How to Incorporate Art into the Classroom

As arts programs across the country are losing funding, it is more important than ever to incorporate art education into your classroom. No matter what age or subject matter you teach, you may be able to apply these strategies.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Flexible assignments
• Cooperation with the art teacher, if possible
• Replications of art pieces
• School-wide arts programming
• Commitment to field trips

1. Tap into students' multiple learning modalities and assign hands-on projects that allow students to express their creativity. If you are worried that such an assignment lacks sufficient content, insist that students provide accompanying written materials.

2. Work with the art teacher. If your students are lucky enough to have an art class, you can coordinate your units. The possibilities are endless. Students could learn about the paintings of Georgia O'Keefe while studying plants in science class, or about Frida Kahlo while studying about Mexico, for example. These connections are particularly poignant in the social studies classroom, given that all genres and periods of art have came out of a specific socio-cultural context.

3. Decorate your classroom with art (replications of course). Many studies show the importance of students learning in a pleasing environment. Having a lot of text around is important, as it creates a "print-rich culture," of course, but having some paintings around could also be beneficial. The kind of art is less important, just avoid those hackneyed posters of the kitten doing chin-ups!

4. Help your students interact with artists of all kinds. This may mean bringing in professional artists as speakers, having art-based, school-wide activities, or simply asking other teachers with art backgrounds to come in to speak to your students.

5. Extend your classroom. There is no way you will be able to give your students a comprehensive education if you never leave your classroom. Bring students on trips to cultural arts events and museums (if you teach in a major city with a range of venues like this, consider creating a club that takes students to visit them).

Tips & Warnings

• Art projects that either only tangentially relate to the skills you wish to teach, or whose primary goal is to be "fun" are a waste of time. Art should be meaningful, not superfluous.
• While you can insist that students put a certain level of work into assignments (this includes making them appear neat and clean), you shouldn't grade students on aesthetic aspects of an assignment that are unrelated to its content.