Learning the 3 “R’s” Through Art

Arts enrichment programs are often the first to be eliminated when schools are facing budget cuts. For some preschoolers, however, instruction in music, dance and art can be the most effective way to engage them in learning, says West Chester University psychologist Ellie Brown.

Brown has been studying the influence of poverty and economic stress on children’s lives – in particular, on their emotional wellbeing and how that affects their ability to learn well. Through her work at a Head Start Preschool in Philadelphia, she is finding that children enrolled in an arts enrichment program there are defying the usual predictors for academic achievement. Through music, for example, they are learning the basis for counting and understanding math and language. Through dance they’re learning action words and spatial concepts, and by painting, they are able to write letters and eventually words.

“Children living in really impoverished conditions with few resources do face particular challenges and tend to start school behind their middle income peers,” says Brown.

“There’s a level of chaos that’s associated with living in poverty,” she explains, “and when children experience that kind of unpredictability, they sometimes come to school depressed, anxious and withdrawn.”

She points out that sometimes teachers assume these children lack motivation or intelligence when, in fact, they may feel a total lack of control over the outcomes in their lives, including learning challenges they face in school. As a result, they may not be as persistent as other children when learning new skills.

Brown and a group of her psychology students have been studying the impact of stress on children’s emotions and their ability to face challenges in school. At the same time, they also are evaluating the effects of the preschool’s arts enrichment program on children’s skill development.

From interviews with the parents whose children are attending the Head Start program, the West Chester researchers gather information about the children’s life circumstances, their family routines and their children’s emotions and behavior at home. Each day thereafter, Brown and her students re-interview the parents about daily stresses they and their children are encountering.

To see how well the children respond to learning challenges, Brown and her students ask the preschoolers how high they can build a tower of blocks and, in a second test, how much of a difficult puzzle they can complete in three minutes. During each challenge, the researchers closely record each child’s emotions every minute for 15 minutes. They compare the children’s persistence and emotions with the information provided by the parents about the stress their children may be facing routinely.

Eventually, Brown hopes to identify ways to help them overcome what may be their sense of helplessness. What she’s observed thus far suggests that the arts may offer alternative channels for a child’s successful development in school.

“There are many ways in which racial and ethnic minority children and children from low income backgrounds might feel marginalized in traditional academic settings,” says Brown.

“Historically, minorities have been marginalized in all areas of education but to a lesser extent in the arts.

“It may very well be the case,” she concludes, “that those children are better able to acquire learning skills through music, the arts and dance rather than simply by way of a traditional curriculum.”

Ellie Brown is the founder and director of the Early Childhood Cognition and Emotions Laboratory (ECCEL) and has worked for many years with children and families in economically disadvantaged communities. She has written for a number of scholarly publications on poverty and child development, and she leads national and international workshops on ending classism, racism and related forms of intolerance.