Indiana Artitude Inc. began working with students at the Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional Facility one year ago, connecting art and artists with incarcerated youth.

It is too early to define any long-term effects of this program; however, Artitude is modeled after similar programs in seven other states that have resulted in increased job skills, improved behavior, and lower recidivism rates. Some readers may question the practical benefits of an art program for incarcerated youth. Historically, art has been viewed by many as a "frill," even in the public schools. But researchers such as Deborah Prothrow Stith of the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center are discovering real benefits from art programs with high-risk youth.

A majority of incarcerated youth at the Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional Facility face significant emotional and academic challenges. These students most typically have not experienced success in the traditional classroom setting. They learn best through accommodation of a variety of learning styles and hands-on activities. Real learning occurs when students are emotionally engaged. Arts-based activities lend themselves to the development of all types of skills necessary for success.

For the Day of the Dead project, students had to use a variety of skills, including research (Day of the Dead traditions), math (measurements of coverings and item placement), communications (working collaboratively with a group), creativity (sculpting and painting components of the shrine) and fun. The students were so engaged, they gladly would have devoted far more hours to this project than Artitude was able to provide.

As for improved behavior, Artitude artists see these kids demonstrate very positive behavior on a weekly basis. As one student commented at the end of a clay workshop, "You can stay longer because we don't have anything to do now, and this keeps us out of trouble." While working on a fabric-painting project, another student requested permission to go talk to his sergeant. When asked why he wanted to leave the group, he replied, "I'm going to tell Sarg this is the kind of stuff we need to be doing on the weekends." Another student, who was to be released from the facility in a week, commented: "It's going to be hard to decide what to do when I go back . . . I'm good at painting now; I know how to do clay sculpture and I'm pretty good at acting." These students' experiences prove that art is a creative solution to juvenile crime, not just a frill.


On the left, Showcase for juveniles: An Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art display shows Alaska-related art made by youth at the Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional Facility in a program led by Indiana Artitude Inc.

-From the IndyStar.com

We found three areas in which clear causal links between arts and academic improvement could be demonstrated:

Listening to Music and Spatial-Temporal Reasoning

Learning to Play Music and Spatial Reasoning:
The value for education is greater here, since the effect works
equally for both general and at risk populations, costs little since it is based on standard music curricula, and influences many
students (69 of every 100, 3-to-12 year old students).

Classroom Drama and Verbal Skills:
In all cases, students who enacted texts were compared to students who read the same texts but did not enact them. Drama not only helped children’s verbal skills with respect to the texts enacted; it also helped children’s verbal skills when applied to
new, non-enacted texts. Thus, drama helps to build verbal skills that transfer to new materials. Such an effect has great value
for education: verbal skill is highly valued, adding such drama techniques costs little in terms of effort or expense, and a
high proportion of students are influenced by such curricular changes.

Our research shows that studying the arts does not, in and of itself, lead to improved test scores. Yet schools with strong arts
arts often report a rise in test scores. Why? One possibility is that the same schools that treat the arts seriously institute other kinds
of innovations that are favorable to academic learning. For instance, these schools may become more inquiry-oriented, more
project-based, more demanding of high standards, and more focussed on processes that lead to excellence.

It is time to look seriously at the possibility that the arts are associated with academic achievement because of other academic innovations that are made in schools that bring in the arts, and/or because the arts provide engaging and motivational entry points into academic study for the many students who do not thrive in the structures and cultures of our schools today.

From Harvard Project Zero: Reviewing Education and the Arts Project (READ), published by the National Art Education Association

Let us add some Drama to your students social & emotional education!