How can the Arts make a classroom accessible?

Accessibility, Education, STEAM

When addressing how to make a classroom accessible, introducing Arts to the curriculum might not seem like the most obvious answer. Most ideas around accessibility that advocate for one group of people end up making something even less accessible to another group. Think about introducing computers and online lessons to students- sure more kids with computers are able to access educational content outside of the classroom but kids with limited internet access or no personal computers are suddenly left out of the loop. The same idea applies to most other ways of tackling accessibility. Art, however, might be the exception and could work as a way of bridging education to as many students as possible.

Alpha School, a special education school for students with disablities, found that in their classrooms using visual and tactile Arts improved their students engagment with STEM topics. Alpha School reported in their article on STEM and Art intergration, that by using the Arts, students learned and engaged with topics on a personal level that created a positive connection between education and the students. The lessons that included the Arts allowed for more self-emotional regulation and helped studented connect their lived experiences to the classroom in ways that are typically difficult.

The Kennedy Center similarly found in their education and Art intergration report for STEAM that using the Arts in classrooms clarified abstract and complex concepts that typically were difficult to understand to student who didn’t have access to educational resources outside of school. This type of Art intergration in classrooms is connected to the Univeral Design for Learning (UDL) which is a type of learning, which is a standard of education that attempts to offer equal access to all students. By using Art to meet current UDL standards, classrooms can include as many students as possible in lessons.

Currently all over the United States there is a push towards better quality education for more students. By using the Arts as a way to improve accessability in classrooms, students of all kinds are able to get involved in education in ways that were previously impossible.

The Big Picture

Accessibility, Education, STEAM

Since February, we’ve looked at the crossroad of education, accessibility, and the Arts. We discussed the importance of STEAM and art integration in k-12 classrooms; including the positive impact that the Arts has on academic achievement and how Art shapes good futures for our children. We touched upon education, what STEAM looks like within the United States today, and who is excluded from a quality public education. We used our definition of accessibility to assess current school standards and what organizations, foundations, and Universities are doing to improve accessibility.

But why? Reading research and collecting articles and resources for what? How can this information be used?

By following these stories and collecting the data that might be overlooked, we can closely examine the way our education, the Arts, and access to these things are intertwined with one another. The connections we’ve researched opens up new questions and begs us to find a way to stop separating the issues of Art, education, and access. By looking at what we have discovered and recorded, I wonder how we can connect these ideas even more.

So, I hope to look at my research through the lens of answering this question:

How can schools use the Arts and Art integration as an accessibility tool to teach other STEAM topics?

What role does Art play in accessibility to students?

Accessibility, Education, STEAM

Art can look like a lot of different things. Most think of the Arts as drawing, painting, acting, singing, dancing, and other ‘fine Arts’. The broader definition used in STEAM includes the fine Arts and writing, reading, history, psychology, and many other topics excluded by the strict term, STEM (Which is just Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

But how can Art be accessible, and how can it make other aspects of education more
accessible? Typically when we think about the Arts, accessibility isn’t the first thing to come to mind. After all, not everyone is a masterful painter, a lively musician, or a natural-born historian, so just like STEM topics, the Arts shouldn’t necessarily be accessible, right?

To understand how Art can help schools be more accessible to a variety of students, we must first understand the differences between Art and typical STEM standards. Unlike STEM, where there is normally just one right answer to a given problem, the Arts engage with subjective matters that can’t easily be boiled down to one thing. Art allows for many different perspectives to be correct, allowing for a space that feels more safe to students. Children can explore many different ideas and topics in Art without having to be worried about being wrong. Not only this, but Art also engages with more students’ personal lived experiences and backgrounds, unlike STEM which might not be as personal to kids. Art, especially historical topics, constantly engage with lots of cultures which can make students feel more seen and represented. STEM on the other hand rarely expands on topics about the history and culture of what it is teaching, meaning unless the students have a connection and history with Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math, they aren’t going to feel well represented in the classroom.

Now back to accessibility; Art can be used as a tool for accessibility because of the ideas mentioned above. Art creates inclusive spaces that encourage students of many backgrounds to participate in lessons and interact with educational content.

Art can be used in many ways to cater to a lot of different students. One example being plain old coloring sheets. I’m sure many of us recall the days of elementary school where a teacher would explain the water cycle, or something of that sort, and they’d pass out a coloring sheet directing students to color one part a certain color and another part something else. This is an example of Art integration and STEAM in the classroom. Not everyone might understand what is being told to them, whether that be because of a mental or physical disability or because they don’t speak the language or understand it very well, but regardless of that almost every kid is capable of coloring on a sheet of paper. When the main ideas of a lesson are drawn out for students, it can become easier for a larger number of kids to understand and grasp the ideas. The use of Art and STEAM makes the classroom more accessible to students and helps kids engage with educational content on a personal level.

Examples of accessibility in classrooms pt.2

Accessibility, Education

This is connected to a thread of posts on the topic of real examples about making education, the Arts, and STEAM more accessible to a variety of students. Check out the first post before reading this one to get an idea of what we’re looking for.

Oregon State University (OSU) is another university that is working towards making education more accessible to students. ‘Access OSU‘ is a program funded by the university that aims to get more underrepresented students to graduate high school in the Portland Metro area and build pathways to higher education. The program helps schools fill out grants and secure funding to ensure the cost of education is not a burden to students and their families. Access OSU also helps provide updated technology to schools to ensure students aren’t left behind their peers in non-underrepresented schools. This program has supported low-income areas and helped move students towards higher education.

The National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) is a historic organization that has helped push the boundaries of accessibility in the classroom for years in the United States. NABE was founded in 1976 and helped pass legislation and bills necessary to improve the accessibility of education to non-English speaking students, like the Bilingual Education Act. Today, their mission is focused on helping teachers become certified bilingual through the Seal of Biliteracy with no cost to the teachers. By having a cultural understanding about the importance of students being taught in a language they understand, NABE has helped children find themselves more supported in classrooms.

Examples of accessibility in classrooms pt.1

Accessibility, Education

In previous posts, we’ve talked about what accessibilty looks like in the classroom, how accessible Art looks in education today, and the overwhelming benefits of accessible art, but what do real world examples look like, and is it realistic to think Art, education, and STEAM can be made accessible to everyone?

Arizona State University (ASU) believes that one barrier of education can easily be removed using today’s technology. ASU has begun implementing meticulously trained AI to help make their classrooms, and classrooms around the US, more accessible to non-English speaking students and their families. In an article reviewing and breaking down research on AI’s potential to improve accessibility in the classroom, ASU found the high schools across the country are struggling to engage with students who are still learning English. ASU’s AI innovation center proposed a solution by creating a new type of chat bot that uses generative AI to study languages and aid both students and teachers in communication. ASU claims this new AI is also helping parents of bilingual students who might not speak English themselves, which helps to offer a more well structured support system to the student.

The Alliance for Excellent Education (ALL4ED) is an advocacy organization that works towards ensuring students in traditionally underserved communities’ graduate high school and are ready to succeed in college, work, and citizenship. ALL4ED makes classrooms more accessible to low-income students in the greater Washington DC area by reforming and paying for better common core standards, improving literacy among students, and connecting students and their families to the internet. Since the 1990s, this group has been improving access to learning through philanthropy and non-profit efforts. By covering the costs that students, families, and their schools cannot, more students are able to access their education.

These are just a few examples of what accessibilty looks like in the real world and how it helping to improve the lives of students. Look forward to more posts exploring other real world examples of how education, Art, and STEAM can be made accessible.

What does Art and STEAM in education look like now?

Education, STEAM

We’ve come a long way from what education used to look like, and these days there is ample research about the amazing benefits of STEAM and the Arts involvement in k-12 education. But what does that look like in the classroom? What are our current standards of education for STEAM and Art related topics?

In the state of Oregon, while the public push for STEAM in schools is pretty large, the actual engagement is pretty low. The Oregon Community Foundation (OCF) reported, in a research paper detailing the Arts education in k-12 Oregon schools, that most examples of good Art education and STEAM happened rarely and only because of non-profits filling in the funding gaps. The OCF found it was difficult for some students to engage in the available Art programs provided because of ‘student body fees’ or other costs to join in the classes that aren’t deemed necessary for their education. This means Oregon’s current standards of Art education aren’t accessible.

But it isn’t just Oregon. All over the United States, students are struggling to take part in offered Art courses for a variety of reasons. The Arts Education Data Project found in their survey of the US’s Art education standards that in big cities, remote towns, and rural areas, students have significantly less access to Art. Their research also shows that schools on indigenous reservations have extremely limited access to the Arts and that 26% of their students never interact with the Arts inside the classroom, in clubs, or on fieldtrips. Their data also tells us that over 5,000 schools in the US don’t have reliable access to the Arts.

So, what’s up with the gaps? If so many researchers and schools claim that STEAM and Art education greatly improve community and academic achievement, why are schools all over the country unable to present their students with the Arts? The answer comes down to funding and accessibility. Public schools already have a difficult securing funding to preform regular duties, like paying for lunches, keeping the school clean, and getting enough supplies for each classroom. So, when researchers tell schools to ‘just introduce more STEAM’ without the schools getting more funding, the projects revolving around the Arts get left behind because they’re deemed ‘less important’ despite all the data proving otherwise. The schools that are able to provide Art and STEAM education typically put a price tag on it that the students and families must pay so the school can financially cover the cost of Art. This price means students unable to find enough money get left behind academically. So, while our schools are headed in the right direction by generally presenting more Art and STEAM in their education, we have a lot of work to do to ensure all students have equal access to these programs.

Why should Art be accessible?

Accessibility, Education

Accessibility, an issue that impacts all people, might not be what you’re thinking about when engaging with the Arts. Stereotypically, Art is seen as a luxury and not a necessity. When told to ‘imagine Art’ you might think of lavish operas filled with fancy guests, large pristine museums with golden frames, or extravagant viewing parties that the typical person doesn’t bother dreaming about attending. Art is more than just a privilege for the wealthy, and throughout the ages the most accessible art has been enjoyed and loved by many.

Leanne Dawson, a professor of gender, sexuality, and class at The University of Edinburgh, believes that as Art is made less and less accessible, we face the risk of a “Culture in Crisis”. Her paper ‘Culture in crisis: A guide to access, equality, diversity, and inclusion in festivals, arts, and culture‘, reports that when Art is made accessible to a larger audience, for example, by creating easy to access online spaces or lowering the price of entry, the producers of said Art generate more engagement which creates more profit and exposure for the Artists. Dawson found that aside from supporting the Artists, accessible Art creates better local environments and can create a “community” around the creative space.

That’s all very nice, but what does it have to do with STEAM, Art education for children, and our definition of accessibility? If Art creates a better sense of community for adults, then imagine the good it could do in schools by bringing students together over a shared love for creativity. This isn’t just speculation either, Cheri Sterman, a principal with the National Association of Elementary School Principals (naesp) claims that “Art infuses joy and student voice into daily instruction” in her article ‘Arts Integration Improves School Culture and Student Success‘. She states that when classrooms use Art, in both Art based lessons and other academic curriculum, students respond better to challenges and engage in more conversation about the topic with their teachers and peers. She also found that students who didn’t usually engage with ‘typical’ teaching methods were more likely to enjoy and recall lessons that included the Arts.

In short, accessible Art isn’t just a good thing for those who don’t or can’t normally access the Arts, it also improves the overall classroom structure and builds better community foundations between students and teachers.

What is Accessibility and what does it look like?

Accessibility, Education, Getting Started

Accessibility has many different definitions and can look very different depending on the way in which it is being applied to situations and environments. Marriam-Webster’s definition is: something ‘being within reach or easy to understand’, which might not be where your mind first goes when thinking about accessibility. It’s more than likely that most of us think about accessibility strictly in the context of disability. Wikipedia’s definition of accessibility is: “…the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities.” While accessibility does include making technology and the environment available to people with disabilities, it can also mean so much more. In rural areas, accessibility can look like the ease of getting from place to place (think about driving from your home to the hospital or a grocery store. If it isn’t very far, then these places are accessible to you) In big cities it can be the availability of sidewalks and public transit to the public. Accessibility can even be the price of goods so more people can afford them or the language written on important road signs.

Accessibility can look like just about anything that affects the availability of a thing or place to people. Everyone, in one way or another, is affected by accessibility. Even children in public schools depend on their education being accessible, meaning they need; extracurricular classes and sports to have an accessible price, for classes to be spoken and written in languages they understand, and for schools to be an accessible distance from home and have accessible bus systems. But that can be a lot to tackle, and it covers so many topics.

So, for the purposes of my research, here is the definition I’ll be using for accessibility in school in the context of STEAM. ‘The ability for non-English speaking, disabled, and impoverished students to engage with and understand materials at the same capacity their English speaking, able-bodied, and non-impoverished peers do‘. In this context, accessibility looks like having a bilingual instructor, having low-cost or no-cost art courses and activities for public schools, or making art tools like paintbrushes and scissors usable for students with low-grip capacity.

What does Art do to our Academics?

Education, STEAM

Briefly touched upon in my previous post, Art, and how students engage with it in the classroom, has an impact on the academic achievements met by said students. The Oregon Community Foundation (OregonCF) reported that those taking more Art classes more frequently than other students had better fluency, originality, and overall better “academic discipline”. OregonCF also found improved grades and SAT scores among students taking more Art focused classes.

The Nation Endowment for the Arts found similar correlations in their research between Art engagement and academic scores. They found improved Social Emotional Learning in younger children who participated in the Arts at an early age, and that High Schoolers who participated in the Arts had higher average grades and greater “post-graduation outcomes” than students who did not.

Marcia Gibson and Meredith Larson found in their report on the visual arts and academic achievement that along with improved social skills, younger children who read with Art integrated as a part of the story have significantly improved reading abilities when compared to their peers without Art integration. Along with this, they found education is more engaging for students of all ages when art in incorporated. Art provides another way for more students to engage with academic material, thus improving a school’s overall test scores and grades. The inclusion of Art in education is integral to making the classroom more accessible and enjoyable for all students.

What can Art in schools look like?

Education, STEAM

Art in education can look very different depending on the way in which it is approached. In a report done by The Oregon Community Foundation (OregonCF), the way art is incorporated into learning can fall into one of three categories. The first is ‘Arts Exposure’, which is described as limited or occasional art experiences. This can look like a field trip or an assembly featuring the Arts. Art Exposure causes students to become more interested in and engaged with the topic being present to them, though the OregonCF report suggests it’s most impactful on students when Art is also being discussed and explored regularly in the classroom.

The second way of bringing art to students is referred to as ‘Sequential Arts Instruction’. Sequential Arts Instruction is the act of teaching Art in Art settings, or basically ‘the art class’. Sequential Arts Instruction includes traditional art classes, like painting, drawing, preforming arts, and also non-traditional Art activities like art clubs and bands. This is the most common type of Art engagement inside of Oregon schools, and it provides kids with observation, reflective, and developmental skills. OregonCF finds that Sequential Arts Instruction also serves as an emotional outlet for students who feel anxious or stressed about traditional education (think math/science/writing/history).

The third and final category of education and Art is ‘Arts Intergration’, and it is the category that OregonCF suggests has the largest impact on students. Arts Intergration is the act of including Art-based activities in non-art classes. This looks like making historical posters for a history class, creating 3D models of atoms for a science class, or being allowed to include creative writing instead of just essays in a writing class. OregonCF and Oregon teachers praise Arts Intergration for six main reasons:

“1. The Arts makes content more accessible.

2. The Arts encourage joyful, active learning.

3. The Arts help students make and express personal connections to content.

4. The Arts build community and help children develop collaborative work skills.

5. The Arts help students understand and express
abstract concepts.

6. The Arts stimulate higher-level thinking.” (OregonCF)

While OregonCF finds this final category to be to most impactful on students when it comes to increasing engagement and grades of students, they propose that the best way for art to be included into education is to implement it wherever and whenever possible. OregonCF claims that when students are able to constantly engage with the three kinds of Art education, they see better Social Emotional Learning (SEL), improvements to the community in the school, improved patience with difficult topics, and many other academic benefits including increased SAT testing scores and grades.

Art looks different for everyone. Some prefer to sculpt, others to dance, and many just enjoy a small doodle on the edge of their notebook. By having more art in school of many different kinds and disciplines, students are able to express themselves in safe regulated ways which results in positive outcomes for the rest of their academics.