Extra arts education boosts students' writing scores -- and their compassion, big new study finds [View all]
Extra arts education boosts students writing scores and their compassion, big new study finds
BY MATT BARNUM - FEBRUARY 12, 2019
When youre the big fish, its not OK to pick on the little fish just because you can.
Thats an important lesson for everyone. But some Houston first-graders got a particularly vivid demonstration in the form of a musical puppet show, which featured fish puppets and an underlying message about why its wrong to bully others.
The show left an impression on the students at Codwell Elementary, according to their teacher Shelea Bennett. You felt like you were in that story, she said. By the end of the story they were able to answer why [bullying] wasnt good, and why you shouldnt act this way.
The puppeteers show was part of an effort to expand arts education in Houston elementary and middle schools. Now, a new study shows that the initiative helped students in a few ways: boosting students compassion for their classmates, lowering discipline rates, and improving students scores on writing tests.
Its just the latest study to find that giving students more access to the arts offers measurable benefits. And adding time for dance, theater, or visual arts isnt at odds with traditional measures of academic success, according to the research which amounts to one of the largest gold-standard studies on arts education ever conducted.
More at the link.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/02/12/study-arts-education-boosted-compassion-and-writing-scores/