In order for learning to be meaningful it has to come from the sense of inner motivation. Children move to learn.
As a teacher, I've learned over the years to use as few words as possible, in the shortest amount of time possible. And I've learned from brain researchers that when we See, Hear, Say and Do something, we'll retain 95% retention of what we’ve learned. Because the Sparkplug Dance method uses the See, Hear, Say, Do approach, and we make Creative Movement an ideal learning tool for any age.
Babies: From birth, the American Association of Pediatrics recommends "Tummy to play" - because time spent in a prone position, free to move, and engage in the process of physical discovery, is vital to the developing brain.
Toddlers and preschoolers: As our youngest children swoop and dive, roll and flop, jump and fall, they avoid the Vision problems, delays or gaps in gross motor and fine motor mile-markers, the preventable learning disorders, sensoral processing dysfunction, lowered body awareness, underdevelopment of the governing body systems, delays in speech and language acquisition, aggressive behaviors that can result from lack of healthy movement patterning.
School-Aged Children and adults: Physically, dance gets our blood pumping, lungs breathing, it rids the body of stress hormones and floods us with endorphins that and make us feel better, Cognitively, it's good for our brains to try out some new moves, to learn a pattern, to navigate, to problem solve. Relating new experiences to a broader cultural context roots technical skill in something beyond just doing "steps". Emotionally/socially, it's good for us to work with new people, to relate.
And finally, Fun is good: Our brains like fun. When we're laughing, we're learning.
A 2008 Dana Consortium Report "Learning, Arts, and the Brain," compiled the work of cognitive neuroscientists from seven leading universities across the United States. In the study, released in March 2008, researchers asked a fundamental question: Are smart people drawn to the arts or does arts training make people smarter?
For the first time, coordinated, multi-university scientific research brings us closer to answering that question.
Learning, Arts, and the Brain advances our understanding of the effects of music, dance, and drama education on other types of learning, demonstrating that children motivated in the arts develop attention skills and strategies for memory retrieval that also apply to other subject areas. The research was led by Dr. Michael S. Gazzaniga of the University of California at Santa Barbara. "A life- affirming dimension is opening up in neuroscience," said Dr. Gazzaniga, "to discover how the performance and appreciation of the arts enlarge cognitive capacities will be a long step forward in learning how better to learn and more enjoyably and productively to live. The consortium's new findings and conceptual advances have clarified what now needs to be done."
"I love the recognition that movement is tied to learning in ways that we are just now beginning to understand. I love the dancing but I loved even more the educational piece that went with it, the part where you shared with children the purpose of some movements. It was movement for the soul. There are always some kids who love to dance but frequently there are students who see dancing as just a place to be goofy. They see movement only as a tool to get somewhere or as a way to win a game. To view movement as essential for learning all across the curriculum is new for students and parents. I wish this was a part of our every day curriculum with students."
- Anita White, Edgewood Elementary, Eugene
Learn more: Strengthening the Schools
A 2002 Arts Education Partnership study demonstrated that at-risk first graders in Chicago public elementary schools “who were taught basic letter and sound connections through improvisational movement improved more in those basic reading skills than did the control group of similarly at-risk students. The development of linguistic abilities mirrors the development of dance phrase making…dance can help children discover the 'music' of language."
A comprehensive study from Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero found demonstrable links between experiences with music and drama and increases in certain cognitive skills, but also showed no connection in many areas between arts education and students' academic achievement.
"We found evidence that specific art forms support specific kinds of thinking and learning, but in other cases there's no clear link between the arts and academic skills. These interesting relationships between arts and non-arts learning deserve further rigorous investigation and exploration in classroom practice," says Ellen Winner, Professor of Psychology at Boston College and Senior Research Associate at Harvard Project Zero.
Hetland adds, "Arts advocates need to stop making sweeping claims about the arts as a magic pill for turning students around academically. Arts teachers should not be held accountable for student test scores in other areas. Instead, arts in the curriculum should be justified in terms of their intrinsic merit--as they were in ancient Greece. An education without the arts is an impoverished education, and that leads to an impoverished society."
"Although there was a correlation between studying the arts and academic achievement as measured primarily by test scores, these links do not show that studying the arts causes test scores to rise," says Winner. "All that this link tells us is that students who study the arts tend to be high academic achievers. High achieving students, no matter what their ethnic or racial group, no matter what their social class, may choose to study the arts. This would account for the correlation between arts study and academic achievement." When the researchers examined only the studies testing whether arts study actually causes test scores to improve, they found no effect.
"We need better tests and more studies," Lori Hetland, Project Zero researcher said.
Sparkplug Dance Educational Resources is partnering with regional and national evaluators to address the need for comprehensive standards and meaningful assessment in arts learning.
"Rachael is an inspiration to all of us - children and adults alike. We all found ourselves excitedly waiting for her arrival each week and we were never disappointed! Rachael always arrived enthusiastic and well-prepared for the lesson. Her sheer joy, knowledge, and passion for dance and creative movement were abundantly apparent! We feel fortunate to have had Rachael work with our Primary students and received wonderful feedback from both the children themselves as well as their parents. I was impressed with Rachael's knowledge of brain development and her ability to communicate complex research into easily understandable terms - receiving her detailed lesson plans each week enabled us to do follow-up activities with our classes. We all enjoyed working with Rachael tremendously and look forward to future opportunities. Thank you, thank you!"
-Julie Hulme, First Grade teacher, Edgewood Community School