Langhorne is ALIVE with ARTS!

Bucks County celebrated National Arts Advocacy Day on Monday, April 12, 2010 by holding a rally on the Bucks County Court House lawn over the lunch hour in Doylestown, PA. All over the country, events were being held to stress the importance of arts and culture to our cultural and economic lives. Over 150 people attended the local effort offering their support for the Arts and Culture of Bucks County. The rally included music provided by the Community Conservatory, literature from a myriad of arts organizations and speakers who focused on the role of arts and culture in our county as an engine for economic growth; the power they have to elevate lives and to educate and to help individuals come together and grow as a community.

Dr. Eddie Frasca-Stuart, Director of Staff and Program Development for the Bucks County Intermediate Unit #22 spoke to the power that arts and culture have to educate. Following is her speech:

A Child Advocate's Support for Arts Education

I am an educator and as an educator,I am first and foremost a child advocate. Because I am a child advocate, I am now an avid and unapologetic supporter of arts education.However, I wasn't always.

My field is assessment, curriculum, and instruction. My specialty is teaching children how to read and teaching schools how to teach children how to read. I purposely went into a part of education in which I did not have to deal with the arts. Not because I did not love the arts, but, because I felt that I had no talent and did not wish to subject my students to such a lack of inspiration.

Funny how things work. As I worked with children teaching them how to read, and as I worked with school districts in restructuring their language arts programs, I discovered that I could teach children to decode, but I was not teaching them to think. I could teach children how to take tests, but I was not teaching them to be curious. I could teach children to read quickly, but I was not teaching them the magic of getting lost in a book and experiencing the thrill of not being able to turn the pages fast enough.

And then I discovered that if I used sculpture to teach story setting, and we used clay to map out the three little pigs' homes or create the Atticus Finch's front porch, my students had deep experiences of making meaning and constructing knowledge that would always be theirs. That if I incorporated period dance when studying the revolutionary war, my students came to understand the realness of the lives of each of Washington's militia and even knew the difference between the militia and the minute men.

And that is what I did. I hired sculptors, dancers, storytellers, fiddlers, paper cutters, and writers to teach literacy to our teachers and to their students. Essentially I learned that by incorporating the arts into literacy education, I could create learning that stimulated thinking, honored my students' natural curiosity, helped to develop their passion for life and an openness to unlimited horizons. I had discovered, in fact, that the most efficient and effective way for us to create proficient readers and writers was through the arts.

However, I am not the only one who was learning about the value of the arts; there is now an entire body of research coming out of Stanford and Harvard Universities, the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching, to name just a few. This is what we now know: Children involved in the arts are....
* 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement
* 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools
* 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair
* 4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem
* 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance...and did you know that school attendance is one of the variables that is closely aligned with student achievement? Children who participate in the arts have a reason to come to school.

We now know that the arts can turn around lives that we thought were lost to poverty, that participating in the arts can level the playing field for children who need alternative methods of learning. We know that the arts can help troubled youth, providing an alternative to delinquent behavior and truancy while providing an improved attitude towards school. The arts teach our students to be more tolerant and open; allows them to express themselves creatively. The arts promote individuality and bolster self-confidence.

And why? Because the arts honor how the brain learns: engagement, complexity, problem solving, multiple options, imagination, challenge. The arts are also preparing us for the future. Daniel Pink, in his book, A Whole New Mind, says that the new MBA is the MFA. The arts learning experiences described in the research show remarkable consistency with the evolving work place. Ideas are what matter and the ability to generate ideas. Daniel Pink talks about "symphony." He means synthesis - the ability to look at disparate information across environments and over time and a create a new connection - a new idea! And that what is so important in the workplace: to bring ideas to life and to communicate them. That is what matters to workplace success.

Working in a classroom or a studio as an artist, the young person is learning and practicing future work place behaviors. Therefore, the arts are much more than just fun "extra" activities for
kids. Participation in the arts opens up children's worlds and minds, and offers them the skills they need for a bright future. The arts are as basic as reading, writing, and arithmetic.

After all, I should know.

Reprinted with permission.