The arts teach students to think in a critical way. In the visual arts, students are often given problems to solve, and are taught different ways to solve them. Students who study art and music history realize the effect that the arts have on the world. They learn to make correlations between the music of a time, the art of a time, the architecture of a time, and what is going on politically, socially and historically.
The arts encourage students to collaborate with each other. In a musical, which I am working on this winter, for example, students work on singing together, memorizing lines together, building sets together, practicing every week towards the big performances in April. Unlike in sports, where children have many opportunities to play games as a team, in theater, you have only a few chances to get it right after the months of preparation. You must collaborate and get along for the product to be worthwhile for an audience to watch.
The arts help with social maturity. In my enrichment drama class, I notice students are not only learning how to write about their feelings, and to get up and tell stories about important times in their lives, but they are also able to play drama games, like the "Dinner Table" which talk about emotional times in their lives that they are sharing with the whole class. They support each other, and they learn from all these experiences and bring this into their lives outside of the classroom.
The arts help students to express themselves in many different ways. Creative writing is one way that one of my students in music class shared about how it has changed her life. Another student was very excited to get a certain part in the play, because she could express her anger about many things in her life through the anger of the character and channel that energy into a positive and creative place.
Students can increase their self-esteem by learning to share a monologue with the class. My enrichment class was quick to point out that this experience of learning a monologue will help them if they ever need to speak in front of a large group, or give a presentation for work, or even more importantly, to speak at a wedding or memorial service. Introverted students really learn the power of their own voices through this experience.
One of the best reasons students need the arts is to highlight their creativity! Students in music class this year wrote opera plots and they were able to write these stories about anything that interested them. Some took the opportunity to write ten or twelve page stories with lots of details, and then they wrote songs for their characters and drew beautiful pictures of their sets and their costumes. Opera, I teach my students, puts together all the arts into one big art form! And they can express their creativity in all the forms of art that interest them, as well as collaborate with partners and share with the class!
Finally, the arts teach one of our most important HOWLS, PERSEVERANCE!! They also teach accountability. If you show up to rehearsal and you don't know your part, the whole group suffers! If you don't practice, you don't get better at it. You have to "fail" or go through a process of not knowing how before you get to be really good at music, drama, dance, or art. You have to learn that it won't be fantastic the first time you try a new technique or a new song, or a new piece of choreography. This teaches discipline, and of course, perseverance. I leave you with this quotation from my student who used to play the saxophone and now plays the tuba: "The arts have affected my life by . . .
Playing the tuba has made me look at the world differently, it shows me that the "melody" of life (main part) doesn't "sound" as well without the "bass line". It has shown me the other side of life."
I hope you have a story about the arts and how it helps you see the world in a different way. If so, thank a music, art, drama, or dance teacher! See you next week!
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