Character Through The Arts

Project Objectives

Our specific outcome objectives or hypotheses deal with the impact of the project on students, classrooms, teachers and teaching styles, principals and their leadership style, the school environment, teaching artists, and the community:

Students will…

1. Show accelerated academic achievement in reading, writing, math, science and social studies.

2. Demonstrate improvement in and an understanding of good character by:

(a) Showing less aggression and more positive interactions, teamwork,

community-building behavior, (Social Integrity);

(b) Showing increased kindness, empathy, conscience, moral courage, and other

moral feelings that can be self-reported or inferred from behavior,

(c) Showing increased motivation and engagement in learning,

(d)Showing improved moral knowledge and reasoning,

3. Create art products, including writings, that reflect their understanding of specific moral virtues and both personal and social integrity, and

Teachers will . . .

1. Become more skilled academic and character developing instructors,

2. Produce exemplary Artful Learning® lessons with academic and character objectives that satisfy implementation benchmarks,

3. Engage students using Artful Learning® and differentiated instruction,

4. Gain confidence in their ability to produce high quality instruction that will yield positive results,

5. Improve leadership skills with peers and students,

6. Increase their positive interactions with students Respond to misbehavior instructively using inductions, guidance, and group problem solving,

7. Show more friendliness, affection, and evidence of good relationships with students,

8. Partner with parents to promote character growth in students, and

9. Collectively partner with arts partners including arts organizations and teaching artists,

Principals will . . .

1. Increase their perception of the arts as an effective tool for building character and improving academic performance,

2. Create a non-authoritarian, supportive, and teacher-student-parent empowering, school climate,

3. Actively participate in partnering relationships with parents and arts partners,

4. Improve their current relationships with teachers, students, and parents, and

5. Report personal and professional growth and view themselves as models of exemplary character qualities.

Parents will . . .

1. Become more confident, knowledgeable, and competent character educators with their own children,

2. Be motivated to join the character education effort by positive changes in their children that they attribute to the school program,

3. Show increased interest in improving their community and making it a more caring place where the social and moral growth of children is fostered,

4. Become more aware of arts-based instruction as a constructive force in the lives of their children, and

5. Acquire a more favorable opinion of their child’s school and the means by which it is preparing students for a successful life in the twenty-first century.

Participating artists and arts organizations will. . .

1. Produce written guides to help teachers address character objectives through the arts,

2. Collaborate with teachers in developing, testing and evaluating the quality of these guides,

3. Create and carry out instruction and instructional performances designed to foster engagement and character growth, and

4. Become more effective and confident artists who build lessons/performances that address academic, arts, and character standards.

Schools as a whole will . . .

  1. Model the eleven principles of effective character education,
  2. Improve overall instructional quality,
  3. Improve teacher collaboration and sharing,
  4. Improve relationships (student-student, teacher-student, teacher-teacher, teacher-parent, teacher-principal), and
  5. Become a more caring community as perceived by all.

Classrooms will . . .

  1. Show improvement in levels of academic achievement,
  2. Display improvement in relationships and positive interactions,
  3. Show increased teacher support of students as perceived by students and

evaluators,

3. Demonstrate improvement in student activity level, interest, and engagement, and

4. Increase thenumber and visual display of artistic productions.

Communities/Neighborhoods will. . .

  1. Increase their support of the schools and involvement in school activities, and
  2. Become a more caring place where parents and all adults share in building the character of youth.