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On the Arts: The arts help all of us grow -- including the littlest people
Sunday, March 18, 2001 By John Hayes
At 8 months old, T.J. doesn't perceive the world far beyond the range of visual focus. But already he's processing the physics of gravitational resistance and exploring ways that his tiny anatomy can alter his environment. His perception of stimuli is acute, and he anticipates, associating faces, sounds and scents with the corresponding sensations they are likely to bring.
John Hayes is a Post-Gazette staff writer
The calming voices of his mother and father mean comfort and security. His grandmother's big smile is a cause for joy that sets his tiny legs kicking. He still seems a bit unsure, however, about one eccentric uncle who calls him his "little primate" and studies his actions for the first signs of that defining human characteristic: art.
Geneticists say 98 percent of my nephew's DNA is identical to that of chimpanzees. Zoologists and anthropologists predict that his cognitive skills will surpass those of his distant simian cousins sometime after his second year. Unlike the rest of his body, which is growing within the parameters of a strict genetic blueprint, researchers believe his brain is hardwired only for basic structural growth. The specific biological pathways -- the neural network that enables T.J. to learn and think -- are already different from those of every human who has ever lived, and how they grow and where the connections lead will largely determine what and who he will become.
The volume and diversity of those first connections are crucial because every successive synapse will be built upon them. Recent advances in developmental science seem to show that the ability to comprehend, remember and interact with our complex society can be expanded by a holistic approach to learning that stresses the nearly synonymous activities of playing, exploring and participating in art.
Enlightened parents of the '50s and '60s took Benjamin Spock's "Baby and Child Care" as gospel, and their adult children are likely to raise their 21st-century offspring the way they were raised. But in the past 10 years, scientific breakthroughs in brain growth and its effect on cognitive reasoning have led to a theory of "multiple intelligences," which outlines several co-existing and overlapping ways of comprehending.
New understanding of how we learn and think is sometimes overshadowed by the misinterpretations of pop psychology. Lois Hetland, a Harvard researcher studying human development, points to the dubious "Mozart Effect," which held that classical music stimulates growth in mathematics. While her studies have found some correlation between music and learning, she says, "You can't say, 'Play music to an infant in the womb and he'll do better on SATs.' We know there's something there; we just don't know what it is yet."
Yet Hetland says those and other studies reinforce her belief that participation in artistic expression can stimulate cognitive growth.
"Exposure to art adds to our ability to think," she says. "Show kids the relationship between art and the activities they can represent. If you care about the arts as I do, it's just a travesty to see that training being cut from human lives. It does matter. It allows for a different potential from human beings than we get from just teaching science and language and math."
Perhaps no one has influenced more children through the abstract influence of art than Pittsburgh's Fred Rogers. This summer, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" ends its influential 30-plus-year run on PBS with a week of episodes devoted to arts education.
"I have such respect for the artistic expression of human beings," says Rogers. "I'm fascinated by the primitive. You can go around the world and see children playing and making up gorgeous dances and not even know what they're doing. Because we're human, we want to express our humanity. ... I've seen it again and again: The children who are able to play the best, learn the best, because play is a form of art."
All humans make art, whether it's conducting a symphony or matching a blouse and skirt for work. Arts training is more than a prerequisite for an arts career -- it's an invaluable developmental tool. The University of Pittsburgh Child Development Center draws from many scientific disciplines to build new developmental models predicated on a belief that artistic exploration enhances human growth.
"We believe that in early childhood, the arts are critical," says director Sherry Cleary. "We integrate the arts throughout the curricula [recommended by the center] for infants, toddlers and primary school-age children because we believe it enhances not just cognitive or intellectual development, but has a very specific affect on social, physical and emotional development."
Parents, she says, should expose their children to artistic stimulation from infancy to beyond the primary grades. Music, dancing and color and pattern interpretation should lead to more participatory exploration as soon as a child is ready.
At the South Hills' Center for Theater Arts, director Marc Field recently celebrated 20 years of building self-esteem and confidence in a generation of Pittsburghers. While the academy boasts of alumni who've made it all the way to Broadway, Field says his greatest achievement has been teaching critical social skills to thousands of students.
"Kids do develop confidence [through arts training]," he says. "But it's a lot more than that. They really develop the ability to use the creative process ... to germinate and implement their own ideas, to offer them as suggestions, to work together in a group, to accept the ideas of others and how to integrate, brainstorm and collaborate. These are incredible skills that are used in all aspects of their lives, whether or not they go into an entertainment career."
Field attributes the center's success on a noncompetitive philosophy, stressing artistic expression over performance results. Former students, even those who landed far from show biz, tend to agree.
"The chance they gave us to put our ideas into action, I think that was the most important lesson that I took into my professional career," says Rick Ponzio, a former center drama student who is now a policy analyst at the United Nations. "Overcoming stage fright at a young age, you can't overemphasize that. Role playing and seeing through and implementing ideas and being a producer and a leader, those were the most important skills I have ever learned."
I'm still waiting for T.J. to commit his first act of art, but maybe I'm too late. Each time he experiments with a new way to wail or distinguishes between colors or says "I love you" with a new sort of tug on his uncle's nose, he could be crawling down the colorful, artistic path of humanity.
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