Clyde Gaw is a veteran art teacher, K-12, in Indiana. In this post, part of Anthony Cody’s series on the importance of art, Gaw describes the teaching and learning of art and how it brings out interest, motivation, and passion in students. They become invested in their work. They want to do it; they want to finish it.
Here is a small part of a thoughtful and provocative post:
At the end of the day, I ask myself, if art experiences optimize developmental pathways and provide learning experiences that allow students to make sense of content, why are fine arts programs not fully funded and supported by federal and state policy makers whose mantra is “We should do what’s best for children?” President Barack Obama, whose presidential theme of “change” propelled him to the White House in 2008, defaulted on that promise with RTTT, an initiative resulting in the de-emphasis of arts learning and new emphasis on testing and data collection. Despite happy talk from politicians about arts education, federal and state lawmakers should know if schools and educators are going to be penalized for low standardized test scores, a school’s curricula structure is going to emphasize test-taking skills in a myriad of ways including increased time spent on tasks and subjects preparing for tests.Screen Shot 2015-12-01 at 10.58.35 PM
In the classroom, I look at my watch. “Children, it’s clean-up time. The next class has arrived and they are waiting outside for their turn in the art room.” “Tell them to wait,” chirps Frank, “We don’t want to go!” After clean up, Frank’s class lines up at the door and reluctantly waves good-bye while the next class moves in for another 40-minute art experience. This sequence is repeated 37-39 times a week, for 36 weeks. My thoughts race back to a comment a student made to me a two years earlier, “Art should be….like the whole school!” What would happen if students spent most of their day learning through creative experience?
What would that look like?
At the end of the day, I review photo-documentation of student art-making activities in our studio where child initiated ideas to build, paint, draw, sculpt, act, sew, write or develop other trans-disciplinary ideas are honored. Democratic education is emergent and means children have a voice and co-collaborate in the design of the curricula experiences they participate in.
After decades observing children in studio settings devoted to self-expression in art, there is much evidence to conclude the mind is a biologically unique organ. Howard Gardner’s theory of mind, which states human beings are biologically endowed with unique intellectual and creative capacities, is perfectly illustrated in our art program. Children are not homogeneously constructed.
Children thrive in fine arts settings because art, music, theatre and dance are the first language of humans. It is not by accident that educational experience is optimal when integrated through multi-sensory learning experience. There is a biological basis for memory formation and it has everything to do with multi-sensory experience. Research in physiology by 2000 Nobel Laureate, Eric Kandel reveals neural networks are strengthened and expanded when learners engage in sensory-based learning experience. From this educator’s perspective, Kandel’s research means fine arts experiences are critical, foundational experiences in the development of mind.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“What would happen if students spent most of their day learning through creative experience?
What would that look like?”
A progressive school.
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Thank you for the title. If I hear one more educator say, “All children can learn” when it’s obvious all children learn I will throw up my hands in disgust. At least the folks in the creative community get it right.
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Unfortunately in the name of reform the results of educational research have been increasingly ignored. Non education leaders feel they know better than child psychologists such as Piaget. They probably have never even heard of Gardner.
After all, everyone’s an expert as far as education is concerned. Their qualifications? They were once a student.
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Art teaches children to see. Music teaches children to listen and hear, dance teaches children the limits of space and motion. Dance and music are often combined. All of the arts teach children to find the depth of their inner voice and communicate it to others. All of the arts teach children how to function in a community. They help children not only to be creative but precise. The arts teach personal responsibility and strengthens learning stamina. When the arts are combined with academics the children use true rigor. Eliminating the arts is the way the reformers are shooting themselves in the foot.
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