The Benefits of Theatre Education
As CEO and President of the Texas Educational Theatre Association, Inc.,
it is my pleasure to represent over 1300 theatre educators in the state of
Texas. Theatre is at the heart of arts education. The arts provide
students of Texas with the most useful tool available in our education
system today. Students who participate in the arts, both in school and
after school, demonstrate improved academic performance and lower dropout
rates. Effective education is based on three main ideas: personal,
cultural, and economic. Enrichment subjects in the arts ensure we are
educating the whole child and preparing productive citizens for the
future.
Theatre and fine arts classes do not just enrich the lives of students
because they learn about storytelling, teamwork, creativity, innovation,
and personal expression. Theatre and the fine arts enrich every academic
subject that a student studies. They learn history when they study the
time period of a play and literary structure when they determine given
circumstances, climax, and denouement; they learn mathematics when they
explore spatial compositions; they learn science when they discover how
pigment and light react to one another while painting scenery or designing
costumes.
We should be passionate about the importance of integrating theatre into
not only elementary education, but also middle, secondary, and
post-secondary education. “The arts provide a dynamic that is not present
in most academic subjects and make learning a richer experience,” said
Sandy Garrett, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Arts
in the schools increase test scores and lower dropout rates. The Arts
Education Partnership’s publication, Critical Links, contains 62 academic
research studies that, taken together, demonstrate how arts education
helps close the achievement gap, improves academic skills essential for
reading and language development, and advances students’ motivation to
learn.
Source:
Benefits of Theatre Education: Improving Academic Performance and
Lowering Drop Out Rates
By David Stevens, CEO/President, 2007-2009
Texas Educational Theatre Association, Inc.
Published in Texas Theatre Notes in two parts May, 2007 & October, 2007
