Arts Infusion

The Atlanta Partnership for Arts in Learning's goal as an organization is to enhance both academic and arts education though a flexible, arts infused classroom experience.  Through our programs, teaching artists and educators create lessons, projects and residencies that allow students to engage deeply with the subject matter.

Why Arts Infusion?Student working on quilt

Arts infusion is more than just a good idea; it's a soundly researched approach with well-documented results.  Studies have shown that students involved in the arts are more likely to stay in school, more likely to do well on standardized tests, and more likely to go on to college.

Arts Infusion has the power to reach all students equally.  Children learn in various ways; however, most curricula focus soley on language and math skills.  Students who do not immediately engage in these areas get left behind.  Arts infusion lessons incorporate these abilities, plus a variety of other intelligences: musical, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal and kinesthetic.

Student playing harmonica For at-risk students, this incorporation of other intelligences can be a great equalizer.  When more types of intelligences are brought into play, more students have a chance at succeeding.  For gifted students and those in the middle, it is an opportunity to be challenged beyond the more cut-and-dry learning they have already mastered.  For all students, it fosters a more democratic classroom.  Everyone has a chance to shine, and everyone works together to achieve a goal.

Arts infusion is also an invaluable tool in helping students to make connections.  Instead of plugging numbers into a formula or mindlessly memorizing facts, students are required to think, create and problem solve.  Through arts infusion, classrooms are transformed into interdisciplinary learning communities where students are engaged in a process of intellectual and artistic growth, a process that encourages exploration and helps students transfer skill sets from one area to another.

The arts are uniquely able to spark interest in learning.  By making abstract concepts concrete, arts infusion facilitates the "a-ha!" moment when students understand what they are studying, as well as providing a real-life application for the lesson.  Both of these results are powerful motivators.

Arts Infusion Facts Student explains his part in creating classroom quilt

  • Arts Infusion programs increase improvement in reading, writing, language, science and social studies skills (Aschbacher, 1996, Olshansky, 1995).
  • The College Entrance Examination Board announced that in 1993 students who studied arts and music scored significantly higher than the national average.
  • Perrin (1994) produced research which concluded that schools devoting 25% or more of their curriculum to arts education tend to produce students with academically superior abilities.