As I continue to think about what we are trying to do in the classroom, I am constantly thinking about how to make things more fun for the students. I realized that even in the core academic areas it is important to incorporate things like music, art and technology. This article I read this week from Carol Scott on a website called Change.org is all about a group of parents trying to incorporate the importance of art education into their schools. They fear that students are going to miss out on the fine arts aspects of education.
Ms. Scott says, "In our culture's shift to standardized tests, some educators worry that stressing "core" skills will mean that "extras" like art will be left out in the cold. If schools don't provide arts education to students, only the wealthier children, whose families can provide them with those opportunities outside of class, will truly have well-rounded education, they fear. Arts education improves interpersonal skills, emotional skills and group skills, recent studies say." I think it is going to be important for us, as teachers, to try to incorporate more fine arts skills into our classrooms to make up for the budget cuts that are taking place across the country. In doing so, we will be addressing some of the demands of differentiated instruction, also!
I agree that art is important because it does teach students many skills that the core subjects may not. I do a lot with art project in my math class with shapes, perimeter, area, pythagorean theorem, etc. The students love it and they are very creative. Also, in English I have them create 3-D projects to go with the papers they write sometimes with craft supplies and they seem to really enjoy it because it is a little break and they are allowed to be creative. Art is good!
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