No one can deny that arts education benefits children. The idea of transfer, that learning in one part of your life have implications on other areas, has been examined for ages and is one of the biggest supporting factors for continuing arts education in schools. Studies have shown that children who participate in any type of art, not just visual arts, but also dance, music and drama, get more out of it than they, or their parents, may realize. According to the 2002 study compilation, Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, visual arts helped students with “content and organization of writing,” “sophisticated reading skills/interpretation of text,” “reasoning about scientific images,” and “reading readiness.”
But there are benefits even beyond transfer. In a 2007 New York Times article, Ms. Winner, author of Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of a Visual Arts Education, says that using transfer as a reason to keep arts education around will “doom the arts to failure, because any superintendent is going to say, ‘If the only reason I’m going to have art is to improve math, let’s do more math.’” Ms. Winner and Ms. Hetland believe that art should be valued for what it is on its own. It doesn’t need to be supported or justified by its transfer benefits because it is valuable enough on its own.
This is echoed by professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, Eliot Eisner, who says, “Not everything has a practical utility, but maybe it is experientally valuable.”
Either way, at ART 180 we know that creative expression is meaningful to the children who have the opportunity and access to arts education. And no matter what the government or studies say, the look on a child’s face after finishing something they have put their heart and ideas into is worth keeping arts education alive whether or not it helps them in other areas of their life.