The Importance of the Arts in Education...
Over the past 10 to 15 years, schools have increasingly come to depend on outside arts groups to provide arts education. Georgia Shakespeare recognizes that our community needs strong arts education not only to build audiences for tomorrow but also to contribute to the quality of life and the improvement of education in our community.
The importance of arts education on students has been shown in numerous studies over the years. The Center for Arts Education in October 2009 issued a lengthy report on Arts Education and NYC High School Graduation Rates called “Staying in School.” This report on the need for greater arts education emphasis in New York schools reinforced findings of other groups that arts education has a positive impact on students’ performance in the classroom.
The Dana Foundation in 2008 released studies by neuroscientists at six prestigious universities that demonstrated a “tight correlation” between increased cognition skills and exposure to the arts. A highly regarded 10 year study by James Catterall of students’ results in standardized tests showed that those students who participated in arts projects outperformed students with low levels of arts participation in virtually every category.
Theatre participants, in particular, showed gains in reading proficiency. This is particularly relevant in the study of Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s plays are included in core curricula throughout the United States. By graduation, nearly every student in a public high school will have been expected to read at least one of Shakespeare’s plays. Despite Shakespeare’s presence in nearly all schools, many students find the standard approaches to these texts dull and complicated. Performance based exposure to the arts can make those texts come alive and become more understandable to modern students.
A case study by Harvard’s Project Zero found that in contrast to students with no arts education, the 800 students surveyed after participating in a theatre’s education program reported they had a strong sense of their own capability to understand Shakespeare’s plays. The empowerment of understanding and even enjoying Shakespeare is a unique tool for a student of any age.
