“When was it decided that academic subjects were by definition non-arts courses? When was it decided that over here are academics and way over there are the arts?When was it decided that programs that are sensitive to differences in race, class, and culture were by definition a remediation or an unnecessary luxury for minority students rather than an opportunity for all?” ¹⁹

The integration of Visual Thinking Strategies or VTS has become increasingly persuasive and popular over the past decade. This way of learning and teaching is designed to facilitate higher-order communication, verbal, written, and thinking skills.²⁰ With the rise of standardized test scores, the arts can become an additional part of urban school’s curriculum that is not considered “core.” In this way, when budget cuts occur the arts are usually the first to go. The youth that are most impacted by this lack of arts tend to be minorities because their schools tend to be located in areas where funding is indeed tight. Arguments against using precious school funding on the arts are that students have access to the arts through community grass root programs outside of school. However what more and more studies are finding is that incorporating the arts in school is an important part in yielding student success. Studies have shown that the arts have not only been found to raise SAT scores and improve “core” subject skills, but more so affects student learning in a way that is beyond quantifiable skill acquisition. By just interpreting the affect of the arts on students through only quantifiable analysis, we fail to see the greater impact on the student as a whole. New arts-based research methods are being used to document these opportunities. For example, through art, students (minorities especially) are given a source of agency that speaks from their unique perspective. The arts provide a route in education to communicate across linguistic, racial, and cultural competencies because it provides a safe space where all students can be included.¹⁹

However, not all arts integration efforts are truly effective. There are two types of methods in applying arts integration: first and second-order changes. First-order changes manipulate the material and staff but fail to change the ways students and teachers interact with the material and perform their roles. Whereas second-order changes alter the “normal” way of teaching by introducing a fundamentally new way of approaching material. This is what is needed in order to see long term student results. Second-order teaching works because the intervention is pedagogical, rather than material/ test focused. Teachers become the facilitators to students own creative exploration.²⁰

Instead of art becoming an outside influence of teaching, it needs to become a part of the entire system behind the school. School is a culture and it has the capability to make adaptions when changes, such as the introduction of art, occur. For example, with the increased “importance” of standardized testing, teachers were forced to teach to the test in order to “succeed”. Adaptions like this are hard to deter from for multiple reasons such as fear of job-loss, peer pressure, and accountability of teachers. The way for art integration to truly succeed is for it to penetrate the fundamental layers of a school’s complex culture. This includes written policies, missions, standards and implementation of these from the teachers. But this must be done in an integrated way, not as a rash decision thrown into a curriculum that has seemingly been “working” for teachers for years. Reforms cannot just be made if we expect actual changes to occur; teachers must truly agree and commit to what the reforms embody. Pleasant View Magnet School for the Visual and Performing Arts opened in Lansing, Michigan was developed with a mission to incorporate the arts into the standard curriculum, but failed because all teachers were not consistent in their expectations for the class and students because they lacked the theoretical and practical frameworks necessary in order to successfully integrate art into lesson plans. Efforts must come from the root of the school, which could take some teachers out of their comfort zones when developing new relationships among each other and with students. A greater number of professional development hours were built into teacher’s schedules at Pleasant View Magnet School in order to get all of the teachers up to speed on methods of art integration. This led to a much richer success than before. According to teachers who used Visual Thinking Strategies regularly after their training, students were responding with greater attention and deeper analyses when discussing school through an artistic lens, and transferred this artistic knowledge across different subject areas. This sparked more enthused discussions in class.²⁰

What is important in incorporating art into the curriculum on a broader scale is supporting both students and teachers in developing and supporting their artistic identities. In order for students to be able to explore their own cultural identities through creative outlets, teachers must know how to teach it. Most teachers today must be proficient in math, science, reading, writing, and social studies, but art is not a required area.¹⁹

“We need to disallow statements such as ‘I don’t sing” and “I don’t dance,” just as we disallow any K-12 teacher to state “I don’t read” and “I don’t do math.” ¹⁹

Teachers must learn to take initiative and be accountable for integrating the arts into a curriculum. It is important to emphasize that art integration is not a substitute for a specialized art teachers, so training for non-art teachers is a necessity in order for an art integration model of school to become successful. Arts integration is an integrated process that takes time in order to become successful. Positive change within schools can happen through carefully planned interventions at the foundation of schools and will only effectively happen when all teachers work together to overlap their curriculums.²⁰