Franklin students learn a diverse spectrum of skills in
the fine arts. Throughout the year, our students are provided
with the opportunity to showcase their talents through activities
such as a full scale drama production, dance and piano recitals,
musicals, art shows, and other events.
Why
are the fine arts good for kids?
Study: Arts
education has academic effect
By Tamara Henry, USA Today
Washington—School children exposed to drama, music
and dance may do a better job at mastering reading, writing
and math than those who focus solely on academics, says a
report by the Arts Education Partnership.
“Notions that
the arts are frivolous add-ons to a serious curriculum couldn’t
be further from the truth,” says
James Catterall, education professor at the University of
California-Los Angeles, who coordinated the research.
The
report is based on an analysis of 62 studies of various categories
of art — ranging from dance, drama, music
and visual arts—by nearly 100 researchers. It’s
the first to combine all the arts and make comparisons with
academic achievement, performance on standardized tests,
improvements in social skills and student motivation.
Catterall
says the studies suggest that arts education may be especially
helpful to poor students and those in need of remedial instruction.
“While
education in the arts is no magic bullet for what ails many
schools, the arts warrant a place in the curriculum because
of their intimate ties to most everything we want for our
children and schools,” Catterall says.
The report took
two years to produce, with funding from the National Endowment
for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Education.
Gerald
Sroufe of the American Educational Research Association describes
the report as “a benchmark” and “a
starting place for future research in the arts because it
represents a fairly comprehensive picture of what research-based
knowledge exists.” However, he says, the report is “necessarily
a thin volume, including some rather thin studies.”
Eileen
Mason of the National Endowment for the Arts says that President
Bush has requested $11 million to support arts education
projects.
“We are eager for more research,” Mason
says. “We
want to learn more about how we can best convey to our children
the knowledge and skills required to create, perform and
respond to the arts. At the same time, we need to know more
about how the arts help to develop other capacities of our
children, such as language, reading and spatial reasoning.”
Expanding
the mind
The Arts Education Partnership, arguing for the importance
of arts in schools, says various art forms benefit students
in different ways.
Drama: Helps with understanding social
relationships, complex issues and emotions; improves concentrated
thought and story comprehension.
Music: Improves math achievement
and proficiency, reading and cognitive development; boosts
SAT verbal scores and skills for second-language learners.
Dance: Helps with creative thinking, originality, elaboration and
flexibility; improves expressive skills, social tolerance,
self-confidence and persistence.
Visual Arts: Improve content
and organization of writing; promote sophisticated reading
skills and interpretation of text, reasoning about scientific
images and reading readiness.
Multi-Art (combination of art
forms): Helps with reading, verbal and math skills; improves
the ability collaborate and higher-order thinking skills.
Please click on the program on the left you are interested
in learning a little more about.
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