MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !

Art Framing Statement

In the current constricted agenda of education due to budget and standards concerns, the

arts have been undermined as an under-appreciated and misunderstood component of a well-

rounded education that values critical thinking and creative problem solving. As states trickle

federal budget cuts down to districts and schools in a myriad of ways, teachers are left with

varying degrees of funding, time, and priorities to manage arts education. While many places

thankfully continue to value arts education enough to devote committed arts specialist teachers to

share their expertise, in my experience these teachers are frequently itinerant and offer students

too small a taste of true arts education to suffice. One suggested answer to this shortcoming has

been the integration of the arts into core curriculum. Although I think arts integration is a useful

venue for offering students alternative modes and methods for understanding content, I believe in

the empowering experiences of a stand-alone arts curriculum that cannot be replaced with

integration of art concepts into the academic work of core curriculum. Arts Integration attempts

should not replace traditional art lessons.

In my lesson taught on collage, although I am certainly no specialist in art, I did not

attempt to weave this valuable creative time into other subject areas and dilute the artistic

experience with academic concerns. I did, however, infuse contextual key concepts into the

lesson, including the history of collage, the background of a particular artist, and the societal and

financial implications of the art nested in its’ timeframe. These contextual considerations did

nothing to diminish the essence of the art elements of line, shape, color, and perspective. In fact,

integrating academic concepts into lessons that focus on artistry adds to the relevance and

interest of the art. But relegating art to limited integration into core subjects is not equitable nor

does it make for a wholistic education.

MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !2

LaJevic (2013) studied and wrote extensively about Arts Integration as it was intended to

concentrate “on the ability of the arts to teach across/through the curriculum and transcend the

school subject boundaries” (pg 2). She claims that, however, the realities of how and why the arts

are incorporated and implemented into the general classroom are frequently flawed. Often, the

arts are not treated as importantly as other subjects, and connections to student learning are often

more a way of doing than a way of knowing or thinking through concepts. The focus of many art

lessons tend to value the product and dismiss the learning that happened through the planning

and creation of that product. In my lesson on collage, I urged students to reflect upon the creation

process as they shared their finished pieces. They were asked to talk about a challenge they

encountered while making their collage and solutions they found. Although their individual

collages were celebrated and admired, the lesson closure focused on effort, creative problem

solving skills, risk-taking, social skills, and inventiveness.

In a recent study conducted in Houston, Texas, Bowen and Kisinda (2019) found that

schools that received substantial increases in arts education experiences significantly reduced the

proportion of student disciplinary infractions, improved writing achievement, increased students’

compassion for one another, and enhanced school engagement and college aspirations. Their

investigation is the first large-scale randomized control trial of an arts education program

implemented in an authentic educational setting. They concluded that the benefits of an arts

education on writing achievement confirms past research showing improvements in critical

thinking, and that the narrowing of educational offerings and objectives to align with

accountability assessments has adverse affects on students in terms of social, emotional, and

academic outcomes.
MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !3

While the importance of an arts component in a well-rounded education may seem

difficult to refute, there still exists the dichotomy of an academic-centered education versus a

more liberal arts focus in education. Patston, Cropley, Marrone, and Kaufman (2018) explore the

assumption that creativity in education is associated with the arts, and question whether the value

of creativity in education is undermined by an assumption that study of the arts is one

characterized by endowed talent, misfit individualism, and dysfunctional behavior. They found

that although these stereotypes of art still exist, teachers are increasingly more aware of the role

that creativity plays in academics overall. It was suggested, however, that correcting

misconceptions about creativity, and enhancing the understanding of its role in solving scientific

and technological problems should continue to be a priority as teachers and policy makers make

decisions about curriculum design.

The arts are as important as academics, and should be treated that way in school

curriculum. Learning about art and learning to think in creative ways goes beyond creating

students who perform well. Art engenders more successful human beings. A contributing writer

for Edutopia, Swapp (2016) expounds on many of the benefits of arts education that contribute to

overall school achievement. These benefits include reliance on intrinsic motivation, self-

confidence, improved complex cognition tied to culture, expressive communication, and

deepening of self-understanding. These characteristics are uniquely obtained through art in ways

not always accessible through academic studies.

Although the desire to integrate arts education into the academic curriculum is

applaudable, teachers who lack experience or education in the arts tend to harbor feelings of

uncertainty about teaching the arts, often resulting in poorly incorporated lessons and

devaluation of art and creativity as mere decoration (LaJevic, 2013). Art lessons in an
MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !4

integration attempt typically dilute the art component in favor of the more academic concerns of

the lesson. Art objectives are frequently not addressed in lesson plans or assessed. Consequently,

a great number of students who receive an arts integration approach to learning artistic concepts

and fundamentals are not really learning the creative thinking and complex cognitive connections

that creativity in art fosters. The characteristics of an arts education that we value: those that

enhance overall school performance linked to intrinsic motivation, achievement in academic

subjects, engagement, and good behavior, would appear to not be addressed by most integrated

arts programs.

Providing our students opportunities to experience art in ways most beneficial to their

development as critically thinking and conscientious humans depends on quality art lessons that

address and assess creative ways of approaching problems and inquiries. Strong arts

programming in schools helps close gaps inflicted by diversity in economic status, race,

language, and culture. Maintaining and prioritizing art education’s status as an incomparable and

distinctive mode of acquiring unique and overarching understandings of the human experience

requires the belief that creative ways of knowing are equally as important as empirical. It means

that we value the process as much as the product.

MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !5

References

Bowen, D.H. and Kisida, B. (2019). Investigating causal effects of arts education experiences:

Experimental evidence from Houston’s Arts Access Initiative. WHAT JOURNAL???

7(4).

LaJevic, L. (2013). Arts integration: What is really happening in the elementary classroom?

Journal for Learning through the Arts, 9(1).

Patston, T.J., Cropley, D.H., Marrone, R.L., and Kaufman, J.C. (2018). Teacher implicit beliefs

of creativity: Is there an art bias? Teaching and Teacher Education 75 (2018), 366-374.

Smith, F. (2009). Why arts education is crucial, and who’s doing it best. Edutopia. Retrieved

from https://www.edutopia.org/arts-music-curriculum-child-development on March 4,

2019.

Swapp, N. (2016). Creativity and academics: The power of an arts education. Edutopia.

Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/creativity-academics-power-of-arts-

education-neil-swapp on March 4, 2019.