6 Strong Benefits of Students Being Involved in Arts

by Staff & Contributors on February 11, 2019

in Gaming

6 Main Benefits of Arts in Schools

 

The benefits of art education seem to be rather obvious to most people. The general impression is that art education is a good thing. They’d be hard pressed to name any specific benefits, though.

However, there’s a body of research on art in schools that deals with just that. Read on to learn why is art education important from the scientific perspective.

Life Satisfaction

Australian research that involved studying 15 schools in the country says there are many benefits to teaching art in schools. It even suggests making art an obligatory subject.

This research observed students who were participating in dancing, musical, art, and drama classes. The common correlation that all of them shared was life satisfaction.

The study cannot claim any theory on why does this happen, but the results are indisputable.

The best guess is that creating something, especially in a group, just feels good. This is especially true for musical and drama classes, as you are working as a team.

Basic Skill Improvement

Now, this one can be a bit of a hard pill to swallow. The research points out that there is a correlation between art classes and reading and mathematical skills in young children. How can this connection exist?

One of the concepts that may apply here is one of “transfer.” In essence, transfer means that when you learn something in one context, you can apply it easier in another. The nature of this phenomenon is hard to prove, but the effects were shown to be true multiple times.

Reading and writing are the two skills influenced the most in young children. The scientific research is quite consistent on the correlation between dance and music class attendance and literacy.

Music is especially good at forming spatial and temporal reasoning in young kinds, the two things that are essential in mathematics. No wonder research finds a correlation between these two activities as well.

Cognitive Skills Improvement

Art classes help young children improve their cognitive abilities. This includes logical thinking as well as creativity and imagination.

The thing is, creative activities force your brain to look for new ways of finding connections between things. Finding connections between things that do not seem related is what stands in the core of Dali’s The Persistence of Memory and Colonel Sanders’ business idea.

Perhaps if your kids start creative education early on, they won’t be using cheap custom writings services in college. That is if writing papers is still relevant in 20 years.

Social Skills Improvement

Now, this will definitely come in handy for your kid in the future. Doing art is reported to increase self-control and other personality traits that help people navigate society.

The research is especially powerful as the participants were children with behavior issues and even juvenile delinquency record. Art classes gave them the skills they needed to be productive members of society.

Increased Activity

A US study that involved over 25,000 students found that kids who participate in an art class are more active in their community. They are reported to be less bored as a whole and their screen time is significantly lower than that of the control group.

This proves the findings of the first study that claims art students have more satisfaction in life as a whole.

Better Test Results

Now, this statement is not entirely proven to be true. However, there is enough evidence to suggest that having art classes actually increases your SAT score.

Students who took four years of art courses outperformed their peers by a whopping 58 score on average. The reasons behind this were not studied yet, but the fact remains that students with art background performed better at SAT.

The question is whether it was art’s positive influence on cognitive abilities, or students who are smart enough to pass SAT with an A tend to take art classes.

Art in every school?

School curriculums are already overloaded with material. Should we press for more art classes for all?

This question needs a scientific answer. The positive impact of art classes may lay in the fact that they’re not obligatory.

What’s definitely true is that if you manage to interest your kids in music and art, they’ll get tremendous benefits in life.

 

top image: pexels.com

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