The SCIENCE of the ARTS

Arts at a Disadvantage Most of what the brain learns—such as fine and gross motor coordination, emotional intelligence, complex knowledge, stress mediation, and relationship skills—requires maturation and refinement. If schools value a narrow range of specific test scores—and if those tests measure only math, problem-solving, and verbal skills—arts are at a clear disadvantage. And if we only value immediate results, arts are at a disadvantage. Because the value of arts is both generally distributed across the range of human performance and because they are time-consuming, they are effective, not efficient. Students of the arts develop neural systems that often take months and years to fine tune, and the benefits students experience range from enhancement in fine motor skills to better emotional regulation, so there is a lack of immediate and obvious causal effects. When education resources ebb, the arts are the f i rst things to be cut f rom the curr iculum. But research suggests that the benefits of the arts are pr iceless. ARTS EDUCAT I ON in