Culture Collage: Our History Through Art
CET Learning Services

Announcer
Culture Collage is made possible by a grant from the Ohio SchoolNet Commission.

[melodic guitar music]

Fahrenkamp
I define arts integration as that unifying piece between content areas and student learning, so it pulls everything together.

Lee
Arts integration is a fantastic way to help students learn.

Arvind
You get a chance to work with someone else that maybe you've never worked with.

Mullins
I've used it in chemistry. I've used it in English.

Mitra
You've been working so hard, and you finally understand it, and you've learned so much, and you've had so much fun while doing it.

Lippert
Everything that we experience and learn is connected in some way. I look at arts integration as arts being the tool to help you make those connections.

[melodic guitar music]

Lee
As a principal, I really value arts integration in our elementary setting because it opens up the curriculum to all kinds of learners.

Fahrenkamp
You may have a student who struggles with math or with memorization in certain areas, yet put it to music--or that child can put it into music or into an art project of some kind or even in a simple rap, it opens up whole new doors, opens up aspects of their learning that you might not tap into just on paper and pencil.

Mullins
I've seen my kids just rise to the occasion of learning and become active and aggressive in their wanting to learn. And I can just see the emotion rising in them, and that drives the attention, and the attention drives the learning. And the learning really drives the behavior, the problem-solving skills, the social skills.

Lippert
You'll see a 180-degree change in them because all of a sudden they're excited about it. And if we're creating a performance piece, they own it. All of a sudden, it's something that's theirs. They're not learning somebody else's stuff. So I've seen a lot of kids just really come alive in the classroom through the arts. I take my art into the classroom because I love education, and I think art works in the classroom. I think art has an energy about it that really excites people about what they're learning.

Arvind
Working with Mr. Lippert lets us express our ideas. He uses other people's thoughts to make another idea instead of doing it all himself.

Mitra
It's just fun working with him 'cause it's a new person. And after you do it, you feel really good about yourself because you've created a song with your class.

Arvind
The best part about him coming to visit is the show that we do at the end. Basically it's always fun. We rehearse. We make it better.

Lee
Typically the artist will come at a particular topic in a fresh, new way for the kids. And it really helps them look at it in a way that maybe they hadn't thought about before. It helps them see things sometimes more clearly, and also it helps them remember things for a much longer period of time.

Arvind
He makes us want to learn, because usually you know how there's a test at the end, there's something fun at the end than having to write down all these answers. So you want to do it. You want to learn.

Lippert
If we're going to be tested, we're going to be tested, and we might as well do the best we can. What we have to do is find strategies that are going to help us do that. And I think we're finding that just trying to cram the information into our head day after day up till March doesn't work. You know, the standardized tests are here to stay. So let's do the best we can, and let's find the tools that are going to make us most successful--not just in passing the test but connecting that academic knowledge into our lives, and how do we use that as we go on through life and not just to pass a test.

Fahrenkamp
By using the arts as a medium for that or as the tool that it is, each child gets to truly flourish in some way, shape, or form.

Mitra
You just feel a sense of accomplishment 'cause you've learned all this new stuff, and you've created this, like, masterpiece, a show that everybody wanted to see and everybody liked.

Lee
And when it comes to seeing that on a test, they're going to think back, "Wow, I really--I know a lot about this particular concept, and I can articulate it in lots of different ways." And that, I think, comes through on tests and other kinds of assessments that we do with our students. The arts integration program has really enthused our parents about helping their children learn through the arts. It really impacts them because they can see the benefits up close and how their student has really benefited from the program by learning the information, by being excited about learning, and by being able to demonstrate the concepts in lots of different ways they probably didn't even think about.

Fahrenkamp
And I'm not worried anymore about where I'm using it. I was very hesitant at the beginning of, "Should I use it with language, or should I try something with science?" And now I'm not afraid to use it with anything: art, science, music, language, social studies. It all kind of blends together, and it all works together.

Mullins
You can always modify and adapt to meet the curriculum, because it has to do with language; it has to do with mathematical concepts; it has to do with critical thinking and problem solving.

Fahrenkamp
Typically, we'll, on an arts integration project, kind of give them a blank slate, obviously with a few guidelines, but allowing them to pretty much make those choices on their own, and they truly make choices and take steps in their own education that I would not have originally planned.

Lippert
I have the best job in the world, and the best thing about it is, every day I get to create an absolutely world premiere performance piece that engages students on many levels and really helps build them and engage them and foster them as great human beings.

Mullins
Arts integration is a wonderful addition to your teaching. Go for it. Start with someone who's maybe experienced it before. And the best thing is to collaborate. Share the ideas. It breaks down the walls of what you've experienced in the past. Two minds are always better than one, and it really will make you become a better teacher, make you become alive.