Arts Integration

Teaching Subject Matter through the Arts in Multicultural Settings

Merryl Goldberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000361612
• Edition: 6
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Arts & Humanities

Now in its sixth edition, Merryl Goldberg's popular volume Arts Integration presents a comprehensive guide to integrating the arts throughout the K-12 curriculum, blending contemporary theory with classroom practice.

Beyond teaching about arts education as a subject in and of itself, the text explains how teachers may integrate the arts—literary, media, visual, and performing—throughout the subject curriculum, offering a wealth of strategies, techniques, and examples. Promoting ways to develop children's creativity and critical thinking while also developing communications skills and fostering collaboration and community activism, Arts Integration explores assessment and the arts, engaging English Language Learners, and using the arts to teach academic skills in science, math, history, and more.

This text is ideal as a primer on arts integration and a foundational support for teaching, learning, and assessment, especially within the context of multicultural and multilingual classrooms. In-depth discussions of the role of arts integration in meeting the goals of Title I programs, including academic achievement, student engagement, school climate, and parental involvement, are woven throughout the text, as is the role of the arts in nurturing Creative Youth Development work and its importance to the community.

This revised and updated sixth edition combines a social justice emphasis with templates for developing lesson plans and units, updated coverage on STEAM education, along with brand new examples, case studies, and research. An expanded range of eResources is also available for this edition, including links to further resources readings, additional imagery and videos, and sample lesson plans.

Chapter 1
Art as Text, Arts Integration, and Arts Education

Art is a process. I thought I was a way cool teacher because I teach art every Friday; and what that meant for me was one lesson and having a product at the end of the day. It got hung up around the classroom if there was room, and if not it got sent home. And what I would do differently now is to encourage the kids to develop their idea, to come back and revise and edit their idea much like I do with the writing process. I would never ask the students to produce a product at the end of the day and that’s what I’ve been doing with art.

(Fourth-grade DREAM teacher, San Marcos, CA)

Someone once said that there are probably seven natural good singing days in a year—and those are the days you aren’t booked. What we must learn is how to sing through all the other days.

(Renée Fleming, opera singer)

Setting the Stage (Literally!)

If there is one thing you should know about me as you delve into this book, it’s that I love my students, and I love the arts. I’ve been teaching (and learning!) for decades, and from kindergarten through in-service teachers, I am one privileged individual to be engaged in this wonderful career of education. As an arts person, I have the added bonus of being around people who are continually engaged in creative activities. Who wouldn’t love that?! I also have a deep love of the arts and have the most wonderful memories of being engaged with the arts since childhood. I had teachers who recognized my ability in music early on and created opportunities for me to perform. I distinctly remember performing on the stage at Chace St. Elementary school in Somerset, Massachusetts, which was part of a multipurpose room that also served as the school’s cafeteria. That stage, I now realize in hindsight, provided me with a taste (no pun intended) of what was possible. The stage was just a few feet off the ground, a bit higher than the lunch area. I performed in front of an audience of ravenous elementary kids devouring their school lunch of the usual meatloaf or Salisbury steak with unidentifiable vegetables. Really, the eating was just an interlude toward running out to recess. That feeling of being on the stage—whether or not the audience was listening, or just waiting for recess—really mattered to me. I’m still thankful to the teacher who got me on that stage.

The Power of the Teachers

I can’t say enough about the power of a teacher in a child’s life. My fourth-grade music teacher, Mr. St. Lawrence, is the teacher who placed me, along with my best friend, up on the stage with our guitars during lunch, where we literally sang our hearts silly on such original tunes I had composed, including “Flower Power Is in Today” and “Peace Now.” Yes, you might have guessed, it was the late 1960s. Mr. St. Lawrence by his actions put that kernel of “I believe in you” in my brain, making a world of difference in my outlook on myself. A couple of years later in middle school I had another music teacher, Ms. Desrousseau, who also took an interest in me and took me to a jazz concert—wow, my teacher took me somewhere! Talk about feeling special, encouraged, and motivated. I am so thankful to have had teachers early on who took an interest in me and made a difference in my life. I am grateful that finding mentors continued throughout my education even into graduate school, individuals who encouraged and challenged me, not only making a difference in my education but also shaping how I try to be in my role as a teacher with my students. My graduate school mentor and advisor, Carol Chomsky, created a bridge for me between the world of playing music and the world of becoming an educator. And she gave me the wonderful gift of compassion. As a mentor and advisor Carol was simply remarkable and generous. She had a way of critiquing in such a manner that I always felt like my work was getting better, and this was (in hindsight) no easy task. I came into the doctoral program at Harvard without knowing the difference between apostrophes for plurals and possessives. Grammar really didn’t matter much as an itinerant professional performer. Nonetheless, what could have been a terribly embarrassing situation, or a case in which another advisor would promptly send her delinquent student to a writing lab, Carol instead exchanged music lessons for grammar lessons. She found a way to put us on equal footing. Every time she critiqued my writing I couldn’t wait to make it better. If I could bottle up that feeling and present it to each of my own students I would!

At the time I went through K–12 education the arts were a given. And, thank goodness, as the arts provided me with solace, inspiration, companionship, and camaraderie. That same year I was up on the stage, during fourth grade, we had recently moved. Starting at a new school in a new town and making new friends was daunting. I was teased by other kids as a newcomer, and even got into a fistfight. After the fight, and a subsequent afternoon in the principal’s office, things got worse. Kids bullied me in and out of school, and chanted the name “Toughy” endlessly. It was pretty horrible. The arts, however, gave me an outlet and a place to retreat. I would practice for hours on end and began writing song after song. The practice and song writing provided the warmth of creativity, which really felt comforting. My sense of worth in accomplishing being able to play the guitar and write songs balanced the everyday for me in a positive manner. Later I would come to realize that the arts provided me with much more than an outlet and retreat. Though I didn’t know it at the time, the arts set a foundation for skills such as discipline and practice. The arts also contributed to a sense of agency, grit, imagination, problem solving, discipline, empathy, and an ability to communicate effectively. At the time, I did grasp how the arts and most specifically music gave me confidence, and a sense that I was capable—capable of achieving and contributing.

When I work with my own students I begin with the understanding that they, too, are enormously capable. However, in my setting and so many other settings, the majority of students have had little opportunity to experience formal arts education. That may or may not be your situation as well, depending on your educational context. At the beginning of the semester I show my college students pictures of musical instruments and have them name them. My goal in this exercise is to understand the students’ starting points. Typically, most students have a hard time identifying and naming the instruments. Many cannot identify what I would consider well-known instruments, such as trumpets and trombones. When we identify the instruments, they jot down the names under the instruments’ pictures. To my great surprise, students had to invent spellings for many of the instruments. Here are a few invented spellings for the instruments cello, cymbals, xylophone, violin, harp, saxophone, trombone, flute, guitar, oboe, timpani, and bassoon:

chellow, chelo, cielo, symbols, zilphon, xailaphone, villien, violen, arp, saxiphone, trumbone, fluit, kitour, obo, tymphony, timponee, bazoon.

Soon after the instrument exercise, I ask the same students to make a collage that depicts the arts in their lives. Inevitably, as soon as I give the assignment, hands go up in the room. “What is a collage?” they ask. The majority of students had never experienced making or viewing a collage. Once they got the idea, however, they created colorful and imaginative collages, using magazine pictures, photos, and images they took from the Internet. One student, Alex, actually drew his collage (Figure 1.2). The arts in their lives as portrayed in their delightful collages tended to focus on a few themes that surprised me: fashion, tattoos, and cars. I’ll admit my students are quite fashionable; they clearly pay attention to how they present themselves when they arrive to class. And, without a shadow of a doubt, I now understand that their depth of knowledge with regard to tattoos and cars is significant.

At this point you might be wondering about my students. It might come as a surprise to you that these students, so capable, bright, energetic, and full of potential, are nearing completion of their college degrees. These students are all in a teacher prep program and will become teachers within one or two years. I take it quite personally, as any one of these students could have been my daughter’s teacher! In fact, several of my former students have landed in teaching jobs in her school(s). Though my students and I live in Southern California, the lack of arts education is not confined to our neck of the woods. Students across the nation have received fewer arts in their education over the last two decades than any time previous. And, though the amount of arts education has remained somewhat flat according to the National Center for Education Statistics of the Institute of Education Sciences (2012), the gap in access to the arts among the poor has widened significantly. In the decade since the 2012 report even more statistics have become readily accessible. There is a national project called the Arts Education Data Project, which includes an interactive dashboard by which an individual can access details of access to arts education down to individual schools! A link to the project can be found at: https://www.artseddata.org+.

I am heartened that my students can see art in their everyday lives and make the connection that there are elements of art in fashion, tattoos, cars, and other areas they brought up, such as bartending, makeup, and flower arranging. What strikes me, though, is that it is quite possible my students never had the experience of someone putting a paintbrush or a musical instrument in their hands, or the experience of acting or being in a dance ensemble. Their invented spellings of instruments likely indicate that they have never seen music textbooks or concert programs. Their exposure to the arts as exemplified through their identification of fashion and cars could be argued to be a result of consumer marketing as opposed to an education that included art forms. When I see my capable students, I wonder what opportunities and talent have been lost.

California State University San Marcos (CSUSM), where I have taught since 1993, is a federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institution (HIS) as well as an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander–Serving Institution (AANAPISI). We are largely a commuter school, and the majority of our students have graduated from local school districts with partnership agreements with the university, by which students gain automatic acceptance to the university. Seventy-five percent of the local public schools in our service area are Title I schools, and 67 percent of our students at the university receive financial aid. Most of our students received free or reduced lunch and breakfast at school. Just because they are now in college, things have not changed. Food insecurity is high on our campus, and we have a food pantry so that our students will not go hungry. The majority of students who attend the university are the first in their family to attend college.

Though we cannot possibly make up for the lack of access to the arts, we can make a significant contribution to these future teachers’ abilities to reach their future students. Recognizing that a full curriculum includes the arts, these future teachers can learn to open the doors that introduce children to the arts and arts-based pedagogy. In so doing, they might very well be a catalyst of change within their local communities as they enter the career of teaching.

In the same Title I schools that my students come from, our university in partnership with the San Diego County Office of Education has initiated several research programs aimed at changing the status quo. SUAVE (Socios Unidos para Artes Via Educación—United Community for Arts in Education) and Developing Reading Education with Arts Methods (DREAM) are two examples that are discussed in later chapters. Both are arts integration programs that received funding from the Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement as model educational programs.

The good news is that more and more school districts all over the country are recognizing the power of the arts to foster student achievement and engagement, improve school climate, and build parental involvement, and are initiating programs aimed at ensuring that all students and teachers have access to the arts as a subject in and of itself. There are national tools that guide school districts in utilizing Title 1 funds to meet the needs of students through arts-based methods. The website: https://www.title1arts.org provides a detailed (yet easy) process for starting with data, assessing needs, identifying a strategy, developing a plan, submitting the plan, implementing the program, and, finally, evaluating the impact.

One school district that has made an enormous impact in my neck of the woods is Chula Vista, California, right on the border of Mexico beside Tijuana. Under the direction of Superintendent Francisco Escobedo, and Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) coordinator, Lauren Shelton, the district made a clear priority to use Title 1 and Local District funds to bring back over 80 arts educators. As a former police officer, Escobedo saw clearly the consequences of youth who so desperately needed positive supports in their lives and how the arts provided those positive supports. He writes (2019) “We see first-hand how students and their families benefit from music and arts education. Families are more engaged: Increased attendance. Increased test scores. Increased parent participation. Increased joy and happiness in the eyes of our students.” Chula Vista, along with so many districts across the nation (and of course the world), really understands the power of arts to unleash student, teacher, and parent...