Introduction
Early childhood education is a rapidly changing sphere with positive and negative tendencies. Academic preparation is gradually replacing artistic expression and exploratory learning, with government funds instead prioritizing literacy and numeracy standards. However, art expression benefits children’s academic outcomes, creativity, and awareness. Thus, it is necessary to increase the number of art-related classes in kindergartens and grade schools.
The Benefits of Art Lessons for Early Childhood Education
As mentioned above, arts can lead to positive academic outcomes for students. Evidence suggests that including the arts in early school curricula can have long-lasting, beneficial effects on kids’ academic progress and success in general (Haslip & Gullo, 2018). The development of pre-academic skills may be aided by arts since many activities that children engage in, such as drawing and dancing, stimulate the senses and prime the brain for learning (Greene & Sawilowsky, 2018).
For example, when kids attend acting classes, their language, perspective-taking, and creativity significantly increase (Mages, 2018). Moreover, visual arts aid in developing an appreciation for different points of view, communication, mediation of thought, cultural awareness, and identity building (Probine, 2020). Thus, arts have a positive effect on the learning process of children.
Hence, increasing the overall amount of hours dedicated to learning the arts is required for better learning outcomes for children. There are several strategies in which this can be achieved. When teachers are capable and ready to integrate the arts across the curriculum, it can be affordable and feasible to offer experiences in the arts to young children on the age 3–8 spectrum (Haslip & Gullo, 2018). Thus, the coaching and education for teachers in this field might benefit children’s arts education.
One such program is “The Early Learning Through the Arts,” a nationwide initiative to incorporate art performance into early childhood education (Greene & Sawilowsky, 2018). The success of the methods employed by the program specialists is uniform. The program’s utilization has improved student performance in various fields, such as social and emotional growth, physical growth and health, language, mathematics, and science (Greene & Sawilowsky, 2018). Thus, introducing coaching programs will increase the teachers’ ability to appropriately include arts into the curriculum and consequently increase the student’s performance in all studying areas.
The second strategy to include art in the early childhood education curriculum is the preschool theater-in-education (TIE) program. Moreover, participation in the TIE program allows teachers to increase rapport with students and encourage them to include art classes in the curriculum. The proof of this approach’s success can be seen in a recent study, which used the example of one teacher (Mages, 2018). The education director noted that this teacher’s demeanor had previously been highly formal and businesslike. The teacher’s demeanor improved, and she started incorporating the arts into her lesson plans due to her involvement in the TIE program.
This difference significantly enhanced teachers’ capacity to work with young children (Mages, 2018). This outcome is significant, as students’ exposure to arts is greatly influenced by teachers. This is because teachers design the learning environment, choose which visual arts resources are made available when, and determine where and when students will participate in the visual arts (Probine, 2020). Hence, introducing the TIE program will encourage teachers to include art in the curriculum while improving their rapport with the students.
Conclusion
Hence, the current education system gradually replaces art classes with classes centered on literacy and numeracy. Knowing that art classes can increase students’ performance in various fields, it is necessary to increase the number of art classes in early childhood education. A more thorough introduction to these classes is feasible and can be done in many ways, with some of the strategies being explained earlier. If these changes are applied, children’s educational performance and overall creativity and insight will increase, while also allowing them to discover more occupations and possible future career goals.
References
Greene, M. L., & Sawilowsky, S. (2018). Integrating the arts into head start classrooms produces positive impacts on kindergarten readiness. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Web.
Haslip, M. J., & Gullo, D. F. (2018). The changing landscape of early childhood education: implications for policy and practice. Early Childhood Education Journal, 46(3), 249–264. Web.
Mages, W. K. (2018). Does theatre-in-education promote early childhood development?Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Web.
Probine, S. (2020). An introduction to the visual arts in early childhood education. The Education Hub. Web.
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