Voices in Education
  • The Importance of Change
    • Teachers as Change Agents
    • Collaborative Learning
    • Incorporating the Arts in Schools
    • Video
  • Morals in Education
    • Rewards & Motivation
    • Value Education Inherent in our School Structure
    • Predictability in the Classroom
  • Reform in Education
    • Progress on Education Reform
    • Windsor's LEED School Initiative
    • Sand vs Bricks
  • Citizenship in Education
    • The Importance of Citizenship
    • Striving to Belong
    • Inclusive Environment in Canada
  • Our Poems on Citizenship
    • Making a Difference
    • Diversity
    • We Become One
  • Guidelines for Teaching
    • Teachers as Facilitators
    • Teacher-Student Connection
    • Management Strategies
  • Issue 3: Should Behaviorism Shape Educational Practices?
    • YES: Beyond Freedom and Dignity
  • Issue 6: Are Truly Democratic Classrooms Possible?
    • Classroom Climate
    • The Democratic Classroom
  • Issue 8/9: Yes/No “No Child Left Behind” is Irretrievably Flawed
    • The Implications of No Child Left Behind
    • The Downfall of Assessment
    • Reality Beyond the Classroom
  • Learning or Unlearning Racism
    • Recognize, Relate and Respect!
    • Breaking the Cycle of Racism in the Classroom
    • Overcoming False Priviledge
  • Gender & Sexual Diversity in Schools
    • Sexuality Acceptance beyond the Classroom
    • Bruises Hurt; Words Kill
    • Recognizing the Rights of the LGBT
  • Multicultural Education in the United States and Canada
    • Community Learners
    • Proud to Be
    • Creating a Multicultural Classroom
  • Equity
    • Reflection of Identities
    • Life of an Immigrant
  • Educating towards a culture of peace
    • Peace through Education
  • Becoming a Professional
    • Teachers: The Character Role Models
    • The Dated Role Models
    • Building your Professional Identity

Incorporating the Arts in Schools

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“Just like adults, children and young people express their ideas, experiences and opinions through artistic media and creative genre.  They not only find “voice” through the music, multimedia and digital image generation of popular and youth cultures, but also through traditional artistic forms such as writing poetry and plays, sculpture, painting, dance, choirs, and orchestras.  The arts are often marginalised within formal schooling, pushed to the extra-curricular or positioned in opposition to the “basics”, yet they provide important avenues for the development of knowledge and skills as well as the means of self-expression and communication.” (Thompson 2010)

            The importance placed on the arts has been continually reduced in the education system.  The arts have come to be seen as an extra-curricular activity, not something that will help you achieve in life and become a valuable member of society.  Because of this shift in thinking, subjects like Math, English and Science, which are ‘more likely to make you a functioning member of society’, take the forefront and the arts are pushed aside to make room for the ‘real education’.  What people seem to be forgetting is that [thanks to our technological world] students in today’s society are largely visual learners, or at the very least, find that a visual helps them in the overall understanding of a lesson.  This dependence on visuals moves beyond using pictures of apples to help count in Math class and into Language Arts where expression through the written word comes naturally to some students. 

            The encouragement of unique expression provides the student with a safe way of voicing their thoughts and opinions and essentially communicating with their peers.  The arts serve as an essential stepping stone to effective communication which can be argued to be the basis of every subject they take in school.  Effective communication is paramount when one is trying to relay their opinion, ideas, solutions, discoveries, etc... We can build to effective communication through subjects in the arts like writing, poetry, painting or drama.  In fact many people have made their careers out of using the arts to communicate messages (i.e. Andy Warhol).  If schools continue to marginalize the arts, a student’s ability to communicate will take far longer to mold and creativity will be harder to coax out of them.

K.D.

Thomson, P. (2010). Involving children and young people in educational change: Possibilities and challenges. In A. Hargreaves et al. (Eds.), Second International Handbook of Educational Change (pp. 809-824). London: Springer.


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