Art Makes You Smart - Working Classroom · assessed knowledge about art, as well as measures of...
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5/12/2014 Art Makes You Smart - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/opinion/sunday/art-makes-you-smart.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=OP_AMY_20131125&_r=0 1/3 Search All NYTimes.com GRAY MATTER Art Makes You Smart Alain Pilon By BRIAN KISIDA, JAY P. GREENE and DANIEL H. BOWEN Published: November 23, 2013 FOR many education advocates, the arts are a panacea: They supposedly increase test scores, generate social responsibility and turn around failing schools. Most of the supporting evidence, though, does little more than establish correlations between exposure to the arts and certain outcomes. Research that demonstrates a causal relationship has been virtually nonexistent. A few years ago, however, we had a rare opportunity to explore such relationships when the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened in Bentonville, Ark. Through a large-scale, random- assignment study of school tours to the museum, we were able to determine that strong causal relationships do in fact exist between arts education and a range of desirable outcomes. Students who, by lottery, were selected to visit the museum on a field trip demonstrated stronger critical thinking skills, displayed higher levels of social tolerance, exhibited greater historical empathy and developed a taste for art museums and cultural institutions. MOST EMAILED RECOMMENDED FOR YOU 22 articles viewed recently pscharberg All Recommendations Go to Your Recommendations » What’s This? | Don’t Show 1. MEMO FROM ISTANBUL With Conspiracy-Minded Intrigue, Life Imitates Fiction in Turkey 2. Students and Money, in Their Own Words 3. ON TENNIS A Foothold on Clay May Be Slipping 4. Chasing Death Camp Guards With New Tools 5. Whole Foods Once Again Reduces Its Profit Forecast 6. T MAGAZINE By Design | Hot New Thing 7. 11 Missing After Cargo Ships Collide Near Hong Kong 8. Video: An Added Burden 9. CITY ROOM When Fear of Harassment Curbs Recovery From an Eating Disorder 10. Hong Kong Publisher’s Prison Sentence Is Called a Political Vendetta HOME PAGE TODAY'S PAPER VIDEO MOST POPULAR WORLD U.S. N.Y. / REGION BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HEALTH SPORTS OPINION ARTS STYLE TRAVEL JOBS REAL ESTATE AUTOS FACEBOOK TWITTER GOOGLE+ SAVE EMAIL SHARE PRINT REPRINTS Help SUBSCRIBE NOW pscharberg... U.S. Edition
Transcript of Art Makes You Smart - Working Classroom · assessed knowledge about art, as well as measures of...
5/12/2014 Art Makes You Smart - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/opinion/sunday/art-makes-you-smart.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=OP_AMY_20131125&_r=0 1/3
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GRAY MATTER
Art Makes You Smart
Alain Pilon
By BRIAN KISIDA, JAY P. GREENE and DANIEL H. BOWENPublished: November 23, 2013
FOR many education advocates, the arts are a panacea: Theysupposedly increase test scores, generate social responsibility andturn around failing schools. Most of the supporting evidence, though,does little more than establish correlations between exposure to thearts and certain outcomes. Research that demonstrates a causalrelationship has been virtually nonexistent.
A few years ago, however, we had a rare opportunity to explore suchrelationships when the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Artopened in Bentonville, Ark. Through a large-scale, random-assignment study of school tours to the museum, we were able todetermine that strong causal relationships do in fact exist betweenarts education and a range of desirable outcomes.
Students who, by lottery, were selected to visit the museum on a fieldtrip demonstrated stronger critical thinking skills, displayed higher levels of socialtolerance, exhibited greater historical empathy and developed a taste for art museums andcultural institutions.
MOST EMAILED RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
22 articles viewedrecently
pscharbergAll Recommendations
Go to Your Recommendations »What’s This? | Don’t Show
1. MEMO FROM ISTANBULWith Conspiracy-Minded Intrigue, LifeImitates Fiction in Turkey
2. Students and Money, in Their Own Words
3. ON TENNISA Foothold on Clay May Be Slipping
4. Chasing Death Camp Guards With NewTools
5. Whole Foods Once Again Reduces Its ProfitForecast
6. T MAGAZINEBy Design | Hot New Thing
7. 11 Missing After Cargo Ships Collide NearHong Kong
8. Video: An Added Burden
9. CITY ROOMWhen Fear of Harassment Curbs RecoveryFrom an Eating Disorder
10. Hong Kong Publisher’s Prison Sentence IsCalled a Political Vendetta
HOME PAGE TODAY'S PAPER VIDEO MOST POPULAR
WORLD U.S. N.Y. / REGION BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HEALTH SPORTS OPINION ARTS STYLE TRAVEL JOBS REAL ESTATE AUTOS
GOOGLE+
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SHARE
REPRINTS
HelpSUBSCRIBE NOW pscharberg...U.S. Edition
5/12/2014 Art Makes You Smart - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/opinion/sunday/art-makes-you-smart.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=OP_AMY_20131125&_r=0 2/3
A version of this oped appears in print on November 24, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: ArtMakes You Smart.
Crystal Bridges, which opened in November 2011, was founded by Alice Walton, thedaughter of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. It is impressive, with 50,000 squarefeet of gallery space and an endowment of more than $800 million.
Thanks to a generous private gift, the museum has a program that allows school groups tovisit at no cost to students or schools.
Before the opening, we were contacted by the museum’s education department. Theyrecognized that the opening of a major museum in an area that had never had one beforewas an unusual event that ought to be studied. But they also had a problem. Because theschool tours were being offered free, in an area where most children had very little priorexposure to cultural institutions, demand for visits far exceeded available slots. In the firstyear alone, the museum received applications from 525 school groups requesting tours formore than 38,000 students.
As social scientists, we knew exactly how to solve this problem. We partnered with themuseum and conducted a lottery to fill the available slots. By randomly assigning schooltours, we were able to allocate spots fairly. Doing so also created a natural experiment tostudy the effects of museum visits on students, the results of which we published in thejournals Education Next and Educational Researcher.
Over the course of the following year, nearly 11,000 students and almost 500 teachersparticipated in our study, roughly half of whom had been selected by lottery to visit themuseum. Applicant groups who won the lottery constituted our treatment group, whilethose who did not win an immediate tour served as our control group.
Several weeks after the students in the treatment group visited the museum, weadministered surveys to all of the students. The surveys included multiple items thatassessed knowledge about art, as well as measures of tolerance, historical empathy andsustained interest in visiting art museums and other cultural institutions. We also askedthem to write an essay in response to a work of art that was unfamiliar to them.
These essays were then coded using a critical-thinking-skills assessment programdeveloped by researchers working with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
Further, we directly measured whether students are more likely to return to CrystalBridges as a result of going on a school tour. Students who participated in the study weregiven a coupon that gave them and their families free entry to a special exhibit at themuseum. The coupons were coded so that we could determine the group to whichstudents belonged. Students in the treatment group were 18 percent more likely to attendthe exhibit than students in the control group.
Moreover, most of the benefits we observed are significantly larger for minority students,low-income students and students from rural schools — typically two to three times largerthan for white, middle-class, suburban students — owing perhaps to the fact that the tourwas the first time they had visited an art museum.
Further research is needed to determine what exactly about the museum-going experiencedetermines the strength of the outcomes. How important is the structure of the tour? Thesize of the group? The type of art presented?
Clearly, however, we can conclude that visiting an art museum exposes students to adiversity of ideas that challenge them with different perspectives on the human condition.Expanding access to art, whether through programs in schools or through visits to areamuseums and galleries, should be a central part of any school’s curriculum.
Brian Kisida is a senior research associate and Jay P. Greene is a professor of educationreform at the University of Arkansas. Daniel H. Bowen is a postdoctoral fellow at theKinder Institute of Rice University.
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5/12/2014 Art Makes You Smart - NYTimes.com
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