ARTS INTEGRATION
Arts Integration is instruction combining two or more content areas, wherein the arts constitute one or more of the integrated areas. The integration is based on shared or related concepts, and instruction in each content area has depth and integrity reflected by embedded assessments, standards, and objectives.
Integrated instruction is often designed, implemented, and evaluated in collaboration with other teachers, arts specialists, community artists, and institutions; and delivered, experienced and assessed through a variety of modalities: artistic processes, inquiry methods, and intelligences.
THOUGHTS ABOUT ARTS INTEGRATION
by Kim Wheetley, SCEA Executive Director
Nexus: The arts are embedded in human DNA. Children instinctively create art, movement, music, and drama as they explore and learn. Integration inherently occurs in nature, daily life, and society – certainly in our interrelated, symbiotic 21st century world. So why then aren’t the arts naturally and integrally woven throughout formal education? Curriculum integration is an instructional approach that enables teachers and students to identify and explore concepts and issues without regard to artificial subject-area boundaries. Applying knowledge and skills learned in one subject to another area compliments and deepens understanding in both. “Properly conceived, the arts can constitute a great integrating force in the school curriculum. But to achieve such an end they must be viewed as a component of every discipline, for their subject matter is as broad as life itself.”1
Efficacy: Arts integration is predicated on arts education. “A basic intent of the National Standards for Arts Education is that the arts be taught for their intrinsic value. But because forging connections is one of the things the arts do best, they can and should be taught in ways that connect them both to each other and to other subjects.”2 Unfortunately, when integrating the arts into multidisciplinary experiences, there is an abusive tendency to use them as a vehicle for learning in other subjects rather than as part of holistic instruction. Having students listen to music while they write may provide atmosphere and inspiration, but they are learning nothing about the music. Teachers need to build their knowledge, skills, and confidence with integration principles and practices so that integration of the arts is integral not peripheral.
Synthesis: We live in an increasingly complex, diverse, globalized, media-saturated society. Education must be reinvented to meet the needs of our ever-changing 21st century world. Students have to be able to function, create, and communicate personally, socially, economically, and politically in local, national, and global venues. Schools must develop an interdisciplinary culture of inquiry where students work independently and collaboratively, employing critical thinking and multiple intelligences for imaginative problem solving. How is this possible? For an exemplifier of 21st century learning consider arts education and arts integration.
1 Charles Fowler, Strong Arts, Strong Schools
2 National Standards for Arts Education
SCEA's Definition of Arts Education
Connecting with the Arts
View online Annberg Media's video workshop and library series featuring a variety of arts integration approaches taking place in middle school classrooms around the country.
