Comprehensive Arts Education



What is comprehensive arts education?

Comprehensive arts education (CAE) is a conceptual framework which insures that all students, not just gifted or talented students, are involved in rigorous study of the arts as a part of their general education. It also serves as an innovative but fundamental approach to integrating the arts into the curriculum which will permit students at all levels, in any course of study, to be introduced to, understand and participate in, an art form within the structure of a typical school day.

CAE means that students study musical, theatrical, dance and visual works of art from the following four discipline perspectives:

       Production  - creating or performing
       History - encountering the historical and cultural background of works of art
       Aesthetics - discovering the nature and philosophy of the arts
       Criticism - making informed judgments about the arts

 

What assumptions are the basis for comprehensive arts education?

1. Classroom teachers do not have to be artists to teach students about a great piece of visual art or to use the visual arts to teach other ideas.

2. Classroom teachers do not have to sing or play an instrument to use great music as a teaching tool.

3. Theatre is a natural part of the active classroom and can be used to help students understand abstract ideas.

4. Dance and movement are intuitive ways of learning and offer those who learn differently an opportunity for success.

5. The arts can be used to reach students with different learning styles.

6. Arts specialists (music, theatre, dance and visual art educators) should serve as resources for the classroom teacher.

7. CAE enhances the possibilities for more student involvement in the arts.

What is an example of classroom implementation?

An obvious example of comprehensive arts instruction CAE in the classroom is one of a Social Studies teacher using the music, theatre, and visual arts of the period to teach about the Great Depression. Through a series of questions and activities related to the works of art, students discover the characteristics of the times, chronicles of events, and contemporary attitudes and , thereby, attain a broad understanding of the era. The subtleties discovered in the popular song "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?," or works of the Ashcan Artists representing the ethnic population of New York, or the stage version of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath will teach students more about the Great Depression in an engaging and inspiring way than traditional methods of lecture and textbook study can.

To teach the Revolutionary Period without students hearing Beethoven's triumphant homage to the quest for freedom so obvious in his Ninth Symphony would be much less exciting, if not preposterous. Students physically reenacting the gears of complex machinery in theatre or dance based science lesson are going to understand that process more readily. Kindergartners discovering shapes through a Miro painting are going to become more imaginative thinkers.

How does comprehensive arts education differ from other programs?

In most educational settings in the United States, instruction in the arts has evolved to one dominated by performance, which has achieved highly developed levels with student bands, choruses, orchestra, plays and art shows. But although most elementary students have the arts in their curricula (not often substantive), the number of students studying the arts decrease as students progress upward in grades, so that only the gifted or talented are served in the upper grades. The emphasis is changed from one of performance only to include exposure and perspective, thereby relating the arts to other significant subject matter.

It is important to understand that comprehensive discipline-based arts education is not a curriculum, but is instead a method of teaching and learning. The focus of training is on the inquiry method of teaching and learning that emphasizes higher order critical thinking skills. Students are required to analyze, synthesize, explain, justify, criticize and make critical judgments about the work of art being studied.. Teachers report tremendous growth in reasoning skills as students learn to apply these skill in their school work. These are the same skills that students need in all academic areas. These are also the skills young adults need as they step into life.

Conclusions drawn from over eight years of research and implementation of CAE:

Students using a comprehensive arts approach construct knowledge for themselves instead of for teachers.

Students approach works of arts from more than a performance or production perspective.

Students' performance and production quality is enhanced by broadened study.

Specialists' roles are enhanced to become more collaborative.

Classroom teachers are viewed as important collaborators.

Educators become more creative in their planning.

Comprehensive arts education goals and objectives are applied in other
subjects across the entire curriculum.

In CAE schools, the arts become an integral part for the total curriculum.

Student art and vocabularies are enhanced.

Schools employing a comprehensive arts education approach are exciting places to learn.

The result of CAE is a holistic approach to instruction that invites creating, improvising, composing, performing, interpreting, discussing, writing and thinking about, reporting, and valuing works of arts. The arts are brought in to the general curriculum thereby enriching and extending that curriculum. Comprehensive discipline-based arts education has the potential to produce higher standardized test scores, enthusiasm for learning (and, thereby, higher attendance rates), increase in higher order thinking skills, and revitalization of teacher excitement and commitment.

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