Making Waves Blog

The Cincinnati Arts and Technology Center is having its 8th Annual Student Show and Sale on Dec. 12. Taking this opportunity to shop local can deliver a little hope this holiday season.

In many schools across our region just like across the country, there is no choice, just a struggle to keep arts as part of the curriculum, or included in extracurricular programs. There are competing demands for funding, for time in the day, or a scarcity of other resources. And it’s abundantly clear that kids and youth in underserved or low-income communities suffer the most from program cuts, even though research shows consistently that they benefit most from arts engagement in school. Next week is National Arts Education Week, and it’s a great time to call attention to why this matters.

Arts education in the 21st century is an unmistakably vital tool for success, a catalyst for skill development in the business world and beyond. In celebration of Arts in Education Week September 13 – 19, here’s our list of five key life skills that kids learn when they make, study, and learn through art.

I find the last days of summer to be highly reflective. My dad used to take the entire month of August as vacation, a time of restoration and planning for a highly demanding year ahead. For a kid, this was a great thing: consecutive weeks with parents in a place of serenity, away from the stresses of the normal routine. I will treasure the memory of painting side-by-side with my daughter...

As kids head back to school, teachers and friends are bound to ask “What did you do on your summer vacation?” Kids may perceive their weeks at camp as being a break from lessons, but parents know that learning and developing important life skills is a big part of the summer camp experience.

NewCo Cincinnati highlighted the innovative, entrepreneurial spirit of the region, including the creative energy of local arts organizations.

At first glance, the field of engineering, the natural sciences, technology, and mathematics may seem to have little to do with a discussion about arts education. Yet one local organization is changing the way our community educates our students by embracing an attitude of collaboration across these fields in a practical way.

“Art is for looking, not touching.” Most of us have been restricted by this phrase at some point in our lives, probably as curious children exploring an art museum. The Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) is offering a place for that curiosity to run wild with the new Rosenthal Education Center (REC).

The arts fuel creativity and learning, encouraging the development of important 21st century skills like critical thinking, collaboration, and self-discipline. Yet, in the current climate of arts and education funding, many children in underserved communities lack equitable access to arts programming that could enhance their learning experience. In the spring of 2015, ArtsWave embarked on a project to bridge the gap between the arts and underserved schools with special support from the Gladys and Ralph Lazarus Fund and Ladislas and Vilma Segoe Family Foundation.

ArtsWave announces opportunities for arts and community organizations to apply for more than $100,000 in new support to connect the arts to larger community initiatives around health and education. These targeted grants programs are part of ArtsWave’s strategy to leverage the power of the arts to address broad community goals. These opportunities are funded through restricted gifts to the ArtsWave annual community campaign.

Now, as a parent, naturally I think about the world our kids will inherit. Numerous studies have shown the connection between arts education and academic achievement, social and emotional development, critical and creative thinking skills, and interpersonal skills.

Every child can reap the benefits inherent in dance – discipline, self-expression, problem solving, focus, physical fitness, and team building. In 2013, the Cincinnati Ballet taught these critical life skills to 1,061 third graders in 21 Cincinnati Public Schools through its CincyDance! Program, and will reach 1,300 kids in 31 schools this school year.

Arts education can take many forms – from learning the skills related to a specific art form to using the arts as a vehicle for learning other subjects including reading, math, science, and history. This practice of bringing arts specialists into the classroom to fuel learning in core subjects is called arts integration.

In school districts with strong arts education programs, the community – parents, families, artists, arts organizations, businesses, local civic and cultural leaders – is actively engaged in the development of arts policies and instructional programs of the school district.