Creativity and Academics: The Power of an Arts Education

Creativity and Academics: The Power of an Arts Education

The arts are as important as academics, and they should be treated that way within the school curriculum. this is often what we believe and practice at NM School for the Humanities (NMSA). While the positive impact of the humanities on academic achievement is worth it in itself, it is also the tip of the iceberg when staring at the full child. Learning art goes beyond creating more successful students. We believe that it creates more successful masses.

NMSA is constructed upon a dual arts and academic curriculum. Our teachers, students, and families all hold the idea that both arts and academics are equally important. Our goal is to organize students for professional careers within the arts, while also equipping them with the talents and content knowledge necessary to reach college.

1. Growth Mindset
Through the humanities, students develop skills like resilience, grit, and a growth mindset to assist them to master their craft, had the best academically, and achieve life after high school. Ideally, this progression will happen naturally, but often it may be aided by the teacher. By setting clear expectations and goals for college kids then drawing the correlation between the work done and also the results, students can begin to shift their motivation, leading to a way healthier and more sustainable learning environment.

For students to really grow and progress, there should be some extent when intrinsic motivation comes into balance with extrinsic motivation. within the early stages of learning and kind, students engage with the activity because it’s fun (intrinsic motivation). However, this motivation will allow them to progress only up to now, then their development begins to slow — or perhaps stop. At now, adjoin extrinsic motivation to continue your students’ growth. this will take the shape of auditions, tests, or other assessments. because of the impact of early intrinsic motivation, this type of engagement will help your students grow and progress. While both sorts of motivation are helpful and productive, a hybrid of the 2 is most successful. Your students will study or practice not just for the external rewards but also due to the self-enjoyment or satisfaction this provides them.

2. Self-Confidence
A number of years ago, I had a student enter my band program who wouldn’t speak. When asked a matter, she would simply have a look at me. She loved being during a band, but she wouldn’t play. I wondered why she would like better to join an activity while refusing to really do the activity. Slowly, through encouragement from her peers and myself, an exquisite spring chicken came out from under her insecurities and started to play. And as she learned her instrument, I watched her transform into not only a self-confident girl and an accomplished musician but also a student leader. Through the act of constructing music, she overcame her insecurities and located her voice and place in life.

3. Improved Cognition
By immersing students in arts education, you draw them into an incredibly complex and multifaceted endeavor that mixes many themes (like mathematics, history, language, and science) while being uniquely tied to culture.

Likewise, for a student to grant an imaginative performance of Shakespeare, she must understand social, cultural, and historical events of the time. the humanities are valuable not only as stand-alone subject material but also because of the perfect link between all topics — and a good delivery system for these concepts, as well. you’ll be able to see this within the correlation between drawing and geometry, or between the meter and time signatures and math concepts like fractions.

4. Communication
One can make an argument that communication is also the one most vital aspect of existence. Our world is made through communication. Students learn a large number of communication skills by studying the humanities. Through the very process of being in a very music ensemble, they have to learn to verbally, physically and emotionally communicate with their peers, conductor, and audience. Likewise, a cast member must not only communicate the vocable to an audience but also the more intangible underlying emotions of the script. the humanities are a mode of expression that transforms thoughts and emotions into a singular style of communication — art itself.

5. Deepening Cultural and Self-Understanding
While many find the worth of arts education to be the way during which it impacts student learning, I feel the education of art is itself a worthwhile endeavor. A culture without art isn’t possible. I feel that the best gift we will give students — and humanity — is an understanding, appreciation, and talent to form art.