The Arts: A Tool for Learning - Its Importance in Child Development

This essay discusses the importance of arts in child development, emphasizing its impact on cognitive, aesthetic, and conservation skills. It highlights how visual arts nurture discovery, interaction, and imagination, contributing to motor skill development and brain acceleration. The essay also addresses how arts can reduce stress and encourage full participation in scientific subjects. The author shares a personal experience of a child who improved academically and socially through visual arts, demonstrating how engaging in artistic endeavors can promote cognitive, creative, artistic, and aesthetic thinking, ultimately shaping one's experience of social reality. The essay references the multimodal thinking that arts encourage, emphasizing the integration of mind and body in the learning process, and highlights the importance of honing "Artistic language" skills for understanding various forms of art.

Running head: THE IMPORTANCE OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD
The importance of arts in development of the child.
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

THE IMPORTANCE OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD
Question one
Arts and its visual appeal can contribute highly in the development process of the child.
Studies show that visual arts not only affects the understanding process of the child but it also
affects the cognitive, aesthetic, conservation skills of the child. Lack of access to the visual
arts practice by the respective pedagogies will mount to difficulties and ensure struggle for
the child. The skills that visual arts nurtures are related with “discovery, interaction, sensory
and kinaesthetic exploration, wonder, inquiry, and imagination” (ECAE 2006). It is important
to note that by art the author tends to include all forms of human expression. Music, dance
drama, visual art, media art are the five encompassing strand of arts that are informed with
meaning premised on the cultural context (Eckhoff, 2013). As arts are culturally co-
constructed, with the pattern of interaction and situated learning practices, it evolves slowly
with the change of time. Effective application of arts in the early childhood will help to
develop the children’s motor skill; it can also accelerate the development of the brain. Apply
arts systematically in the scientific subjects can the help the children to reduce stress and
encourage the full participation of the child. In this way artistic forms and practices, shape
ones experience of social reality more than just being the outcome of experiences.
Susan Wright in her essay have emphasised on the multimodal thinking that arts
encourage. This kind of learning emphasises the involvement of both mind and body and
nullifies the false division of mind and body that was created by the traditional medium of
meaning making and communication. According to this kind of theory, there is an increasing
evidence of integration rather than segregation (Wright, 2013). For understanding, these form
of arts one needs to hone up their skills of “Artistic language”. By this Wright refers to the
honing up of cognitive skills that can be descriptive, formal, and interpretative.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD
Question two
Being a daughter of a pedagogue, I have noticed children who are so fickle minded that
it becomes impossible for the teachers to calm them down and set them to learning a new
thing. From my experience, I have realised the importance of visual art because it effectively
trains the mind without considering the binary division of the mind and body. As far as my
memory goes that particular girl, who was unable to concentrate in her homework was
admitted in the drawing and colouring class. However, after a few days when I enquired to
my mother about her she told me that she is in fact performing very well. She was able utilise
her cognitive and negotiate with the whims and fancies in an independent way. Since she
grew another habit of drawing and colouring, she was able to promote her cognitive creative,
artistic and aesthetic thinking. The new endeavour that she was engaged in helped her to
become autonomous and become self-aware. Proper utilization of time along with the
looking, exploration, analysing, interpretation and synthesizing new ideas helped her to
perform better both academically and socially. Thus, the skills that she was slowly picking up
was again shaped by the cultural and the social influence in broader format.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD
References
Eckhoff, Angela. (2013). Conversational Pedagogy: Exploring Interactions between a
Teaching Artist and Young Learners during Visual Arts Experiences. Early Childhood
Education Journal, 41(5), 365-372.
Wright, Susan. (2013). Meaning, Mediation, Metaphor: Embodied Learning through the Arts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5nxmduYQaA&feature=youtu.be