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Through the arts, students learn to think creatively and gain a better understanding of the world and cultures around them. Further, arts education helps students develop critical thinking skills, problem-solving techniques, and a drive for excellence.
Share the facts about the arts and student achievement with the families in your school to build support for arts education. Then, use the arts to engage families in school activities.
Engaging All Families Through the Arts
The arts help make student learning visible and can be a simple way to engage all families in the school community. Here are a few suggestions for using the arts to bring families into the school:
- Showcase students’ talents in performances and art exhibitions. Post fliers and send e-mails, invitations, and letters inviting families to attend.
- Work with the school’s art teacher to display student artwork throughout the school (in halls, offices, classrooms, etc.); then invite parents to tour the school and see the artwork. Ask teachers to talk to the visiting parents about how the art projects tie in with the children’s learning in other subjects.
- Tap into the power of parents. Ask parents to serve as volunteers on PTA Start the Art Week committees and in arts classes.
- Organize productions and publications (plays, musicals, literary magazines, etc.) that employ the talents of both students and parents.
- Set up a volunteer-run arts resource center to provide families with information on available arts programs, volunteer opportunities in the arts, and arts advocacy efforts.
The arts also offer opportunities to promote the value of all cultures in the school.
- Organize folklife and folk arts activities that allow students and families to share their cultures.
- Host a schoolwide international night. Set up booths for families to display artifacts, pictures, and books from and about their native countries. Also incorporate families’ native foods, dance, music, and dress into the evening.
- Create a mural to celebrate your school’s diversity. Provide the paints and banner paper, and invite all students and families to illustrate some aspect of their heritage for the mural.
- Translate invitations and informational materials into parents’ primary languages.
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