NYT: Guggenheim Study Suggests Arts Education Benefits Literacy Skills

[DeepModem Mom]

Guggenheim Study Suggests Arts Education Benefits Literacy Skills
By RANDY KENNEDY
Published: July 27, 2006

In an era of widespread cuts in public-school art programs, the question has become increasingly relevant: does learning about paintings and sculpture help children become better students in other areas?

A study to be released today by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum suggests that it does, citing improvements in a range of literacy skills among students who took part in a program in which the Guggenheim sends artists into schools. The study, now in its second year, interviewed hundreds of New York City third graders, some of whom had participated in the Guggenheim program, called Learning Through Art, and others who did not.

The study found that students in the program performed better in six categories of literacy and critical thinking skills — including thorough description, hypothesizing and reasoning — than did students who were not in the program. The children were assessed as they discussed a passage in a children’s book, Cynthia Kadohata’s “Kira-Kira,” and a painting by Arshile Gorky, “The Artist and His Mother.”

The results of the study, which are to be presented today and tomorrow at a conference at the Guggenheim, are likely to stimulate debate at a time when the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind has led schools to increase class time spent on math and reading significantly, often at the expense of other subjects, including art.

Yet the study also found that the program did not help improve students’ scores on the city’s standardized English language arts test, a result that the study’s creators said they could not fully explain. They suggested that the disparity might be related to the fact that the standardized test is written while the study’s interviews were oral....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/books/27gugg.html

[babydollhead]

1. art saves lives n/t

[gumby]

2. Well said.

[gumby]

3. The Arts have long been proven to "benefit" students

in all different levels of learning.

This reminds me of the Clemente Course in the Humanities. Here's one story http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A26357-2002Apr10

No Child Left Behind is not about "education." NCLB is all about extinguishing learning in exchange for regimentation.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Thanks for the link, gumby. I didn't know about that program. nt

[JoFerret]

12. Exactly

Worth noting that the study says no improvement in standardized test scores - just in the real thing - literacy (creative and critical thinking.)

High stakes testing is all about excluding people (children) from opportunity. It's not about raising levels of literacy, numeracy, creativity.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. I did my thesis on this premise with music education.

I maintained that every child should be able to sightsing and to read music the way each child should be literate with the word. I started with Zoltan Kodaly's hand signs for notes and the moveable do system, continued with Carl Orff and his rhythm system, and included Emil Jacques Dalcroze's fixed do system and music/dance. I had to whittle it down to Zodaly. But it makes sense that if a child is taught to teach both music and language together, both hemispheres of the brain are developed with the right/spacial with music and the left/logical with language with some cross-over. I used primary sources for a lot of my paper.

Ironically now I find public schools eliminating music education. The music classes that remain I sadly report that the kids are not being taught to sing unless it's along with a videotape or a loop of audiotape. But they can still respond if you whip out a guitar or other instrument and teach them some folk songs -- as long as they're 7 or under . . .

[gumby]

6. Your references are beyond my learnin'

However, your thesis that music (arts) education integrates the hemispheres of the brain is indeed intriguing and one I instinctively agree with. (Do I have that correct?)

[OneBlueSky]

9. it's been proven that music can greatly increase math skills . . .

don't have a reference handy, but the relationship of music and mathematics is well documented . . . my own nephew, for example, is an average student in everything but math, where he excels . . . he also plays bass, piano, and a couple of other instruments, sight reads music, and composes his own pieces . . .

[no_hypocrisy]

10. You're correct. Take for example fractions are easily explained and

demonstrated by learning meter and the subdivisions of notes in rhythm.
3/4 time is three notes per measure; 4/4 time is 4 notes per meter, etc. A "whole" note is 4 beats, a "half" note is 2 beats; a quarter note is one beat; there are 2 eighth notes in a note/beat, etc.

Carl Orff organized rhythm where one could recite and clap/stamp one's foot the rhythm to integrate the feeling of the rhythm in one's body as one could sing the notes written. For example, a 4/4 meter with four notes could be ta, ta, ta, ta. Eighth notes were tee-tee. So one could recite/clap ta, ta, tee-tee, ta for 2 notes/2 eighth notes/1 note in a measure and feel the rhythm. Later, you could transfer this to percussive instruments such as drums or xylophones, etc.

[seriousstan]

7. They have no dog in this fight.

[Binka]

8. Excuse Me But What The Shit Are You Talking About? n/t

[Bridget Burke]

20. Guess he didn't have any arts education....

Considering his literacy "skills."

[theHandpuppet]

11. Huh?

I don't suppose you could offer up more than some bizarro post header?

[stepnw1f]

16. shakalaka ding dong? (nt)

[Hosnon]

13. I may agree but not exactly an independent third party here...nt

[CBHagman]

14. I'm more worried than ever about the state of education.

My main concerns are the policy, cultural mind-set, and economic issues.

First let me say that in my idea of a perfect America, kids would have a rigorous but stimulating and supportive school day, with a variety of subjects and activities (everything from recess and PE to all the sciences, a variety of foreign languages, and of course lots of focus on reading and math skills).

However, knowing what teachers and students have to deal with in terms of funding limitations, discipline, and everything else, I would settle for well-staffed schools, solid instruction and remedial work, and so forth.

I fear we are getting stuck in a pattern that focuses on teaching to the test, on overreliance on statistics ("Our students raised their performance in the statewide reading test for the third year in a row!"). I'm worried that we don't focus on what learning and being a well-balanced human being really mean.

It concerns me that physical activity, science, history and geography, and the arts are being cut in various areas. School should be more than just preparing for the next standardized exam, and education should be about more than a politician's talking points.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. That's my concern, too

If I won Powerball, I'd found a school built around the arts with free or low tuition and admission by lottery.

The students would learn to read out of real books with interesting stories. They'd each learn to sight sing and play a musical instrument. They would have daily art classes, combining structured instruction in how to draw and paint with plenty of scope for creativity. Science and social studies classes would involve a lot of thought experiments as well as facts. Math would be connected to the real world and would start with pencil and paper calculation. (People who learned with calculators have trouble with pencil and paper computation, while those of us who learned with pencil and paper can easily switch to calculators.) Foreign language instruction would begin in fifth grade. Literature and social studies and foreign language classes would incorporate drama. PE classes would focus on improving personal fitness through running, swimming, and strength training, not on team sports.

[stepnw1f]

15. without art there wouldn't be civilization

yet for some reason artists starve to death. Yet Britney Spears makes millions and she is far from anything remotely artistic....

Just as teachers are underpaid, our country is in a freefall with stupid asses watching reality shows.

[Igel]

17. I'll wait to see a controlled study, thank you.

The "Mozart effect" was touted to do the same, mostly by people that advocated greater music education.

However, two things later came out. Those that stuck with music were self-selected, and typically had been doing well in it while maintaining a suitable GPA; and those that stuck with it had their lives better structured, and were motivated to keep up their academics.

So the net conclusion: those that have structured routines, are motivated to do their schoolwork, and have average and above average GPAs do better in school. With or without music education. In short, the Mozart effect was a tautology.

Also, having the results derive from purely oral responses is a difficult thing to evaluate. You can't ask for a second opinion; you can't validate and document the results.

I'll wait for a controlled study, in which the participants are randomly chosen, compared to a truly comparable , and the results are more readily validated.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. It's beyond improving literacy skills

The arts give students a motivation for studying. They provide an emotional outlet.

I once heard an interview with a man who advocated including more arts and literature into the school curriculum. He said, in essence, that all adolescents go through periods when they are angry, frustrated, and hate the whole world. If they have no constructive outlet for their feelings, they may turn to violence, vandalism, hedonism, or self-destructive behavior. He said that when he hated the whole world, he wrote poetry.

I myself used to play the piano for hours when I couldn't deal with the craziness anymore.

Sure beats beating people up or etching grafitti into store windows or drinking till you pass out or cutting yourself.

[gumby]

21. This is a very fascinating thread.

Too bad there haven't been more participants.