What Can Art Integration Do for Detroit Public Schools?

​“Art is a form of expression,” said University Preparatory Academy teacher Britani Reid, “It looks different and comes in all types of forms. Art gives students a chance to express who they are as an individual and allows them to tell their story or perspective on things through their own eyes. It is something that is uniquely different for each individual”. Britani Reid said that one way students learn is through artistic expression. She also said that some students take to this type of learning and that it helps them learn various academic concepts. “I believe art integration is essential,” said Reid, “Over the years of my teaching experience, I have learned that students learn in many different ways. It is vital that all teachers take the time to observe how each individual student learn”. When introducing children to art and culture, this creates a major impact on their development. The issue is that there are not a lot of studies and documents that report the effect of exposing students to art and culture. Involving art in a typical learning environment has associated with positive results in math, reading, critical thinking, and verbal skills. “Art challenges students to think in an abstract way”, Reid said, “It allows them to interrupt a visual painting or piece of art in their own way. Some students may personally relate to art because it reminds them of something they have experienced or may be something they are interested in. For other students, art can be challenging and push them to think out of the box and beyond the surface meaning.” Integrating art into any class can create memorable moments in a student’s' life and create a less stressful learning environment. These factors can establish a method that can help educators to develop a student’s memory and recall. A case study conducted by Walden University researcher Lynn Maxey, observed eight elementary school teachers who successfully integrated art into the curricula. The study explored using art integration in the classroom. According to the case study, art integration related to different essential of learning: social engagement, experiences and different perspectives. When the teachers applied art to their lessons, the students demonstrated higher levels of learning due to hands-on activities, real life connections, document-based inquiry, and collaborative learning. The study suggested that art integration enriches the entire learning experience and may lead to social change in the classroom that will improve student learning. Integrating art into different subjects taught at Detroit Public School may help students improve academically. According to a Detroit Free Press article, DPS scored the lowest among 21 cities that voluntarily took part in an urban district assessment. In the Detroit public school district, 96 percent of eighth -graders were not proficient in math and 93 percent were not proficient in reading. The results of the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress stated that Detroit’s average score for eighth-grade students was 244. According to the report, this was lower than the average score of 274 for public school students in large cities; furthermore, this year was not significantly different from their average score of 240 in 2013 and 238 in 2009. “I believe it is a good possibility it will impact the students in a positive way. The students will have a hands-on experience through art. Usually when students are engaged in hands-on experiences, it has a lasting impression on them because they have experienced the learning for themselves, instead of just reading about it in a book. Real life experiences are more enriching and authentic, than textbook information.” Reid said. Art integration may also be a great way to teach students the values about home and family, work and play, the individual and society, nature and the environment, war and peace, beauty and ugliness, violence and love. Wayne State Senior and former teacher Qutub Ahmed said that art allows students to explore different avenues of understanding things as well as solving problems. “Depending on what kind of art it is, students can expand in respective to creative thinking,” Ahmed said. He said teaching art has a direct effect on society’s economic status and innovation whether it is technological or not. He believes that art integration is important if it gets rid of the schools Eurocentric curriculum. “The question is not whether we should have art involved, it should be what kind of art should be included? Art is especially important for students to be exposed to diversity and for them to be culturally responsive,” said Ahmed. Detroit Future Schools is a program that focuses on humanizing schools through digital media arts and critical pedagogy. According to their website, (AC) they have worked in 24 schools, employed 10 artists, partnered with 25 teachers and worked with over 3,000 students across the Metro Detroit area between 2011-2013. Detroit Future Schools director Nathaniel Mullen said (AC) that there are two categories of the media that they integrate n the classrooms. The first category is lower level media; in which, he has the students create movie projects on different subject instead of reading or writing papers on them. CQ “We find students engaged at a higher level,” Mullen said, (AC) “There is a different level of engagement. This engagement doesn’t look like student sitting around the table, but it does look like students working in groups and working in way more dynamic work, which then you get more dynamic responses to the curriculum.” CQMullen then explains (AC) the second category of media making, which are students going out into the community and conducting research problem on what they identified and then making media about it. “I think that the level of transformation is way more accelerated because of this project, ACMullen said, “I think of the comments some of the students made after doing this project, saying: ‘I didn’t know that I can make a change in the way the world operates, but now that I have done this project I can see that I can.’” CQ Mullen said that after their project is completed, they conduct interviews with the teachers and some students that were involved in the program. According to DFS website AC, out of 33 students that were interview about the Detroit Future Schools program, at the end of the 2012-2013 school year, indicated that 28 of the students said that their experiences with DFS improved their relationship to school and in-creased their agency as learners, 23 described their relationship to their DFS artist as a role model or mentor and 21 told the interviewer that they believed that they have power to change their lives and their communities for the better. CQ “A quote that stuck out to me was from a student who did her movie project on the Cold War.” Mullen says. “In the little project she made, I had the students write a response to the question: ‘What do you make of the world out of the Cold War project?’ She wrote that she learned how delicate the world was and she can see how we can fall into a Cold War.” CQ Mullen said. AC Mullen then explained that statement said a lot about what it actually meant to take content and breath life into it. He concludes by saying, “that was the ground level of integrating art into something that starts to breath life in contents.”