Intrinsic, Intellectual, and

Economic Benefits of the Arts

Sujeet Kumar
EI Design
eLearning
09342504365,
sujeetkumar_in@yahoo.com
Blended Training: It Improves Your Productivity

Why Advocacy?
Arts advocacy is the fight for the return of the life of the spirit to
the centre of our existence... The arts are not at the top of
everyones agenda. We cant take public or private sector support
for granted. We must marshall our arguments, make our points,
deliver the statistics and data[rolling out our arguments]
bristling with facts and analyses, in the language of our target
audience, to help us and our allies convince public and private
funders, and to overcome oppositionsWe must speak a
business language, an economic language, a tourist language,
the rock troop languages, popular music, chamber music, all
languages, all levels[w]e must speak all these languages...
Shirley Thomson
Executive Director
Canada Council for the Arts

Intrinsic Benefits
Intellectual Achievement in Other Subjects
Arts and the Economy
A Vision for Arts Education in Canada
Why Now? Where is the Support?
What is Required

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Intrinsic Benefits

Nurtures habits of imagination and creativity

Gives us tools, beyond words, to express what we
think, feel and know
Central to maintaining and expanding our diverse
cultural legacies
Helps develop understanding of multiple perspectives
Improves the quality of our lives

Various sources, including: Armstrong & Casement (1997), Catterall

(1998), Eisner (1991), Greene (1995), & Pitman (1998).

Risks
Some people dont know what theyre getting into
when they open up 30 personalities. They have to be
very, very astute, but again, I think thats the one thing
Ive learned about art. Its not one clean pretty picture.
You have to be really sharp to introduce the arts to
kids. Really, really, sharp. What is it that it does to
them, that turns them on and inside out?
Helen Stencell, teacher

Bertrand Russell was one of the greatest

mathematicians and philosophers of the 20th
century. In his last essay, written at the age of
95, Russell reflected that the time had come to
ask whether his lifes work had taught men and
women not to hate peoples other than their
own. The final lines of his final essay state:

There is an artist imprisoned in each one

of us. Let [the artist] loose to spread joy
everywhere.

Mathematics
& Arithmetic

Rules creation
Beauty and Paradox
Culture of poverty

Intellectual
Achievement

Learning through, in, and about the arts

contributes to learning in other subjects by

Developing thinking skills

Contributing to self-confidence
Developing different ways of making meaning
Enhancing neural networks in the brain (Bruer, 1998).

Studies in the arts do not come at the expense of

mathematics and language achievement

Georgia study
Austrian and Swiss students
Learning Through the Arts (Canadian study)

Of the 841 elementary and secondary

schools in Georgia where staffing and
funding of arts programs was a priority,
students had

higher SAT scores

were more likely to graduate with college diplomas,
and
had lower drop-out rates

Music in World Cultures (1996). The Georgia project: A

status report on Arts Education in the State of Georgia.
St. Boniface, MN: Author.

There is nothing new about the relationship of

the arts to other subjects. Nobel Prize winner
John Polanyi relates how Leonardo da Vinci,
arguably the greatest figure of the Italian
Renaissance, was left by his sponsors quite
free to do science so long as it did not cut into
his time for painting.

Students in Austrian and Swiss schools who

had 5 music classes per week instead of the
usual 1 or 2 (at the expense of classes in
mathematics and language) were as good in
math and better in languages than their peers
with regular schedules at the end of the 3 year
study

Armstrong, A. & Casement, C. (1997). The Child and the Machine.

Toronto: Key Porter.
Weber, E.W., Spychiger, M., & Patry, J. (1993). Music Makes the
School. Schlussbericht zu Bessere Bildung mit mehr Musik.
Padagogisches Institut der Universitat, Freiburg/C.H.

25,000 middle school students showed

strong associations between involvement in
the visual and performing arts and
subsequent achievement after controlling for
family income and education levels
Catterall, J. (1998). Does experience in the arts boost
academic achievement? Art Education, 51(3), 6-11.
http:www.aep-arts.org/highlights/coc-release.html

600
500
400
300
200
100
0

No arts
With Arts

1995 SAT verbal and math

scores for students with 4
or more years of fine arts
courses were significantly
higher than those of their
peers who were not
enrolled in arts courses
Fowler, C. (1996). Strong Arts,
Strong Schools: The
Promising Potential and
Shortsighted Disregard of the
Arts in American Schooling.
NY: Oxford University Press.

Learning Through the Arts

In the baseline data (1999-2000), the single greatest

predictor of academic achievement was socio-economic
status as indicated by household income and mothers
education level.

Butit is also the case that those students who took music
lessons outside of school scored significantly better on all
language and mathematics measures than their peers,
regardless of household income level and education. Why
music? What cognitive links are there between music (beat)
and rhythms of language? What other things do children who
take music lessons do with their spare time?

Upitis, R. & Smithrim, K. (2001). Learning Through the Arts: National

Assessment Interim Report. The Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto,
Canada.

The Arts and School:

Grade 4
Question or Activity

% girls strongly
agree

% boys strongly
agree

Happy to come to school

32

20

Do well at school

27

34

Good at dance

31

11

Good at drama

29

22

Good at drawing

33

39

Good at music

33

20

Good at singing

37

18

Think arts are important subjects

47

27

Arts will help find a job

49

41

Enjoy arts as much as other subjects

46

34

Would like more drama at school

36

24

Would like more visual art at school

61

50

Would like more dance at school

29

Would like more music at school

27

14

Out of School Activities

Activity

% girls strongly
agree

% boys strongly
agree

Watching television

27

55

Playing sports

42

59

Reading for pleasure

36

18

Doing art work

41

24

Listening to music

59

48

Playing videogames

20

60

Playing or working on the computer

36

44

Making things

37

24

Music Lessons and

Preferences for
Out of School
Activities
Music Lessons

Yes

No

Television

30

43

Reading for pleasure

36

25

Videogames

29

42

The Economy

Imagination and engagement required in the

workplace are nurtured through the arts

Conference Board of Canada (1999). Employability Skills Profile: What

are Employers Looking For? Toronto, ON.

Major economic benefits from the arts, both directly

Job creation
Increased property values
Support to other business

and indirectly

Development of community networks

City pride and prestige
Transforming the responsiveness of service organizations
Contributing to quality of life for people with poor health

Kelly, M., & Kelly, A. (2000). Impact and values: Assessing the Arts and
Creative Industries in the South West. Bristol, UK: Bristol Cultural
Development Partnership.
Economic Impacts of Arts and Culture in the Edmonton Capital Region
(1997). Economic Development Edmonton, www.ede.org

Current State of
Affairs...

The arts play a minor role in public education

music and other arts programs have been under
siege clear across the country (Whyte, 1996)

Relatively few specialist teachers and consultants remain in

schools and school boards

Too often art in elementary schools is an assembly-line

version of art: colouring a photocopied face or decorating the
walls with cat cutouts (Allemang, 1996)

A Vision
to

nurture lifelong habits of

imagination and creativity by
ensuring that the arts form a
fundamental and sustained part
of the Canadian school system
for all students

Public Education
Growing up in a very low income family,
music lessons were not an option. If it were
not for the schools and the church, I would
not have had the early opportunities for
education and performance that these
institutions offered me.
Ben Heppner
Canadian Tenor

Why Now?

Vague and growing sense of need in the larger

society (something is missing from schools, lives)
Interest in the business community to restore
what has been lost
Major initiatives and new research in arts
education
Curriculum leadership across Canada
Builds on other initiatives of the Council of
Ministers of Education (Canada)

By investing in children and the arts, we are

developing Canadas great minds of the future.
Charles Baillie, Chairman and CEO of the
TD Bank Financial Group

What is Required

K-12 curricula that are rich with ways of

learning through, about, and in the arts
Teacher education programs that treat the
arts as core subjects
Professional development in the arts for
generalist and specialist teachers
Artist-teacher partnership programs
Financial and instructional resources

Teacher
Characteristics:
Views on the Arts
Question

% strongly agree
or agree

Arts fundamental to learning

98

Schedule one hour of arts/day

41

Students can express knowledge and

skills through the arts

98

Frequently use arts as teaching tool

18

Arts increase parental involvement

80

Teacher Characteristics:
Specialized Training
Subject

% with specialized
training

Language Arts

40

Mathematics and Science

24

Arts

22

Physical Education and Health

18

Second Language Instruction

16

Social Studies

15

What is Required

Partnerships between provincial

jurisdictions, along with public and private
sector champions of arts education, arts
councils, community councils, and other
organizations to:

Share information on a systematic basis

Identify successful practices
Share instructional resources
Promote research
Establish tighter links with provincial and
municipal councils

Lifelong Learning
A lot of people, when they hear good music, say,
Oh, I wish I was so talented. As if Segovia
picked up the guitar one day and said, My God!
Im one of the great classical guitarists! Its
from music that I learned that it takes many years
to go from incompetence to being very good at
something.
Nicholas Thorne
M.A. student in
Computer Science and Philosophy

Think of something you love to do

What conditions must be present to sustain
you as a learner?
How can the excitement of our personal
learning be brought to bear on policy?
Professional practice?
What are the barriers?

Promising Two Things

Personal
A Broader Circle
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

If we say that art, all art is no longer relevant

to our lives, then we might at least risk the
question What has happened to our lives?

Jeanette Winterson

References

Allemang, J. (1996). Helping Picassos bloom. The Globe and Mail, November 23, 1996.
Armstrong, A. & Casement, C. (1997). The Child and the Machine. Toronto: Key Porter.
Bruer, J. (1998). Brain Science. Educational Leadership, 56(3), 14-18.
Catterall, J. (1998). Does experience in the arts boost academic achievement? Art Education,
51(3), 6-11. See also http:www.aep-arts.org/highlights/coc-release.html
Conference Board of Canada (1999). Employability Skills Profile: What are Employers Looking
For? Toronto, ON.
Eisner, E. (1991). What really counts in schools. Educational Leadership, 48(5), 10-17.
Fowler, C. (1996). Strong Arts, Strong Schools. NY: Oxford University Press.
Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the Imagination. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kelly, M., & Kelly, A. (2000). Impact and values: Assessing the Arts and Creative Industries in the
South West. Bristol, UK: Bristol Cultural Development Partnership.
Music in World Cultures (1996). The Georgia project: A status report on Arts Education in the
State of Georgia. St. Boniface, MN: Author.
Pitman, W. (1998). Learning the Arts in an Age of Uncertainty. North York, ON: AECO.
Upitis, R. & Smithrim, K. (2001). Learning Through the Arts: National Assessment Interim
Report. The Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, Canada. See also
www.educ.queensu.ca/~arts.
Weber, E.W., Spychiger, M., & Patry, J. (1993). Music Makes the School. Schlussbericht zu
Bessere Bildung mit mehr Musik. Padagogisches Institut der Universitat, Freiburg/C.H.
Whyte, K. (1996). Why Johnny Cant Sing. Saturday Night, June, 1996, 13-14.

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