Arts integration

Arts integration is an approach to teaching that integrates the fine and performing arts as primary pathways to learning. Arts integration differs from traditional education by its inclusion of both the arts discipline and a traditional subject as part of learning (e.g. using improvisational drama skills to learn about conflict in writing.) The goal of arts integration is to increase knowledge of a general subject area while concurrently fostering a greater understanding and appreciation of the fine and performing arts. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts defines arts integration as "an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an art form and another subject and meets evolving objectives."

Arts integration is related to arts education in schools. Arts education, while existing in different forms during the 19th century, gained popularity as part of John Dewey's Progressive Education Theory. The first publication that describes a seamless interplay between the arts and other subjects (arts integration) taught in American schools was Leon Winslow's The Integrated School Art Program (1939). For the remainder of the 20th century, arts education's role in public schools ebbed and flowed with the country's political leanings and financial well-being.

According to Liora Bresler, during the 1970s and 1980s, two advocates for arts integration emerged: Harry Broudy and Elliot Eisner. Broudy advocated for the arts on the basis of strengthening the imagination. Broudy viewed imagination as an essential component of learning that should be cultivated in schools, and he advocated for the integration of aesthetic education into all subject matters in his work, Enlightened Cherishing. Eisner followed Broudy, citing that the arts were important to varying types of cognition. He believed that arts brought about a deeper understanding of the world due to their interactivity—the arts move learning beyond what is written or read.

Cassandra B. Whyte emphasized the importance of artistic experiences for students to encourage creative and independent thought processes that would be important throughout an individual's lifetime. The arts helped students with problem solving and decision making and those processing experiences could be adapted in general life situations. Whyte advocated including aspects of art education with locus of control identification counseling experiences to help higher education students develop confidence in their unique problem solving abilities in the classroom and in life.

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