McClain 1

Jillian McClain

Mrs. Cramer

Comp. Pd. 5

16 Nov. 2018

Benefits to the Arts in Education

What value do the arts possess in contributing to the success of students in education?

How do they prepare students for the future? In schools, art education has been neglected and

pushed aside in the school curriculum (Buldu and Shaban 332). People believe that the arts play

no role in the success of students academically, but studies conducted on the matter have proven

otherwise. The arts have proven to help students in their academic studies and make it easier for

them to understand and learn. Art education is beneficial to students in schools because it

improves young children's learning experience and social skills, it helps students gain a better

understanding of academic subjects, and it helps students improve and develop other talents.

Although many think the arts aren’t beneficial, they have shown to improve young

children’s learning experience and social skills. Drama activities conducted with young students

have given them the chance to improve their oral language (Fennessey). Improving young

children's oral language improves their social skills because it helps them communicate better

with each other and adults. It helps students achieve their goal of getting their points across

because it’s developing how they say and understand the words, allowing for better and more

easy-flowing conversations that may not have occurred before. Drama activities build up

confidence, cooperation, and concentration while also improving fluency and pronunciation

(Fennessey). Drama is all about speaking, and to perform it you must be able to pronounce the

words with accuracy and be able to concentrate on the task. Not only are these main concepts for
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drama, they are also a key to success in understanding what you’re learning. Drama allows

children to develop their language skills while also letting them have fun. When they are acting

the scenes out, they’re not thinking of the activities as something that they must get done. Drama

takes something that would normally be difficult for children to focus on - language arts - and

develops skills that will help them in the future.

The arts have also been shown to improve student understanding of different academic

subjects in various age groups. A study done over the course of several months with STEAM

projects used art to illustrate parts of plants and how they worked (Kurson 58). Illustrating the

parts of the plants helped the students learn and recognize the different components of the plants.

Then they were instructed to illustrate the different components and how they worked, which

helped them to remember what each of the different structures of the plants did. Illustrating the

plants forced students to get a better look at the plants to understand them. Having to draw the

whole process out also ended up leaving them with little homemade booklets on how plants

functions to refer to when necessary. Another study was conducted with fourth graders where

they had to sculpt a scientist. The idea of the study was to give the children a better

understanding about scientists and what they do (Jackson and Rich 75). Teachers used the

sculptures as a way for the children to have fun while also gathering information about their

scientists. When the sculptures were finished, all the children went around the room and

explained their scientist. They had fun with the activity so they were able to retain knowledge

about their scientist, along with other children's. When mixing art and science, the collaboration

can either be sophisticated or it can be simple (Ochterski and Lupacchino-Gilson 39). An

example of a simple combination of art and science would be when the students were illustrating

plants. Though it may not have seemed like much, the effort the students were putting in to
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accurately come up with how their plants looked and functioned brought the two subjects

together in a way that didn’t require it to be a big project on either side. Art combined with

science, something it already overlaps with, creates an environment where students get to enjoy

what they’re learning and have fun, and because they're enjoying what they’re doing they put

more effort into what they’re learning. Art allows students to gain self-expression and it helps

them to focus on their academic studies.

Studies have also shown that art education in schools helps students improve and develop

other skills. Drama helps students to coordinate the body and voice creatively, develop use of

sensory detail and descriptive language, and develop directional language. It also helps students

promote understanding of character traits and with the ability to understand plot, character, and

setting (Fennessey). The different activities that are used in drama are helping children develop

skill sets that benefit their education. Drama is a form of art that is already built around literary

aspects, so when using drama activities as a fun way to motivate students, they become more

engaged and open to new understanding without fully realizing. Students began to develop

literary skills after doing activities like one-line improvisations, role-playing book characters,

and improvising scenes from literature (Fennessey). Arts integration also began to encourage

critical thinking and diligence about content in some students (Gullatt 12). Students who had

never been exposed to the arts before began to develop a new set of critical thinking skills. They

also began to pick up a better understanding of the content they were reading in their classes.

When exposed to the arts students began to develop advanced skills that were either there or

were nonexistent to begin with.

Integration of art education in schools improves young children's learning experience and

social skills, helps to improve students' understanding of academic subjects, and helps students
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develop and improve other skills. Children improve their oral communication skills using drama

activities which allow them to have fun while also developing their communication skills. Art

collaborated with science helps give students a more simplified way of learning. It lets them have

fun while they do work that is usually frustrating and confusing for most. The arts also help

student develop communication skills, critical thinking skills, and help with building up

confidence and concentration. If schools were to make more of an effort to integrate the arts in to

everyday learning they would see an improvement in the results of their students' attitudes and

learning experience.
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Works Cited

Buldu, Mehmet, and Mohamed S. Shaban. "Visual Arts Teaching in Kindergarten through 3rd-

grade Classrooms in the UAE: Teacher Profiles, Perceptions, and Practices." Journal of

Research in Childhood Education, vol. 24, no. 4, October/December 2010, p. 332+.

Student Resources In Context,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A242590974/SUIC?u=pl1949&sid=SUIC&xid=0e924e48.

Accessed 20 Sept. 2018.

By Kurson, Rebecca. "Learning about Plants with Steam: In a Yearlong Unit on Plants, Students

Use Art to Make Models of Their Subjects." Science and Children, vol. 53, no. 9,

Summer 2016, p. 58+. Student Resources In Context,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A503272893/SUIC?u=pl1949&sid=SUIC&xid=58856ae6.

Accessed 20 Sept. 2018.

Fennessey, Sharon. "Using Theater Games to Enhance Language Arts Learning." The Reading

Teacher, vol. 59, no. 7, Apr. 2006, p. 688+. Student Resources In Context,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A144868689/SUIC?u=pl1949&sid=SUIC&xid=e01d30fe.

Accessed 20 Sept. 2018.

Gullatt, David E. "Enhancing Student Learning through Arts Integration: Implications for the

Profession." High School Journal, vol. 91, no. 4, Apr.-May 2008, p. 12+. Student

Resources In Context,
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link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A178674144/SUIC?u=pl1949&sid=SUIC&xid=d239a526.

Accessed 20 Sept. 2018.

Jackson, Julie, and Ann Rich. "Sculpt-a-scientist: An Artistic Activity Shapes Fourth-grade

Students' Perceptions of Scientists." Science and Children, vol. 52, no. 1, Sept. 2014, p.

75. Student Resources In Context,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A382255988/SUIC?u=pl1949&sid=SUIC&xid=80dd8235.

Accessed 20 Sept. 2018.

Ochterski, Joseph, and Lisa Lupacchino-Gilson. "Getting an a in STEM: Beginning a Steam

Collaboration between Art and Chemistry Students." The Science Teacher, vol. 83, no. 7,

Oct. 2016, p. 39+. Student Resources In Context,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495940135/SUIC?u=pl1949&sid=SUIC&xid=3280030f.

Accessed 20 Sept. 2018.