Cultural Diversity through the Arts

Hey MIMU,

What about the non-core subject areas like the Arts? Can we use this theme with our classes?

Signed,

Arts and Hearts

Great question, AH - and the answer is YES. Have a look at what Udy has to say about teaching cultural diversity through the Arts:

    “Tell me, and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me and I’ll understand” (An Old Native American Proverb).

Individuals and societies reflect their humanity through culture transmitted in the course of a multitude of artistic endeavours that often inspire and inflame emotion. Connecting students to the social studies through arts may bring similar inspiration and emotion into the classroom. These artistic endeavors include visual and performing arts, music, dance and drama.

By means of art in social studies students connect to the topic under study in an emotional filled genre.It enriches the teaching and learning of social studies in that it promotes opportunity for students growth in academic and social thinking. Arts not only provide genuine insight into a particular cultural experience, but also expresses the universal truths of our shared collective genealogy. Arts reveals the fundamental ways human life shapes itself and is reproduced in every culture (Hurston, 1997).

Arts offer especially valuable tools to facilitate learning for those who are primarily visual and kinesthetic, in addition to making it possible for students to learn more effectively, retain what they have learned, know how to apply what they have learned in a variety of contexts, and feel more positive about learning. It allows students to learn without losing interest and provides rich multi sensory experiences that engage the whole mind-body-emotional system (Dickinson, 2002).  Arts is like the one perfect food, contained in it  are all the essential minerals and vitamins we will ever need to sustain life.

Teachers using these methods of social studies instruction help students see the connections

between artistic endeavors and social studies.