We believe:

  • The arts are essential and basic to a child's education.
  • All children are entitled to early exposure to and practice in the arts.
  • The arts appeal to a broad range of diverse learning styles and ensure varied opportunities to excel.
  • A high quality arts literacy program provides meaningful learning experiences that employ creative, disciplined, and analytical problem solving.
  • Collaboration and communication skills, and creative expression can be cultivated in young people, in part, by teaching both about and through the arts.
  • Artists are uniquely qualified to teach the arts, and they bring complementary skills to collaborations with classroom teachers.
  • Bringing the arts into the classroom and relating them to the curriculum emphasizes their relevance.
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Powerful Arts

Whatever happened to learning being fun? To nurturing the spirit as well as the intellect? We view art as a form of literacy. That's why Powerful Arts is integral to our goal of raising well-rounded, culturally competent students.

We work with Seattle's artists and major arts organizations to enrich the classroom with:

  • dance
  • drama
  • photography
  • puppetry
  • music

How it works

Creative integration. Powerful Schools believes in connecting the arts with the rest of the curriculum. If one class is teaching the properties of liquid, for example, a visiting artist might ask students how they'd express that as a dancer. Students come alive in a creative environment where there is no right or wrong answer.

The arts can’t be separated from the rest of learning. They create pathways otherwise inaccessible. They also build the connections between math, social studies and science. 
                                                                                              Cynthia McIsaac, teacher

An hour of art. Twice a week, for one month, students are immersed for an hour in the arts. The program is sequential: dance for K-1 students, music for grades 2-3, drama for grades 4-5, and visual arts throughout.

Every year I am amazed at the richness in the learning that takes place in the drama opportunities made available through Powerful Arts. The artists I have worked with are exceptional in their understanding of their art, the children and the curriculum.” 
                                     Charlene Smith-Brown, 5th-grade teacher, Hawthorne Elementary

Collaborative. Artists collaborate with teachers to create the Powerful Arts workshops. Together, teachers and students discover how the arts spark interest, broaden critical thinking, relate to the curriculum, and tap into multiple learning styles and forms of expression.

All of the students loved having dance in our classroom! One student, who has severe developmental delays, really came to life during dance. He made his body move in ways that I had never seen him do before. The joy in his face was obvious to any observer. 
                                                             Kristin Alfonzo. kindergarten teacher, Hawthorne

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Results

Powerful Arts' methods of evaluation evolved from a three-year partnership with the Seattle Arts Education Consortium.

Our research addresses three questions: Did students’ arts and curriculum knowledge increase? Were students more engaged in learning the curriculum? Did teachers come to value the arts as a way to learn the curriculum?

We also rely heavily on teachers' observations of student behavior, particularly when it comes to learning in the performing arts (dance, music and drama).

In 2007-08:

  • 70% of students showed an increase in higher-level conceptual thinking, moving from level 1 (identifying) responses to level 2 (descriptive) responses.
  • Arts learning translated across subjects: Teachers observed 4th-graders using conceptual references from drama to express abstract science ideas in class.
  • 100% of teachers responding to our most recent survey plan to request more Powerful Arts residencies.