New study shows value of being exposed to the arts in school

The following is an article from the March 20, 2010 edition of The Morning Call

When I chose to devote my afterschool hours in high school to dance classes and theater rehearsals, I wasn't trying to improve my math grades or increase my chances of being satisfied with my future career (although in retrospect, I should have played every instrument for the sake of my Algebra III grade). Being accepted into a good college was on my mind, but I didn't realize the lasting effects that show choir and ''The Nutcracker'' would have on my future.

James S. Catterall of UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies would say that these activities do indeed have a presence in my life, even though I am not a professional performer. Catterall is a leading researcher in the fields of education and arts learning and engagement. He recently published his 12-year study concluding that ''individual artistic engagement can spark long-term positive developments for students, and cohesive arts-rich cultures in schools also produce outcomes called 'doing well' and 'doing good by doing art.'''

His new book, ''Doing Well and Doing Good by Doing Art,'' details the effects of secondary school arts activities as they relate to school environment, socioeconomic backgrounds, and the lasting effects at ages 20 and 26. (He will be the keynote speaker at Lehigh Valley Arts Council's annual arts-in-education workshop at 1:30 p.m. April 14 at Penn State Lehigh Valley's Center Valley Campus.)

Catterall's team surveyed more than 25,000 students in American secondary schools during the late 1990s and followed up with more than 12,000 of them throughout the 12 years. His original studies established ''for the first time in any comprehensible way that students involved in the arts are demonstrably doing better in school than those who are not.'' Specifically, he found correlations between music and mathematic achievement and theater arts and human development. Most of these findings would seem logical -- reading music involves counting and fractions, and being able to portray a character on stage requires reading comprehension as well as an understanding of personality traits.

What sets Catterall's newly released data apart from other studies is the long-term conclusions he drew from following up with students at ages 20 and 26. Additionally, from the beginning he noted the socioeconomic backgrounds of all of the students and found that low-income students benefited from arts learning more so than students (regardless of arts involvement) from higher income areas.

So what did he gather from his follow-up data? Catterall surveyed the likelihood of volunteerism, voter registration and college enrollment at age 20. About 40 percent of ''high-art'' students (those highly involved in arts activities) enrolled in college, while only 17 percent of ''low-art'' students did so. Additionally, high-art students are more than twice as likely to volunteer as adults. Surveys about job satisfaction at age 26 showed that arts involvement leads to better jobs, higher pay, more job responsibilities and promotion opportunities, and greater future aspirations. So keep practicing your piano scales, kids, it may decrease your chances of becoming a disgruntled employee down the road.

So does my secondary school arts involvement fit in with Catterall's findings?

I still can't explain my disdain for the subject of math, but I do volunteer, will graduate college and am a registered voter. And it looks like the chances are high that I will be satisfied with my job and will aspire to higher positions.

Some Pictures from "Some Enchanted Evening"

Richard and Oscar!

I jumped into "Some Enchanted Evening" as I do most all shows, with a basis of research to serve as the foundation for the creative process. I especially took a concerted effort in this process for "Some Enchanted Evening", as some might know I believe Rodgers and Hammerstein to have gotten a bit dusty over time, however, during my period of research these thoughts would soon change and I would find my admiration and respect for these two iconic figures in music theatre begin to grow once more. -- I made an incredible realization. The reason my feelings for Rogers and Hammerstein began to decline was due to the stagnation of their shows by no fault of there own but rather a lack of creativity and ability to take a risk on the part of the director's and production staff.



I felt that no matter where I saw a certain show I was seeing the same show I had seen before just with a different leading man singing the same notes and an ensemble moving to different locations on the stage. This is what bored my brain. After all, TO ME, why see something you have seen before. I want to see another director's vision of a certain world--which is creative, strong and takes risks, of course justified in research, and not a recreation of someone else's creative world. During my research I found a series of interviews with Rodgers and Hammerstein that I found quite interesting. The part of the interview that triggered a bolt of creativity was when Richard Rodgers said, “If somebody wants to take a 20-year old song and do his own version of it, I encourage it. I think this is one way of keeping the 20-year old song alive. I think if it were possible, which it isn’t, to force performers and orchestra’s to stick rigidly to the way the song was written, the song would be dead in three months. It would become so tiresome, so monotonous.” To me this was a magical way of Richard Rodgers himself giving me permission to do my own version of this review. In fact he was asking me to do so in order to prolong the life of his music.



As soon as I received permission from Richard, (by now we were close friends you see), my mind became entirely free and this show began to present itself in a new way. I began to see the timeless nature of their music was buried in the presentation. We could effectively speak to today’s audience and touch them in a new and fresh way while maintaining the integrity of these two musical theatre icons. With the metaphorical box many people usually think within destroyed "Some Enchanted Evening" became truly enchanted.

An update from the Illinois Arts Council.

February 24, 2010

Dear Illinois Arts Council Constituents,

The Governor's Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) today launched www.budget.illinois.gov, a website that allows Illinois residents to provide feedback that will be used to shape the state's fiscal year 2011 budget.

This is the first time in Illinois' history that you can actively participate in the state's budgeting process. As you know, the State of Illinois is in dire financial condition and the budget for next year will be even worse than the current one. The potential responses for this historically difficult situation may include deep cuts or total suspension of many state programs as well as calls for additional revenue sources, as Governor Quinn has proposed. The Governor and legislators are in a very difficult position as they try to address these huge challenges. The more information they have from their constituents about how next year's budget should be constructed, the better the Governor, senators, and representatives will understand their constituents' priorities.

I encourage you to review this new website and make use of this opportunity to apprise the Governor's Office of Management and Budget of your priorities for the state's fiscal year 2011 budget.

Note that all submissions are subject to public disclosure.

Sincerely,

Terry A. Scrogum

Terry A. Scrogum
Executive Director
Illinois Arts Council

You Tube video of Suzanne LaRusch

Check out this video. She will be at our theatre on February 12th and 13th 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta1FRIWr53U

First-Person: Activists Answer, "What Motivates Me to Speak Out for the Arts"

First-Person profiles a current event from the perspective of a member of the Illinois arts community. Please contact Scarlett Swerdlow at swerdlow@artsalliance.org or 312.855.3105 x13 if you would like to contribute to the next First-Person.

This month, we invited arts leaders from across the state to answer questions about their advocacy experiences. We are pleased to share responses from Travis Stimeling of Millikin University, Maria Mowbray of Rock for Kids, and Penny Wollan-Kriel of the Springfield Area Arts Council as well as five Facebook fans.

Travis Stimeling, Assistant Professor of Music, Millikin University, Decatur

Travis Stimeling participated in the January 13 Responsible Budget Call-In Day.

Motto: "If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough."

What motivated you to speak out for the arts with your elected officials?

The arts play a key role in helping the residents of Illinois to understand one another. Especially in these times when it seems that, as a nation, we are more divided than we have been in recent history, access to the arts is essential, as they offer us the opportunity to share our basic humanity, to publicly express our differences, and to start productive dialogues about ways to improve the quality of life for all.

(Pictured below: the Perkinson Music Center at Millikin University)



When was a time you saw the world differently?

Shortly after my son was born, I was teaching about Mahler's Kindertotenlieder in my music history class, which I had done several times before. In the opening piece of this song cycle, we find a father facing the sunrise after his son died in the night. Exhausted physically and emotionally from the prior night's tragedy, he reflects that the sun rises with the promise of a new day without regard for his own sorrow. Standing before my students, I suddenly understood this piece in a way that I never had before, connecting the father's experience to my new fatherhood, and I wept.

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Maria Mowbray, Executive Director, Rock For Kids, Chicago

Maria Mowbray met with members of Congress in 2009 at National Arts Advocacy Day and then traveled to Springfield to meet with the state representatives and state senators who serve Rock for Kids stakeholders. Maria is pictured below with State Senator Antonio Munoz (D-1) in Springfield.

Motto: "There are no problems -- only solutions." (I use this as my motto, but I have to admit I stole it from Maestro Paul Freeman of the Chicago Sinfonietta.)

What motivated you to speak out for the arts with your elected officials?

As a nonprofit organization that provides services for children living in poverty, we are often in the position of giving a voice to those who do not have one, and as arts educators, we share with students the tools to voice the abstract. It is imperative that arts organizations like Rock For Kids utilize the political system to add their voices to the discourse on what is important to us as a society. There is no better way to do this than make the effort to meet face to face with elected officials and share with them concrete evidence of the positive impact the arts are having among their constituents.

Proactive advocacy and a unified message are our strongest allies in the fight to preserve the arts and arts education in this country.

Why do you think people should care about the arts?

There are so many reasons to care about the arts! Arts tourism produces a significant amount of state and municipal revenue. Providing arts education early on in a child's life has a significant impact on cognitive development, and the creative thinking skills developed while learning in the arts can easily translate into the competitive job market. But beyond that, the arts give us the means to define and document where we've been individually and as a nation, as well as the freedom to imagine where we are going.

When was a time you saw the world differently?

Recently a student enrolled in Rock For Kid's Songwriting for Teens class in Pullman shared song lyrics about her cousin who was killed by gun violence. The resulting conversation among the students about how to interpret those feelings in music demonstrated the transformative and healing capabilities of the creative process.

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Penny Wollan-Kriel, Acting Director, Springfield Area Arts Council

Penny Wollan-Kriel participated in the January 13 Responsible Budget Call-In Day.

Motto: "Hang in there -- the arts will be around long after we are gone."

What motivated you to speak out for the arts with your elected officials?

The arts are critical and the budget allocation for the Illinois Arts Council has been decimated over the past few years. Further cuts just cannot be considered. As the administrator of an arts organization which has felt the results of the reduced budgets, I needed to voice my opinion.

(Pictured below: an art show at the University of Illinois at Springfield.)

What, if any, obstacles did you face in speaking out?

None. Since our service area is in two districts, I called both Representatives Poe and Brauer as well as Senator Bomke. The staff members I spoke with listened, thanked me for calling, and indicated they would relay the message.

Why do you think people should care about the arts?

As has been said before (and I couldn't express it any better or more succinctly): "The arts are the soul of a people."

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Heard on the Arts Alliance Illinois Facebook Page

Members of the Arts Alliance Illinois Facebook community were asked, "Why do you think people should care about the arts?"

Pat Navadomskis -- The arts develop critical thinking skills, open people up, and [let us] build and share community.

Sandra Ahten -- I don't think people SHOULD care about the arts. Care about art if it is in you to care about art. If it is not, you probably get your fulfillment in other ways. Expression will come forth in different ways for everyone. That said, I think children should be exposed to many different things, including the arts.

Chris Milostan -- Arts -- being engaged in the creative process -- is holistic integration and balance of body, mind, and spirit. It reduces stress, helps people adapt to change more effectively, and fosters innovation of new ideas, products, services, etc. Our country, planet, and the human community needs creative expression.

Beverly Holmes Hughes -- The arts hold the core of the story of who we are by sharing what we are about.

Martha Frish Okabe -- The arts provide insight into ourselves and others, and can be a source of sheer joy. Sometimes that joy comes instinctively, and sometimes one needs to be taught some basics before that art form can be appreciated. It's not always easy, but it's worth the effort.

Add your voice to the conversation at www.facebook.com/artsallianceillinois.