Quincy Jones Makes Eloquent Plea for Arts Education

"Every great society from the Egyptians, to the Greek and Roman Empires, has been defined by its cultural contributions. The commercial benefits of the arts not withstanding -- our artistic endeavors are a consistent source of revenue in the United States and our nation's largest export -- can we really run the risk of becoming a culturally bankrupt nation because we have not inserted a curriculum into our educational institutions that will teach and nurture creativity in our children?"

In the Huffington Post (dated May 9), jazz icon Quincy Jones calls for a plan of action to "make music education an ongoing part of the lives of children in the United States."

Astronaut Mae Jemison on Reintegrating the Arts and Sciences

Mae Jemison, best known for being the first African American woman in space, presents a new vision of learning that combines arts and sciences, intuition and logic in a February TED Talk.

Sunday Arts Education Connection #5: Unity and Variety

Third Installment in my series on Arts Elements and Principles

The complementary arts principles of variety and unity are this week's topic—building on last week's post on contrast. The principles of unity and variety are important in all four arts disciplines. Whether composing music or a dance, writing a play, or creating a painting or graphic design, the artist must strive for wholeness and cohesiveness—unity—while introducing enough variety to prevent a work that is monotonous.

Exploring these principles in an arts class could set the stage for other investigations. Consider: In science, children marvel at the vast variety of species while seeking to impose unity through classifying them. In math, they create a whole shape from a variety of shapes. In reading, they look for a common theme that unifies a novel or poem and for the variety of ways the author or poet uses to present that theme. In writing or speaking, they work on making sure they use variety to keep the audience's interest while building on a thesis. In social studies, they consider the many cultures and ethnic groups that make one United States or the many nations that make one world.


Photo Credits: Stefano Corso, Agência Brasil, Justin, Peter Halasz, Mark Harden's Artchive

Sunday Arts Education Connections #4

Contrast
Second Installment in my series on Arts Elements and Principles (See overview post See introduction to series See entry on Form)

Contrast is a design principle at work in all the arts disciplines. Listening to or composing contrasting musical passages—high and low pitch, fast and slow tempo—and exploring the effects of color contrasts prepares the senses for scientific observation and opens the writer's mind to how contrasts in sentence structure improve the flow of a composition.

Contrast also is a technique used in arts criticism. Critics may highlight the contrasts within a work of art and explore contrasts across periods and movements to heighten understanding or suggest meaning. The critical exploration of contrasts in paintings can be a springboard for investigating differences across societies, ecosystems, and ideologies.



Photos from Flickr and Wikimedia Commons by: Aussiegall, Bobbie8, Vince Alongi, Andrew*, babasteve, Azoreg, roberdan, makemake, Thomas Schoch

Arts are an 'R' Too—Mississippi Has the Right Idea

The central features of Mississippi's Whole Schools Initiative are an arts-infused curriculum, instruction in the arts disciplines, and arts-based professional development. An evaluation of the initiative by two independent researchers, Dick Corbett and Bruce Wilson, and David Morse, a professor of psychology at Mississippi State, concluded that schools fully implementing arts integration had significantly better results on tests of literacy. Evaluators suggested that "enriching rather than narrowing the curriculum might be the wiser move in improving students’ literacy."

The report says arts learning is a powerful ally and should, perhaps, be considered "the 4th R."

I agree. Some people can express their ideas better through an art form than through writing an essay or making a presentation. I think it's important that children be able to use and develop the voice that feels most natural to them. Finding that voice can fuel the desire for knowledge and provide a bridge to other literacies.

Also, works of art are vital threads in the fabric of history and culture. If we want kids to really think about the academic content we have decided they need in order to understand their world, I can think of no better way than becoming immersed in works of art.

Arts and 21st Century Skills: Wisconsin and North Carolina are Moving Forward

Two states have made definitive statements about the importance of arts learning in developing the next generation of innovators.

In January, the Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity published its plan for action. It recommends specific actions for making the arts a more integral part of the state's innovation infrastructure, but there is much in the report that has national application. I particularly liked its description of creative skills and attitudes, followed by what attributes in the environment nurture creativity.

North Carolina has published Arts Education and 21st Century Skills, a document that aligns the state's fine arts standards with the competencies outlined by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. This is an eloquent illustration of how much the arts contribute to the development of innovatiove thinkers, and I think it could be used as a model for anyone who is thinking about how to integrate 21st century skills with any academic content.

Arts Learning and Scientific Achievement: Another Piece of Evidence

Psychology Today provides links to many blogs on creativity. Today, I looked at "Imagine That! Annals of Ordinary and Extraordinary Genius" by Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein. Their March 6 post discusses a longitudinal study of scientific creativity by UCLA psychologist Bernice Eiduson. She collected data from 40 young scientists in 1958 about their work habits, hobbies, etc. In looking at the group's successes over twenty years, she noted patterns among those who were most successful including the Nobel laureates Linus Pauling and Richard Feynman and several members of the National Academy: They were much more likely to spend time on their

avocations and they believed that "knowledge of art, poetry, music, etc. was part-and-parcel of being an educated scientist." They also "used a much wider range of mental "tools" during problem solving than their less successful colleagues, including various forms of two-, three-, and four-dimensional visual imaging, kinesthetic imaging, acoustic imaging, verbal and written forms, diagrams, and so forth."

Are cuts in arts education and the marginalization of the arts limiting the innovative capacities of future scientists?

If you go to Imagine That, also check out their February 11 piece on the arts and economic growth.

Exciting Arts Education Research-Some Links

My Google Reader took me on a thought-provoking Web cruise today. Some of my stops were familiar places with new information while others were exciting discoveries.

I started by investigating a link to the Academy for Early Learning on 21st century skills. I had to comment on the fresh take Lois Feibus had regarding 21st century tools, and my comment suggested ASCD's Whole Child blog.

I visited there and found some promising news about correlations between music education and students' cognitive development and academic achievement:

1. A study by two Ohio State University researchers, Darby E. Southgate and Vincent J. Roscigno, concludes that "Music participation, both inside and outside of school, is associated with measures of academic achievement among children and adolescents. Future work should further delineate the relevant processes of music involvement, as well as how background inequalities and music involvement intersect in relation to educational performance." (The study appears in Social Science Quarterly, 2009, vol. 90, issue 1, pages 4-21.)


2. Schuylkill Valley Elementary School in Pennsylvania has launched a Suzuki violin program for all of its 170 kindergarten students and is planning to work with researchers at Penn State Berks to evaluate the cognitive development and achievement of the students in the program. According to a New York Daily Record article cited by the Whole Child blog, the program was inspired by the three-year study, "Learning, Arts and the Brain" by the Charles A. Dana Foundation. The Dana Foundation sponsors and highlights neuroscience research on arts education.

Reading a news item by Janet Eilbert at Dana's site, I ran across a link to Dewey21C, a great blog about arts education by Richard Kessler, executive director of the Center for Arts Education. There I found out about the Teaching Artist Research Project (TARP) at the the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. This study looks closely at the work of teaching artist communities in several cities.

I better stop now. This could go on all day!

Congressional Hearings on Arts Scheduled

From a Media Release Issued by the House Education and Labor Committee:

With the arts and music among the many industries being hit hard in economic downturn, U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, today announced plans to hold a series of hearings this Spring to examine how the arts benefit the nation’s economy and schools – and what can be done to improve support for the arts and music fields. “Like so many other sectors of our economy, the arts and music are suffering greatly – hurting millions of workers and families who depend on these industries for good jobs and the students who benefit from participation in arts and music education in school. Research shows that when students are exposed to arts and music, they perform better in other subjects,” said Miller. “In states and communities around the country, like my home state of California, these industries are vital engines for local economies – making up a large share of revenue and providing employment for a wide array of jobs, from construction to musicians to art teachers to sound editors.”

“President Obama has made it clear that arts and music have a critical role to play in improving our schools, our workforce and our overall quality of life. These hearings will give Congress the opportunity to hear from experts in these fields about how supporting the arts and music can help us build a stronger America.”

A Side Note
I just joined a new social network called Innovate-Ideagora. It's purpose statement is:

Innovate-Ideagora is an open agora, where problems seek solutions, new visions are explored, and the status quo is challenged.

Arts and Cognitive Development: What Does the Research Say?

Does an arts-rich education make a difference?

Based on their review of research on art education and its effects on academic performance, Lois Hetland and Ellen Winner warn against sweeping claims of causal links between learning in the arts and achievement in other academic areas. They found only three instances of causal links between learning in the arts and improved learning in nonarts areas. Here are some excerpts from the executive summary of their report on Project Zero's REAP (Reviewing Education and the Arts Project):

"a medium-sized causal relationship was found between listening to music and temporary improvement in spatial-temporal reasoning . . . .

a large causal relationship was found between learning to make music and spatial-temporal reasoning. The effect was greater when standard music notation was learned as well, but even without notation the effect was large. . . .

a causal link was found between classroom drama (enacting texts) and a variety of verbal areas."

Spatial-temporal reasoning is important in geometry and some areas of calculus. Based on what I've read, listening to and playing music activates the same neural circuitry that is used in problems that require spatial-temporal reasoning. So the effect may come come more from the effects of music on brain development than from a transfer of thinking skills or knowledge.

Hetland and Winner's analysis indicates that we do not yet have definitive research establishing a broad causal connection between learning in the arts and improved academic performance in math and science, literacy, and creative thinking skills. But it's not surprising that so little is known. Federal and state investments in such research and local investments in the kind of high-quality arts education that would provide the conditions for collecting valid and reliable data have been much smaller than investments in math and reading. In other words, scientific evidence is scarce largely because few are looking for it.

Some studies, however, suggest strong correlations between arts learning and positive outcomes. Here are a couple examples from Critical Evidence: How the ARTS Benefit Student Achievement, published by National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and the Arts Education Partnership:

In an experimental research study of high school age students, those who studied dance scored higher than nondancers on measures of creative thinking, especially in the categories of fluency, originality and abstract thought.

A group of 162 children, ages 9 and 10, were trained to look closely at works of art and reason about what they saw. The results showed that children’s ability to draw inferences about artwork transferred to their reasoning about images in science. In both cases, the critical skill is that of looking closely and reasoning about what is seen.

Both examples come from Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, an Arts Education Partnership research compendium that contains summaries of many such studies. Also, a 2005 Arts Education Partnership book called Third Space: When Learning Matters details the experiences of ten arts-rich public schools in economically disadvantaged communities with achievement test results that are significantly better than those of schools from the same communities.

The difficulty is this: A school's success in creating an outstanding arts education program may be an indication of other exceptional assets, such as committed parents and community partners or outstanding leadership and an innovative faculty. This is certainly true with many schools for the arts, whether they audition students or select them from a lottery. More kids with strong support networks—involved parents or mentors—go through the process of applying.

Still, isn't it a reasonable hypothesis that the arts played some role in the higher academic performance and other positive behaviors typically found in arts rich schools? And shouldn't clear effects on brain development be a rationale for more research on the benefits of arts education? Isn't that what innovation is all about—pursuing promising paths that lie outside the mainstream of what works?

Art & Soul: Edutopia Pleads the Cause of Arts Education

The February issue of Edutopia is entitled "Art and Soul: Why Arts Education Must Be Saved."

There are articles about the latest research and cutting edge programs. One that describes Opening Minds Through the Arts in Tucson, Arizona, is the most exciting thing I've seen in awhile. OMA also provides some really good rubrics and other materials for arts integration.

My favorite article is "Art in Schools Inspires Tomorrow's Creative Thinkers" by Jeffrey T. Schnapp—"director of the Stanford Humanities Lab at Stanford University, a prominent twentieth-century cultural historian, and a frequent curator of art exhibitions in Europe and the United States."

Schnapp's passionate essay begins:

"Education minus art? Such an equation equals schooling that fails to value ingenuity and innovation. The word art, derived from an ancient Indo-European root that means "to fit together," suggests as much. Art is about fitting things together: words, images, objects, processes, thoughts, historical epochs.

It is both a form of serious play governed by rules and techniques that can be acquired through rigorous study, and a realm of freedom where the mind and body are mobilized to address complex questions -- questions that, sometimes, only art itself can answer: What is meaningful or beautiful? Why does something move us? How can I get you to see what I see? Why does symmetry provide a sense of pleasure?"

Scientific Creativity and the Arts: Some Observations

Chance, Logic, Genius, and Zeitgeist—those elements are the stuff of scientific creativity, according to Dean Keith Simonton at UC Davis. Simonton's 2004 book Scientific Creativity examines the people, contexts, and underlying processes associated with original discoveries that have a significant impact on scientific knowledge and practice. He says chance "appears to be the most proximate cause" of scientific discoveries while "logic, zeitgeist, and genius impinge upon, intensify, modify, and qualify or in some other manner adjust the operation of chance." In other words, the more original a discovery is, the "less likely it is that logic played a causal role in the event." (Of course, this doesn't mean scientists just roll the dice. It's just that the factors are so complex and there are so many possible interactions that it appears random for all intents and purposes.)

Does Simonton's analysis of each component underlying scientific discoveries and innovative breakthroughs—and how those components interrelate—add potential value to dialogue about developing students' creative and innovative thinking skills? I'd like to share some of my preliminary conclusions about that based on points from the book.

1. Simply improving science and math knowledge and skill is not enough. American education also must produce more STEM graduates who are creative thinkers. Simonton says that within any scientific domain, there is a small creative elite (about 10%) that accounts for something like 50% of publications. This suggests that STEM education should look not only at how to produce more students who have mastered advanced science knowledge but also at how to increase the percentage of those students who exhibit scientific creativity. In fact, wouldn't doubling the number of STEM majors exhibiting a high degree of scientific creativity give U.S. global competitiveness a bigger bang for the buck than doubling the number of STEM majors? Of course, both would be preferable, but considering the analysis of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, America can't lead economically unless it leads in innovative breakthroughs.
   


2. Building time into the school day for generating and playing with ideas may be part of the solution. Simonton says the process of scientific creativity consists of associative play followed by justification of the best ideas. "First," he says, "the scientist freely plays around with ideas, the logic participating only after the associative process has converged on a good combination." Also, he says most creative scientists generate more ideas than other scientists. Interestingly, the ratio of successful ideas to unsuccessful ones is about the same for the most creative and least creative scientists. In other words, creative scientists have more good ideas largely because they have more ideas. Should't we get students used to idea generation?
   


3. Building creative thinking into the science curriculum may be only part of the answer. A visual art, dance, theater, or music composition class—or projects that integrate these with science—might also be useful. Simonton says the most creative scientists are more likely to be working on several diverse projects at the same time and to have more outside interests. He also says that revolutionary contributions often come from people who are new to the field. Frans Johansson makes a similar observation in The Medici Effect: The most extraordinary innovative ideas are "intersectional"—that is, they are found where domains, disciplines, and cultures intersect. We need a complete curriculum!
   


4. The kinds of thinking creative scientists exhibit can be developed in an arts context. In comparing artistic and scientific creativity, Simonton says scientific paradigms place more constraints on scientific creativity and suggests that creative scientists exhibit more analytical intelligence than creative artists. But his analysis of how creative scientists think suggests to me that the actual creative ways of thinking in science and the arts are similar. Creative scientists, says Simonton, form a flatter hierarchy of associations (which means they connect ideas that other people would not connect) and are more open to "irrelevant stimuli." Michael Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott make a similar point in their book Innovate Like Edison. They call it "kaleidoscopic thinking"—generating lots of ideas, letting them flow, playing with them. I think arts activities outside of science can be an excellent "brain gym" for such thinking in general, and arts integration can be a way to introduce creative thinking into the science classroom.
   

I think creating strong arts education programs AND increasing instructional time in the arts is a good starting point, along with a commitment to studying arts integration. Students need the content knowledge and rigor they get in math and science classes. Taking too much time out of that to play with ideas—especially before teachers have received the professional development they need to do this effectively—could weaken the foundation of academic achievement in science.

In short: An expanded arts learning environment may be the better incubator for more purposeful instruction in creative thinking. Tomorrow, I will explore this further.

NEA Chair Dana Gioia Comments on Arts Education

"You're in a society that will be happy if you're simply a good customer and make enough money to buy stuff and be a consumer." That was one interesting comment National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia addressed to some high school students recently. (It was covered in The Tidings, a weekly paper by the LA Archdiocese. Paula Doyle wrote the story.)

Chairman Gioia, who left a high position in the corporate world to pursue his poetry, also said the purpose of arts education is "to produce complete human beings who can lead successful lives in a complicated society."

I would like to see this broader vision for arts education. I believe part of the problem is that teachers don't have adequate time to explore and talk about art with students. It's all about production and performance. Therefore, the arts are viewed as only for the talented and they become compartmentalized instead of flowing into all areas of inquiry.

Obama and Arts Education

Our new President seems to be an advocate for arts education. This is an excerpt from his position paper on arts and culture:

To support arts education, Obama proposes these strategies:

Expand Public/Private Partnerships Between Schools and Arts Organizations: Barack Obama will increase resources for the U.S. Department of Education’s Arts Education Model Development and Dissemination Grants, which develop public/private partnerships between schools and arts organizations. Obama will also engage the foundation and corporate community to increase support for public/private partnerships.

Create an Artist Corps: Barack Obama supports the creation of an “Artists Corps” of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and their communities. Studies in Chicago have demonstrated that test scores improved faster for students enrolled in low-income schools that link arts across the curriculum than scores for students in schools lacking such programs.

Publicly Champion the Importance of Arts Education: As president, Barack Obama will use the bully pulpit and the example he will set in the White House to promote the importance of arts and arts education in America. Not only is arts education indispensable for success in a rapidly changing, high skill, information economy, but studies show that arts education raises test scores in other subject areas as well.

Art and the Inauguration

I was glad to see that the arts were part of Barack Obama's Inauguration.

According to the LA Times: "Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States of America exactly at noon today Eastern time in a fashion unlike any of his predecessors. The ceremony ran a couple of minutes late, and as the clock struck, Obama had not yet been sworn in. Rather power changed hands as he sat quietly on the steps of the Capitol and -– along with much of the rest of the world -- listened as violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Gabriela Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill performed the world premiere of “Air and Simple Gifts” by John Williams. (You can watch and hear it below.)

Power changed hands just as the sober introductory air segued into an animated riff on the Shaker tune “Simple Gifts,” on which Aaron Copland famously wrote a set of variations for his ballet “Appalachian Spring.”

Here is the video of that performance:

Poet Elizabeth Alexander delivered a poem called Praise song for the day that inspired me to feel gratitude and hope. All of us made this country great and what each of us does matters. The "day" in the title was both the new beginning of an historic Inauguration and a celebration of every day—all the seemingly insignificant acts that create our lives and affect others in ways we don't know.I loved the last line and I hope it stays with us all:

"In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light."

Also, "View of the Yosemite Valley" by Thomas Hill of the Hudson River School was selected to grace the Inauguration luncheon. The Hudson River School artists (some of whom painted scenes from the West as well) sought to raise awareness about caring for the land and to further the idea of Manifest Destiny, the position that America should expand westward to extend "from sea to shining sea" and spread democracy throughout the world.

Does Education Need a Renaissance in Qualitative Thinking?

Continuing my inquiry from the last post . . . I believe that the education community will not unlock the secrets to creating innovative thinkers through data-driven approaches. I believe that data certainly has its place and that schools should be collecting evidence about how well their strategies are working, but a culture focusing solely on quantitative data will make only incremental progress. Clearly, that will not be enough to meet the challenges ahead.

Policy leaders need to stop demanding numbers to justify all their decisions. Yes, qualitative data is hard to acquire and analyze. But where would our world be without decisions based on standing back and looking at the whole, making intuitive leaps because mystery beckons?

For true innovation to occur in schools, those who are pursuing a transformation in education must cultivate within themselves qualities of mind that we often call "artistic"—qualities like wonder, apprehension of beauty, embrace of mystery, exploration of possibilities, and fanciful reverie. Scientific progress and innovative breakthroughs draw from those qualities.

I believe that arts experiences can be incubators for those qualities—perhaps not what most schools call arts education today but a true artistic community whose views and ideas are taken as seriously as those of DaVinci were. Look at our world. Art is everywhere. It is highly influential. But because we do not study art in depth—arts classes are about getting results to show that kids are becoming better performers, not about the artistic process—we don't understand those influences or even consciously know they exist.

The Conundrum of Art as Evidence

I know that yesterday's post—an image and a song about 21st century kids—are not really evidence, in the usual sense, that the arts should play a central role in developing 21st century skills. I've done enough writing about research-based reading programs to know what it takes to make causal connections. And I know there is a growing research base on arts education and arts integration I could cite. (If you're interested, start at the Arts Education Partnership. )

But I'd like to suggest that developing creative, innovative thinkers requires that the education community and those who set policy need to adopt an innovation agenda for themselves. If you have decided to act based on scientific research, then fund basic and applied research to test promising approaches like arts integration in a systematic way. If you view education as a science, you must do more than look at the existing literature for answers. It is not scientific to ignore possibilities because no one has yet proved them.

At the same time, think about a broader approach to collecting evidence. I still concede that the two artists I mentioned yesterday have not provided a basis for action, but qualitative studies and meta-analyses, as well as looking at the culture, have a place in the quest for innovation. Think about it: While the theories of Einstein and Freud were taking shape, artists like Picasso and Kandinsky were investigating space, time, and consciousness in parallel.

Or did the poet Ezra Pound get it right:

"Artists are the antennae of the race, but the bullet- headed many will never learn to trust their great artists."

Why We Need Arts in School: Evidence

Throughout time, the arts have tapped into the gathering storms, illuminated changes in consciousness, and captured the spirit of the times in ways that no historian, politician, or blogger can.

As the debate about 21st century skills flows on, I saw two responses from artists today. Author/illustrator/educator Peter H. Reynolds has created a portrait of the 21st Century kid that can be viewed at the Verizon Thinkfinity Web site. I love it that his kid has a guitar slung on his back. (Reynolds also has a wonderful blog Stellar Cafe).

Jamie Cullum has written a song. I think the lyrics to 21st Century Kid (below the video) are something to ponder.



21st Century Kid
There's maybe a way I can tell you
Cos with everyday things continue
To get more compromised
So who will fantasise
A new generation politicised

When things are done in our own name
Are we as much to blame
Now it's become clear to me
But only lately
And the ground is removed underneath

Shout it from the brink
You’re louder than you think

21st century kid surrounded by illusion and confusion
So maybe if you're holding out for the truth now
Could it be the greatest weapon
Could it be the greatest weapon
Your weapon

Nothing is certain except a memory
And that's soon washed away by a low sea
Now sit yourself down my one
And see what you become
Ignoring a smouldering gun

The white dove's flown
D'ya think we're on our own

Wisconsin Report Links Arts Ed to Student Success

A task force was created by Wisconsin's Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster has issued a report that makes strong statements linking arts education to success in higher education and the state's economic development. According to a January 11 Journal Sentinel article on the report, the task force found that "deepening the involvement of all Wisconsin students in the arts and involving them in creative processes in schools are, among other things, important steps toward making the state's economic future brighter." The report recommends immediate action on creating "a pilot program for six to 10 school districts to implement an arts and creativity in education action plan."

I like the way Elizabeth Burmeister defines the creative process on the Department of Public Instruction Web site: "a combination of imagination, creativity, and innovation to produce something unique that has value and meaning." She says the group's plan for action addresses four areas: 1) Legislative and State Policy, 2) Creativity in the Classroom, 3) Community Involvement, and 4) Business and the Creative Economy.

The report will be available at the Web site of the Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity. The site also has resources and will include updates on progress. As soon as I can read the report, I will post about it again.

Arts Education Connections #2: Overview of Approaches

This is an overview of the four ways of approaching the arts. (For readers who may have even less fine arts training than I do.)

Students' work in each of the arts disciplines can be categorized as:

Art-making (or production): Performing a musical composition, a dance, or a play. Creating an original work of visual art, writing a play, creating a dance or dramatic improvisation, composing music, etc. Includes a number of technical components, such as learning dance steps or proper intonation on an instrument and notating a composition, mastering paints and other media, and learning how to block a scene in a play. Includes the generation of original ideas, the involvement and expression of emotions, and the making of meaning.

Art history: Connecting art to people, places, and times. Gaining a better understanding of artworks, periods, and styles by examining them against a larger context of history and culture. Using art to better understand events, periods, and other phenomena.

Criticism: "Reading" works of art. Responding to the form of artworks (how the elements and principles have been used) or to their expressive qualities. Formulating and supporting hypotheses about the meaning, importance, or value of works of art.

Aesthetics: Examining theories regarding what makes art good, important, or valuable. Connecting works of art to bigger philosophical questions and ideas.

As you may imagine, these approaches often overlap and enrich one another. I intend in my "Arts Education Connection Sunday series" to explore how they might also overlap with and enrich other disciplines and help develop 21st century skills.