From the time that kids begin elementary school all the way through high school, they are expected to get a good education and go to college. This expectation creates enormous pressure. Kids have to increasingly do better on standardized tests each year (Major), culminating in the ultimate standardized tests known as the SAT and the ACT. These standardized tests help determine what college kids may attend. I remember how much effort I had to put into taking standardized tests in high school. Much of my attention in my junior and senior years of high school was directed to how I could better my scores on these tests in order to get into a good college. It does not help when the best colleges only accept top scores, often times, near perfect scores are needed to get into Ivy League schools. You see, standardized test tutors do not teach you the material that will be on the test, so much as how to answer in a way that will get you the most points. Oddly enough, the arts are one of few subjects not evaluated on these standardized tests. A proctor cannot ask two kids to paint a picture of a sunset or a bug because the two paintings will be vastly different. Similarly, a teacher cannot ask two kids to perform scenes from a play because their interpretations would vary greatly. These interpretations and differentiations are important. No child is the same as their classmate, and it is almost ludicrous to think of them as such. 

The arts teach kids how to think differently than other subjects. With the hierarchy of subjects in schools, math and science reign at the top while the arts gather dust, neglected at the bottom. There is a reason for this. With math and science there is a definitive, single way to solve problems (Robinson, Do Schools Kill Creativity). The arts do not make children conform to one way of thinking, but encourage their individuality. This challenges current beliefs regarding the education system. The arts are vitally important for kids in the education system, encouraging these different ways of thinking, which make these kids smarter. Arts improve intelligence through increased visual-spatial ability, motor control, and memory. 

 The arts increase visual-spatial ability(spatial reasoning).. It is an ability that helps kids to be able to manipulate objects in their heads, understand maps and graphs or find their way through new surroundings (Cromie), and the arts elicit this ability. One art form that does this is music. In one famous study, known as the Mozart Effect, people looked at the effect that music had on intelligence (Hetland 105).  A group of researchers found that after listening to ten minutes of Mozart's Piano Sonata for Two Pianos college students had better spatial reasoning. The researchers concluded that after listening to Mozart for ten minutes there was an eight to ten point rise in IQ scores (Hetland 105). Though this theory was allegedly debunked numerous times, especially by Harvard University researchers, unable to duplicate the results in a similar study, the original study remains controversial (Cromie). 

A possible reason as to why these results were unreplicated can be explained from the book Your Playlist Can Change Your Life. The book, written by well known authors, Galina Mindlin, Don Durousseau, and Joseph Cardillo, explains Flow Theory when listening to music. This elicits several responses in people's brains which allow them to be more organized, or less anxious, or even boost their immune system (Mindlin 9). The Flow mindset is described in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, Flow, as "a state of concentration so focused that it amounts to absolute absorption in an activity" (qtd. in Mindlin 9). The reason why the Mozart Effect was unreplicated is due to the fact the people who participated in the original study preferred Mozart.  Mozart's Piano Sonata for Two Pianos was the type of music that put the participants into the 'flow' mindset, resulting in a spike of their IQ scores. Lois Hetland, a well known musician, professor, and writer, supports the Mozart Effect, claiming that it does exist (Cromie). Further, she suggests that learning music in school can lead to a large effect on spatial reasoning (Cromie). Another study conducted in 1997 released results found in a piano study, concluding that the consequence of being trained in the piano developed children's spatial reasoning skills greatly (Demorist, Morrison 35). The conductors of the study observed three groups of children who took piano classes, computer skills courses, or no special instruction at all. They found that the children who studied the piano had better spatial reasoning skills than the other children in both the computer skills and no special instruction courses (35). 

Music is not the only art form that elicits a response in children's spatial reasoning skills. Dance has been known to have a similar effect on spatial reasoning. Typically, dancers perform an already choreographed dance; they do not make up a dance for the first time when they dance at a recital. Planned movements, like the dancer's choreographed dance, begin in the motor cortex of the brain (Society for Neuroscience). The motor cortex is divided into different sections which each control a different part of the body (Society for Neuroscience). The signals from the motor cortex travel down to the relevant body part and that arm or leg responds accordingly (Society for Neuroscience). When these regions of the motor cortex become active, helping to speedily calculate the spatial orientation of a dancer (Society for Neuroscience). Dancers need good spatial judgment to ensure they do not run into other objects or other dancers in the middle of a performance.

 A study that attempted to discover if art students had an advantage over other students with geometric tasks discovered that arts students outperformed psychology students on geometric reasoning tasks (Walker et. al. 22). The authors of that study concluded that visual arts training might actually improve spatial reasoning through visualization (22). Visual-spatial abilities not only impact children's success in other school classes, like geography, mathematics, economics and engineering, but also help them acquire future life skills, like having the ability to pack a suitcase and use mirror images (Baxley). Visual-spatial abilities are important and need to be fostered within children to give them essential skills that they will use throughout their lives. The arts are a good way to start because they have such a beneficial effect on the spatial reasoning of the kids who participate in them. 

The arts enhance motor control in children. Motor control is basically how the brain activates and coordinates different bodily movements. Motor control is needed extensively in various art activities, and as such, with regular practice, children's motor skill capabilities expand. For example, in art class kids need motor skills to complete numerous activities. Painting, cutting paper with scissors, molding clay, even weaving yarn are all skills honed in art class. With each task, kids improve their control of the small muscles in their hands ("Art-An Opportunity to Develop Children's Skills"). Many preschool programs use scissors in activities frequently because it develops the dexterity children will need for writing (Lynch). 

Musicians hone their motor skills as well. They need to be able to read music and translate that into an action (Altenmuller, Wiesendanger, and Kesselring 28). A piano player must possess the ability to read the notes, and then play the right fingerings on the keyboard and then know if the notes sound correct. If there is unintentional dissonance, odds are that the player hit the wrong key. One study conducted in 1997 attempted to compare the eye-hand span and perceptual span in skilled pianists versus non-skilled pianists (Altenmuller, Wiesendanger, and Kesselring 29). The eye-hand span is the amount of time in between the moment when the note is seen on the musical score and when it is played on the keyboard (29). The perception span is the "region around the note from which useful information is extracted" (29). When a musician reads a piece of music, they have to interpret the notes surrounding the one note they are looking at as well, so they will have an idea of what to play next or how the rhythms in the song work. The authors of the study found that the perceptual span between the two groups was about the same while the eye-hand span between the two groups was about a half a beat for less skilled pianists, but about two to three beats for the skilled pianists (29). The authors found that these results indicated that the skilled pianists were taking that extra beat or two to reflect on the note they had just played, connecting it to the next two or three notes in the sequence (29). The skilled pianists developed the ability to translate several notes into a "complex motor program" which is demonstrated through the fast movements of piano playing (29). A musician's prowess is less likely to be a result of natural talent, than the time and practice that develops advanced motor control required for playing the instrument. 

This time and practice is needed for other art forms as well. Think of all the hours dancers put into practicing their steps and movements before even making it to the stage. Every single motion has to be perfect. Many of them start as young as three or four years of age. Jay Seitz suggests that at that age, children lack the ability to express tension or weight in their movements and lack balancing capabilities, but have developed other abilities like jumping and marching (40).  By the time children are five and six years of age, dancers can coordinate their movement around objects, skip, and have the ability to successfully complete the first and second positions of ballet (Seitz 40). This evolution in motor skill capabilities suggests that these motor skills can be learned through art forms and applied in other areas. 

Memory grows increasingly important to individuals as they get older. Though important to young people to help them remember dates and times for their history test, memory links itself with a person's identity and personality when he or she is older. This is often why dementia diseases like Alzheimer's frighten its patients. No one wants to forget their children or how to get home from the store. With studying in the arts, memory actually improves, and similarly to motor control, is practiced. Think of the actors and actresses who appear on stage spouting lines of Shakespeare from memory. It probably took those students a lot of time at rehearsals to memorize the lines for their characters, and that does not account for the possibility that the production is a musical. Then the students would have to memorize the lyrics, the tune, and any choreography as well. A trial conducted to see the effect of drama classes on memory took 124 adults from the age of 60-85 and separated them into three groups (Hough, and Hough 455). One group took theater classes, another group took visual arts classes and the third group did not take any special course (455). The conductors of the trial found that though the visual arts students had the best memory when subjected to problem-solving tests, and word recall, both the drama and visual arts students scored significantly better than the adults receiving no instruction what-so-ever (455).  

Musicians also rely on their memories when expressing their art form. Besides the fact that they have to remember the fingerings and positions for how to play each note, they often have to remember certain parts of their musical scores, like what their part sounds like, and how to play it. Never mind the fact that they also have to remember what all of the symbols and letterings mean that are thrown in the score as well; a sharp versus a flat, or Mezzo Piano (mp) versus Fortissimo (ff). Altenmuller, Wiesendanger, and Kesselring, authors of the book, Music Motor Control and the Brain, state in their book, "Sluming et. al (2002) found that in musicians there's an increase in grey matter in the frontal cortex known to accommodate neural networks involved in several important memory processes" (33). So musicians have developed more grey matter in their brains and that substance is responsible for the transfer between musical performance and verbal memory(33). 

Music helps with memorization of materials, in general. The alphabet song is a prime example of how people improve their memory of letters by setting them to music. Another example that demonstrates this is advertising.  Every cute little jingle heard on TV is just another way for the advertising companies to get their viewers to keep thinking about a product. There is a reason that people tell you to listen to music when you are studying. In the 1960's, Dr. Georgi Lozanov and Evelyna Gateva researched ways to improve memory, including music. They had tremendous success, especially in the use of background music during lectures, vocabulary, and readings (Brewer 5).  It is possible to increase memory retention using music, even in a classroom environment. In another study, music was played in the background while the participants watched a movie. The participants were then questioned to see what they could remember. If a participant could not remember what happened at a certain part of the movie, the researchers would play the music that had been playing in the background. With the musical context added, the participant would be able to remember the forgotten information (Taylor 760). Memory retention is significantly increased with the help of the arts. 

Arts increase visual-spatial ability, motor control, and memory, thereby enhancing intelligence. These effects are not just important for the arts either; they carry over into many other aspects of our lives and teach us valuable skills. Musicians need to be good at math so they can count measures of rest and count in time like 12/8, or 5/6. Drama has been known to improve reading, writing and speaking (Cromie).  Why then are the arts so often neglected? The answer is simple: it is because the arts challenge beliefs held about the current education system. Schools attempt to teach kids how to think; there is only ever one correct answer, The arts, however encourage freedom of expression. They allow kids to voice their own thoughts and opinions regardless of what they are taught to do or say by teachers in the education system. The arts teach kids how to think differently, to find different ways to solve problems. There is not only one correct answer. The world is not black and white but filled with grey areas. There is more than one way to tackle a problem and the arts teach kids to think independently and to try new things. The arts should be supported, not marginalized. Any subject that has such profound impact on the brain should be treated with the same importance as math or English regardless if they do not reinforce conformity like other subjects do. With these effects, it is a wonder as to why more kids are not enrolled in arts courses.  There is so much pressure that pushes down on them at all times that the arts are one of the only forms of expression they have left. When the school takes that away, all that is left is endless, challenging core subjects that make kids want to bang their heads off the wall. School boards may have an incentive to reinforce the existing social structure which is at odds with the disruptive and creative thinking incited by artistic pursuits.  However, the communities they represent will be best served by producing the richer and more diverse thinking that an investment in arts education will foster.   The arts have earned their place among the subjects in school, and they deserve to stay that way. 


