Learning Through the Arts
WV Dance Company’s Arts in Education program brings dance into classrooms and communities across West Virginia, connecting movement with learning in powerful and imaginative ways. Through curriculum-based performances, workshops, and residencies, students explore creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. Each program integrates the arts with core subjects, encouraging discovery and engagement through the universal language of dance.
Educational Benefits of the Arts in Education
Current studies have shown that involvement in the arts promotes academic achievement and increases self-confidence. Kids who are involved in the arts read more often and are more involved in their communities.
The facts are that incorporating the arts in education:
- Levels the learning field across socio-economic boundaries
- Makes learning more interactive, creative and fun thus improving attendance
- Strengthens problem solving and critical thinking skills
- Helps students develop goal setting, a positive work ethic and pride in a job well done
- Assists at-risk youth by providing an alternative approach to learning
- Gives students a greater appreciation for the creative process and the work of others
- Provides exposure to the greater world outside their community
Resources:
YouthARTS Development Project
National Endowment for the Arts
Americans for the Arts
Edutopia
Involvement in the Arts and Success in Secondary School – James S. Catterall
The UCLA Imagination Project – Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, UCLA
Living the Arts through Language & Learning – A Report on Community-based Youth Organizations, Shirley Brice Heath
Stanford University and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development – Arts Education Partnership
SAT Scores of Students Who Study the Arts: What We Can and Cannot Conclude about the Association – The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Kathryn Vaughn and Ellen Winner