At a recent Chicago Teachers Center workshop, a choreographer from Zephyr Dance Ensemble showed a class of 10 how to use dance techniques to explore literary mood, pace and symbolism with their students. In the early 1990s, retailer Marshall Field's funded a report that argued arts education could fuel school reform if such resources were widely available to public schools. The study also pointed out that Chicago was rich in arts resources but lacked a mechanism to link those resources with schools. CAPE-inspired programs already have cropped up in Minneapolis and Detroit. The national trend to integrate arts into basic studies is propelled by more than marketing.
Some advocates truly believe it advances student learning.
At one CAPE school, 2nd-grade students used photography and sculpture to study ecology and gentrification. Students took pictures of homes in their neighborhood, then created a scale model of their school and community with recycled milk cartons. Later, the class designed models of new playground space for their school. Students used drawings and journals to keep track of their work. When teachers and artists collaborate with the goal of making art available to every child, every day, it has a positive effect on the academic bottom line, says Aprill.