Professional Development : Best Practices :

Adding to the Arts
By Mary Ellen Bafumo

Including the arts in your teaching repertoire could lead to increased student achievement

"For young children, art is not a frill, it is an essential language that makes it possible to communicate feelings and ideas words cannot express." -Ernest L. Boyer

You don't have to be an artist to use the arts in your classroom. The arts are a universal form of expression through which all cultures communicate. Yet today's educational climate focuses so narrowly on academics, that exposure to and experience with the arts is often limited. Engagement with the arts increases student achievement and empowers those who aren't successful academically. Try these ideas and watch student interest come to life.

  1. Use landscapes, paintings of seasons, plants and animals to introduce topics like geographic regions, flora, fauna, waterways and weather. Sharpen students' language and observation skills by studying artwork for descriptions, colors, textures and connections to the topic at hand.

  2. Set the stage for social studies by playing music that evokes an era. Increase listening skills and imagination by using music as the lesson background. Try "Ashokan Farewell" by Jay Unger and Molly Mason to bring you back to the Civil War. Unearth popular songs from WWII that tell the story of events and places. Use American folk music from the 1960s to define that turbulent and colorful era. Your students will discover whole new musical genres, in addition to valuable content about the times.

  3. Use film clips to illustrate topics of study. Be sure your school owns the DVD or video, has permission to use it or has it on file from a public television broadcast. The Amish barn raising in the film "Witness" gives students a glimpse into a very different community experience. Clips from animated films like "The Lion King" illustrate cultural concepts like group dynamics, competition and cooperation. Leadership, courage, heroes and villains are all captured on film and can teach, reinforce and motivate. Critically viewing and discussing the ideas in selected clips gives students new skills for viewing any film.

  4. Use the arts as assessment tools. For example, students can illustrate scenes from history to demonstrate their knowledge. They can convey their learning on a topic by rewriting the words to familiar tunes. These ideas address only a few of the arts, but are easy ways to begin using the arts in your classroom. Once you add the arts to your teaching repertoire, you'll wonder how you ever taught without them.

Mary Ellen Bafumo directs principal and teacher development at the Council for Educational Change.

March 2004, Vol.34, No.6