater maker, and mother Kate Quarfordt said:

I know that when we talk about the importance of ensuring every kid in America gets a well-rounded education, we're not talking about funding cute and cuddly side projects; we're talking about one of the crucial factors that determines whether we graduate healthy, engaged kids who are ready for college, career, and citizenship—or funnel kids into the dropout machine, into the welfare system, into our nation's prisons, and onto the street.

Now, I know that may sound extreme, but I'm here because I know firsthand that every time our nation's schools miss an opportunity to engage kids in broad-based and transformative learning that persuades them to stay in school, graduate, go to college, and participate meaningfully in the world, we lose them. When their experience of school is limited to cramming for standardized tests in a limited number of subjects, we lose them. As a nation, we are losing them at a rate of 7,000 kids every school day; 1 dropout every 26 seconds. And when we lose kids, especially in neighborhoods like the one I work in, most of them don't get a second chance. But when we offer them an education that is well-rounded, that engages them in multiple interconnected ways of seeing the world, that feels relevant to who they are and who they can become, great things happen.

Organizations continue to sign on to endorse the policy recommendations, but what can you do? Whole Child Partner Americans for the Arts asked why arts matter and one of the winners, Student Advocates for the Arts, answered.

"Every child should have access and have a well-rounded education. And they cannot have a well-rounded education without the arts."
—Richard Kessler, executive director, Center for Arts Education, and musician

Student Advocates for the Arts (SAA) is a grassroots student organization dedicated to educating on and advocating for public policy affecting the arts in the United States. Founded in 2002 by graduate students in the Arts Administration Program at Teachers College, Columbia University, SAA engages students in hands-on lobbying, workshops on advocacy and cultural policy, and discussions on the American system for funding the arts. Read SAA's guest post on Americans for the Arts' ARTSblog.

Act now! Sign the Whole Child Petition asking your state board of education to support policies and practices that ensure each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. When your state has reached its goal, we will deliver the petition to your state board of education.

Post submitted by Judy Willis, ASCD author and expert on learning-centered brain research and classroom strategies derived from this research. Connect with Willis on ASCD EDge and on her website, RADTeach.com, and follow her on Twitter.

The brain's information intake filter admits only about 1 percent of the sensory input available each second. That means that because all learning enters the brain as sensory input, teachers need to be sure their lesson material "makes the cut."

This involuntary filter in the low brainstem, called the reticular activating system (RAS), gives priority to novel sensory information. First priority goes to novel sensory information interpreted as potentially threatening—thus the need to have a strong classroom community; interventions to reduce states of sustained high stress; and the trust of your students that you will do all you can to intervene when actions by classmates threaten their property, physical, and emotional safety.

Once threat is not perceived, using novelty is the most successful way to open their brains' intake filters to receive the information you need them to admit into their conscious awareness. Starting a lesson with the novelty and pleasure of curious or compelling photographs, drawings, music, or video clips of scenes of dramatic performances increases attentive focus, especially when they promote curiosity. You further activate the brain's instinctual need to know the result of any predictions it makes when you add opportunities for students to interpret or predict the relationship of sensory novelties to the content of the lesson. Curiosity promotes attention (admission of the sensory input) and prediction sustains sustained attentive focus. The arts are particularly conducive to alternatives in prediction as to interpretation and production (innovation).

There are some standards or units of instruction that you know students don't love and for which interpretation of art can promote advance curiosity and interest that influences the brain's attentive intake. Why not prime their interest, and increase the likelihood that their intake filter will select the sensory input of the lesson, by using the research from the billion dollar advertising industry. Advertise a coming unit with curiosity-provoking art, such as by cutting up a poster of a painting or sculpture that relates to a coming unit and, every day or so, adding pieces to it so that the poster gradually takes form and curious students predict what topic might be coming up. Each day as children enter the classroom and adjust or firm up their predictions of what the art represents relative to a topic, their RAS is primed to "select" the sensory input of that lesson when it is revealed.

If you promote curiosity and prediction through art interpretation, students spend more time evaluating the art. When the day comes for the unit to begin, their curiosity and daily journal or verbal predictions have tuned their brains into the perfect zone for attentive focus. They may not be interested in the subject matter itself, but their brains literally need to find out if their predictions are correct. Now the students' brains want to know what you have to teach!

This is the third in a four-part series on creativity and the critical importance of the arts in providing students with a well-rounded education that meets the needs of the whole child. Read the first and second posts in the series.

President Obama added his video of support last week to the thousands already submitted to the It Gets Better Project. "President Obama is committed to ending bullying, harassment and discrimination in all its forms in our schools and communities," writes Deputy Director of the Office of Public Engagement Brian Bong on the White House Blog. "That's why he recorded this message."

We've got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage, that it's some inevitable part of growing up. It's not. We have an obligation to ensure that our schools are safe for all of our kids.

And, to every young person out there, you need to know that if you're in trouble, there are caring adults who can help.

Find resources, tools, information, and organizations that can help make your school and community safe and supportive in our Bullying Round Up and spotlight on the National Bullying Summit.

This session was held at the recent American School Health Association Annual Conference in Kansas City, Mo., on October 16, 2010. The session was intended to start a discussion about what coordinated school health (CSH) has and has not achieved over the past 20 years, and then further that dialogue into discussing the next moves for CSH.

Below is a summary of that presentation. We have posted it here to elicit comments and engage in a conversation around this topic.

Health and well-being have for too long remained the sole domain of health experts. For too long it has been siloed both geographically and philosophically apart from the school and the educational context. Rarely has health been included or required to be an integral part of the school's educational process—but when it has, the results are surprising. Schools that work purposefully toward enhancing the health—mental, social, and emotional, as well as physical—of both their staff and students, frequently report results that principals and administrators want to hear: higher academic achievement of students [1], increased staff satisfaction and less staff turnover [2], greater efficiency [3], the development of a positive school climate [4], and ultimately the development of a school-community culture that promotes and enhances student growth [5].

So what has held educators back from wholeheartedly embracing health and well-being across their schools and systems? The answer is somewhat twofold—on the one hand there are schools that hold a belief that they are there only to educate the child academically—however the overwhelming evidence that shows that a students' physical, mental, social, and emotional health plays a significant role in determining what students can learn cognitively dispels this notion [6]. On the other hand there are schools that appreciate the effects of student health on student growth and learning—so why haven't these schools done a more comprehensive job in aligning health and education? Ultimately it may be the existence of CSH itself. The fact that there has been a section of the system that has been designed to cater to the health needs of students has in fact allowed education to ignore or push health aside. It has perpetuated the siloing of health and education.

First introduced in 1987, the eight component model of coordinated school health introduced a broader and more defined approach to school health, incorporating aspects that had not previously been organized and coordinated together, such as family and community involvement, counseling, psychological and social services, and a healthy school environment. The key, however, was to have all eight entities aligned and coordinated across the school.

A successful, sustainable coordinated school health program requires a high-quality level of planning, implementation and institutionalization. But achieving that degree of support is difficult when school health is seen as a programmatic issue, rather than as part of a systematic approach to addressing school improvement. Programmatic changes tend to be tried and rolled back or become the project of an individual staff member or department—and when that person leaves, there is usually no one else willing or able to take charge.

This health-centric CSH approach has undoubtedly had some success—it has been adopted by 46 states and has versions adapted into Mexico, Canada, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. However it has never had the broad encompassing success and influence over the whole-school environment that had been envisioned. It has always been viewed as a health initiative by educators and too frequently by health professionals themselves. In fact this discussion is not new but has been around since at least 1998 and has arisen every 3 or 4 years.

• "[T]he promise of a coordinated school health program thus far outshines its practice." (Marx, Wooley, & Northrop, 1998, Health Is Academic, p. 10)
• "In sum, if American schools do not coordinate and modernize their school health programs as a critical part of educational reform, our children will continue to benefit at the margins from a wide disarray of otherwise unrelated, if not underdeveloped, efforts to improve interdependent education, health, and social outcomes." (Kolbe, 2002, The State Education Standard, Autumn, p. 10)
• "Insistence on alignment of programs under the "health" banner is detrimental to the purpose and mission of both school health and school improvement." (Allensworth, Bartee, & Hoyle, 2009, Journal of School Health, p. 165)
• "Though rhetorical support is increasing, school health is currently not a central part of the fundamental mission of schools in America nor has it been well integrated into the broader national strategy to reduce the gaps in educational opportunity and outcomes." (Basch, 2010, Healthier Students Are Better Learners: A Missing Link in School Reforms to Close the Achievement Gap, p. 9)

A change in how we view health and education is required—a change in how the two operate, align, and integrate in the school and community setting. However the biggest change may be in how education views health. Improvement in health, well-being, and climate must be understood to be part and parcel of the school improvement process. It needs to be viewed as not only foundational for the growth and development of students but also as foundational for teaching and learning and school effectiveness. Therefore, the conversation must be directed not toward health professionals but toward education professionals. It must outline and define the educational benefits of healthy students, healthy staff, and a healthy, effective school—for education's sake.

Where there was a need 20 years ago to target the health and well-being of students via a separate and distinct structure in order to focus attention and resources towards health, there may well be a greater need today to combine, align, and merge these structures so that systems work in unison. We do not have the time nor resources to continue the current push me-pull me environment, and neither do our children.

So how do we go about aligning health and education? How do we set out to overlap and interlink these entities that have traditionally been divided and siloed?

The first step is belief.

The second is action.

Later this year ASCD will be publishing a monograph outlining these actions required to better integrate health and education. In the meantime, these steps or 9 levers of change are described in Learning, Teaching and Leading in Healthy School Communities.

1. Basch, 2010; Case & Paxson, 2006; Crosnoe, 2006; Hass, 2006; Hass & Fosse, 2008; Heckman, 2008; Koivusilta et al., 2003; Palloni, 2006. ↩

2. Grayson, 2008; Byrne, 1994; Dorman, 2003. ↩

3. Bergeson, 2005; Harris, Cohen & Flaherty, 2008; Lezotte & Jacoby, 1990. ↩

4. Basch, 2010; Benard, 2001. ↩

5. Battlin-Pearson et al., 2000; Bond et al., 2007; Fleming, Haggerty, Catalano, Harachi, Mazza, & Gruman, 2005; Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999; Klem & Connell, 2004; Nelson, 2004; Rosenfeld, Richman, & Bowen, 1998. ↩

6. Basch, 2010; Case & Paxson, 2006; Crosnoe, 2006; Hass, 2006; Hass & Fosse, 2008; Heckman, 2008; Koivusilta et al., 2003; Palloni, 2006. ↩

Post submitted by Janet Rubin. Rubin, with John Ceschini, facilitates the ASCD Arts in Education Professional Interest Community, which works to elevate the status of the arts as an important curriculum component. It provides a forum for educators to share ideas and activities for teaching the arts and fosters liaisons with other arts-in-education groups and curriculum specialists.

In the 21st century, young people will require an education that addresses the whole child. Today's learner will need to acquire critical thinking and creative competencies. The work place will demand skills in problem solving, innovation, adaptation, working collaboratively, demonstrating initiative, productivity, taking responsibility, and leadership. The complex world in which today's students will live requires that they communicate clearly, understand social and cultural contexts, and have the ability to be flexible in the face of challenges and changing circumstances. The arts give students opportunities to develop and refine these critical skills.

Research supports the benefits of arts education. The Dana Foundation, for example, has sponsored summits and posted research on its website that notes connections between arts training and learning, cognition, focus on task, memory, creative thinking, and general intelligence. Training in music, for example, correlates with the ability to differentiate and manipulate sounds—a predictor of reading fluency—and training in drama and theatre suggests better social skills, increased motivation, and improved memory. Another connection addresses equity, as socioeconomically disadvantaged students have benefited significantly from arts education experiences.

On the website and in publications of the Arts Education Partnership (AEP), resources and research further the case for the arts. AEP's mission centers on the essential role of the arts in students' success. In addition to the Dana Foundation and AEP, many other professional organizations, government agencies, foundations, and research institutes are sources for arts education support and advocacy. Anecdotal evidence also abounds, not the least of which are the heartfelt testimonials of students whose lives have been enriched through the arts.

The arts engage students in ways that other subjects may not, providing ways into learning that compliment learning styles and encourage creative risk taking. The arts are process-oriented, facilitate inquiry, and promote self-expression. Through the arts, children can see themselves as creators who value their own ideas and respect the ideas of others. This gateway to learning helps them to understand that there is not always a right answer to a question or that there may be multiples ways to address a problem. The arts allow them to learn both from their successes and from their mistakes. The positive results are tangible, both in terms of arts content learning and in the ability to understand and communicate meaning across disciplines. In addition, the arts can make positive social changes as they open doors to knowledge. Through arts experiences, students learn to value their own ideas and to respect the ideas of others. Their talents are nurtured as their potential is realized.

Ten Arts Education Benefits

1. Improve academic performance
2. Result in better attendance and lower dropout rates
3. Level the playing field for students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds
4. Build self-esteem
5. Foster self-confidence and self-expression
6. Improve academic and performance skills for children with learning disabilities
7. Improve literacy skills
8. Foster motivation
9. Create empathy for and understanding of others
10. Improve oral and written communication skills

In what other ways do arts education experiences benefit students in your school and community?

ASCD Professional Interest Communities are member-initiated groups designed to unite people around a common area of interest in the field of education. Flexible, fluid, and based on the needs of its participants, each professional interest community is operated independently and provides different resources to its members.

Post submitted by Judy Willis, ASCD author and expert on learning-centered brain research and classroom strategies derived from this research. Connect with Willis on ASCD EDge and on her website, RADTeach.com, and follow her on Twitter.

The brain, in animals and humans, evolved to better protect the well-being of its owner and species. Expending energy without the expectation of imminent satisfaction is not part of the survival programming of the brain. Effort and attention are limited commodities that the brain parses out to the actions it predicts will be successful in protection or pleasure. To predict the likelihood that effort will result in successful outcomes, the brain uses the outcome of previous experiences.

Getting students to engage in activities not imminently linked to the probability of successful outcomes of protection or pleasure is a matter of convincing their brains to act counter to their survival instincts. Trying to teach children through drills or isolated skill practice is contrary to the brain's instinct to preserve its energy, because the brain does not have the expectation of pleasure. And without the opportunity to use the information in personally valued ways, the brain is programmed to limit effort given to the task.

When students know the information will be used to create solutions to problems that interest them or to create products that they want to create (e.g., artwork, instrumental music skill, dance moves, skits), that is when the brain predicts pleasure and applies effort to achieve the desirable goal. When art is incorporated in learning and assessment, there is increased opportunity to produce the ideal situation for active, attentive learning because students value the information that will promote their success in the desired action (creative problem solving or creative production). Now they will apply the effort, collaborate successfully, ask questions, revise work, and review foundational knowledge because they want to know what you have to teach.

In addition, with a creative activity as a goal, the brain has a positive expectation as a template to which it can link acquired facts, skills, or procedures because these are valued as resources to achieve the desired goal. The expectation of creative expression promotes information input through the brain's second intake filter, the emotionally responsive amygdala, so that it can reach the higher functioning prefrontal cortex. This passage into the part of the brain that consolidates learning into relational patterns means the information will not become just an isolated neural network, pruned away after test prep is over. The expectation of creative action and pleasure through the arts literally opens doors to the strongest memory neural links of long-term memory networks.

Information acquired with positive expectation and then mentally manipulated through the symbolic representations of art will link into the expanded neural networks of constructed concepts. Learning throughout the curriculum that incorporates creative and symbolic representation will promote long-term preservation of the memory and store the knowledge available for creative transfer when it is used to solve new problems or investigate new ideas.

This is the second in a four-part series on creativity and the critical importance of the arts in providing students with a well-rounded education that meets the needs of the whole child. Read the first post in the series, The Brain Learns Creatively When Arts Are in the Picture.