We Teach Students through Arts Integration
Enchanted Circle Theater's Arts Integration programs help youth become active, engaged, and resourceful learners by making classroom curriculum relevant and compelling. The underlying principal in arts integration is that when you tap into a student's creative imagination, you engage them in the active process of learning, and this engagement serves to motivate them, inspire them, and help them retain the content they have so enjoyed learning.
Our arts integration programs integrate theater arts- theater, dance music, visual, literary and media arts - with all academic subjects.
ECT’s artist-in-residence programs have been credited with improving students' academic achievement and social competence by making classrooms exciting and dynamic learning centers. Our data shows that attendance goes up and behavior issues go down during our creative education programs. Students' vocabulary increases and their ability to collaborate and work productively with classmates rises exponentially.
We know that arts integration makes learning in math, science, social studies and language arts relevant to students' lives, and therefore, meaningful and memorable.
The "Four C's" of 21st Century Learning Skills (Critical Thinking, Creativity, Communication and Collaboration) are nurtured and grounded in ECT's creative education programs.
"The beauty of this work is that it crosses the curriculum, it is not (only) the arts, it is science, math, social studies and English Language Arts, as well as addressing many of students social/emotional needs. For students to feel such joy, engagement and success in their day is our goal and one that is often difficult to reach with our typical approaches in schools.
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~Gwen Agna, Principal, Jackson Street School, Northampton, MA
