The purpose and function of arts education.
Arts education is needed for arts integration. Arts integration is a term applied to an approach to teaching and learning that uses the fine and performing arts as primary pathways to learning. Arts integration differs from traditional arts education by its inclusion of both the arts and traditional subjects as part of learning like 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.
Two advocates for art integration, Harry Broudy and Elliot Eisner, advocated for the arts on the basis of strengthening the imagination. Imagination is an essential component of learning that should be cultivated in schools to build a student’s creativity. Arts are also important to nurture varying process of thoughts. Eisner believes that arts brought about a deeper understanding of the world due to their interactivity—the arts move learning beyond what is written or read.
Arts integration demonstrates how learners experience success when taught why and how to use music, visual art, drama/dance, theatre and the literary arts to both express and understand ideas, thoughts and feelings. In addition to studying the arts for students own sake, experiencing and making works of art benefits students in their intellectual, personal, and social development, and can be particularly beneficial for students from economically disadvantaged circumstances and those who are at risk of not succeeding in school. Research studies point to strong relationships between learning in the arts and fundamental cognitive skills and capacities used to master other core subjects, including reading, writing, and mathematics. Mathematics for example, makes use of dance concepts. In the creation and execution of dance, a variety of related concepts are used...