Why students need to learn about the arts

Watching and listening to Cecile Licad, Lisa Macuja and Lea Salonga in one concert was a treat that was not to be missed, even if the tickets were steep at P5,000 each, and I was perched high up in the balcony!

It was a lovely evening of classical music, elegance, and the three graces that I had anticipated weeks before. And now, still filled with delight, I reflect again on what the arts can offer to us in the classroom, in our brains and in our life as I contribute to ongoing discussions on restructuring basic education.

Arts and the brain

Art is basic to human experiences. The arts affect the brain and vice versa. According to David Sousa, certain structures in the auditory cortex respond only to musical tones, while certain portions of the cerebellum are dedicated to initiating and coordinating movements. Visual art requires internal visual processing that helps not only to recall reality but also to create fantasy. Drama calls for specialized areas of the cerebrum that focus on spoken language acquisition and the limbic system to provide the emotional component.

These talents are not frills but have been developed from centuries of human interactions for survival. The arts play important roles in human development, enhancing the growth of cognitive, emotional and psychomotor pathways.

Sousa believes that learning the arts provides a higher quality of human experience throughout a person’s lifetime.

Less art in curriculum

In our school curriculum, the arts are given less and less importance—whether in amount of time and budget, curriculum planning or quality of instructor.  Given the natural talents of Filipinos in singing, our contribution to world entertainment has often been limited to providing band music in restaurants and cruise ships, with a few lead performances in Broadway as exceptions.

And, almost always, these talents received their training outside of schools. Affluent parents, who want their kids to be sophisticated, pay for piano, voice or ballet lessons, or summer workshops. These supplementary or extracurricular efforts are often not enough to provide a firm foundation in music, dance, drama or visual arts.

It does not come as a surprise for psychologists and neuroscientists that the arts are not only beneficial for affective and expressive purposes but also for cognitive growth. Eliot Eisner of Stanford University has been championing the inclusion of arts in school.  He believes the arts offer these eight cognitive competencies:

First, the arts enhance our perception of relationships, helping us understand how parts influence each other and how they interact.  Any piece of music, dance choreography or painting will provide opportunities to develop these abilities. In music, each note is related to the previous or next note, to a bar, a phrase, a line, a cadence, a motif, a movement, etc.

Second, the arts teach us to pay attention to nuances. Small differences have large effects. There is visual reasoning in forms, colors and shapes.  Paying attention to allusion, innuendo and metaphor in stories and dramas is a cognitive ability.

Third, in the arts we develop the perspective that there are always multiple options in creative work and, in the same way, problems in life can have multiple pathways of solution.

Fourth, this openness exercises our ability to shift gears and goals in progress, which leads to, fifth, flexibility that allows us to make decisions when rules are not clear.

Sixth, the use of imagination facilitates use of the mind’s eyes to visualize situations, to foresee, forecast and make predictions. For example, in music, one can readily anticipate the next note, or even the next phrase.

Seventh, as there is no system, whether linguistic, numerical, visual or auditory, that covers every purpose, the arts give students a chance to work within constraints of medium or tools and to invent ways to exploit constraints productively and creatively.

Last, the arts train our ability to see the world from an aesthetic perspective. They enable us to frame the world in fresh ways.

Scientists need arts

Scientists and mathematicians know the arts are vital.  They need the arts to develop abilities to observe accurately, think spatially and perceive kinesthetically.  These skills are not taught in science or mathematics class, but in writing, drama, music and painting.

The arts also develop in us thinking tools such as pattern recognition, mental representation, other than in words or numbers, of what is observed or imagined.  They allow us to use allegorical and metaphorical representations—in story telling, in painting, in creative music composition. They teach us to understand abstraction from complexity, and order from chaos.

Learning music enhances math because music is thinking in time and space. Pitch intervals are spatial relationships; rhythm and meter are ratios, fractions and proportions. Advanced music training develops the brain to manipulate notes in short- and long-term memory.

Visual art class is not only about who has the best set of crayons or is coloring neatly within the lines. Dance is not only about who has the best costume. Drama is not about who speaks the best English. Music class is not only about singing aloud—the louder the better.

Music is pre-language. Correlations exist between music training and reading acquisition, particularly phonological awareness.

Interest in the performing arts, like theater or ballet, leads to a high state of motivation that helps in sustained attention that help in other domains of cognition.

Training in acting leads to memory improvement. Indeed, the arts bring not only affective benefits but cognitive, as well.  Perhaps that is why our world-class artists are also women of high intelligence.

Not everyone will become Licad or Macuja or Salonga, but everyone can always learn to appreciate art better. The great painter Camille Pissarro says, “Blessed are they who see beautiful things where other people see nothing.”

More than anything else, what is life without arts? George Bernard Shaw remarks, “Without the arts, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”

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