Standing on the stage of Portland's Schnitzer Concert Hall a few months back, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple told a rapt audience about the unlikely dawning of her career. It began when she was enrolled in a psychology class that required field work and a report. For her research, she visited mental patients who had undergone lobotomies. Words seemed inadequate when she tried to describe the emotional suffering she had witnessed in the faces of the patients and their families. So, instead of a written report, she made "a little movie" about her research.

Was she rewarded for her creative approach? Hardly. Kopple's professor was livid. He told her she had taken "the easy way out." He gave her a "D."

But for Kopple, the die was cast. Instead of becoming a psychologist, she became a visual storyteller, artfully weaving words and images into gripping documentaries. Instinctively, she pursued what Harvard researcher Howard Gardner would call "a different way of knowing," and she has never looked back.

When artists, musicians, filmmakers, and other creative folks talk about their lives, they often describe similar turning points. Sometimes, like Kopple, they gravitate to the arts in spite of their formal schooling. But others speak fondly of a teacher who offered encouragement or instruction at a key moment, opening their eyes to the lessons only the arts can teach.

A music teacher I know, for instance, tells the story of a high school student who was caught vandalizing school property. The teacher was invited into the principal's office to help determine the boy's punishment. He asked the surly teen why he'd shattered his classroom window. At first the boy only glared, but finally he confessed, "I wanted to get in, to play the piano." The wise teacher made him pay for the broken pane-but also "sentenced" him to enroll in a music class. The former vandal is now a professional jazz performer and musical arranger.

Across the country, the arts are gaining support from unexpected quarters because of their unique power to shape young minds. Education reformers and back-to-basics proponents are citing research that shows the arts can uplift school performance, creating more engaged learners and improving the atmosphere of the schoolhouse. This is good news for the arts, but it's even better news for America's students. Not all of them will grow up to be musicians or filmmakers or painters, of course. But each one can gain from a learning environment that touches and teaches all the senses.

This issue of Northwest Education examines the research about the benefits of studying and performing the arts, and highlights the findings of several national studies that support the arts as essential to education. Then, we take you on a barnstorming tour of the region to showcase schools and individual classrooms where creativity is becoming a basic part of the lesson plan.

In some communities, we admit, it's hardly a time to celebrate the arts. Tight budgets have forced many school districts to scale back their arts programming, just when the educational benefits are being reinforced by research. If you've found a way to make the arts thrive in your school, perhaps you'll share your creative approach in a letter to the editor. We welcome your ideas-especially if they seem a little "different."

— Suzie Boss nwedufeedback@nwrel.org

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