clipart of stage lights

Educating through the Arts!!!

A Teacher's Guide to Arts Integration.

What is Arts Integration?
The Official Definition.

"...I think that if
we don’t provide an arts education, at least an arts
opportunity for every child, we are leaving a lot of
children behind. The arts open up a whole new horizon for every
human being and without that, we will have very onedimensional
children who become one-dimensional
adults." -Gov. Mike Huckabee

Arts Integration is the use of performing and visual arts to help facilitate learning of other non-arts subjects. (Rabkin, Nick...) For example, the legendary Chaio-meng used his spectacular puppets to teach the young emporer of China politics. (Flower, Cedric...) Arts Integration is designed to blend the so-called "core" sunjects with the arts in order to promote learning through the various mediums that the arts present.
kids in pointy hats
kids playing music

Students who participate in the arts are more likely to:

  1. improve academically,
  2. have strong creative thinking skils,
  3. gain self-confidence,
  4. take more risks,
  5. have more motivation,
  6. stick with tasks,
  7. work with others better,
  8. and studies have shown that minority students benefit the most from arts integration. (Preble, W.K...)

There have been several different types of Arts Education defined in New Hampshire's schools:

  1. The Temporary Artist Residency Model: Guest artist visits and engages students in his/her program. Does not directly support goals of non-arts curriculum
  2. The Assistive Artist Residency Model: A residency that also tries to develop non-arts skills identified by teachers. Artist is primary instructor, but teacher also assists
  3. The Capacity Building Model: The program includes professional development for teachers and prepares teachers to use the arts in their own teaching. Artist trains the teachers to utilize the capacity of the arts in instruction.
  4. The Collaborative Teaching Model: Teacher and artist work together to integrate concepts from the arts and non-arts areas into the curriculum and these integrated approaches reinforce each other to improve teaching and learning.
  5. Collaborative Integrated Curriculum Model: Teachers from different content areas identify units of study with common themes or concepts. Teachers and artists plan together. Each teacher instructs students within his/her discipline using common concepts. (Preble, W.K...)
WORKS CITED

Laura Bascom
THDA 721 01
Final Project
December 17, 2008
lbascom@unh.edu