Discover What Art is...: Resources

VSA arts Institute

The VSA arts Institute is a four-day intensive professional development forum facilitated by top arts in education leaders and designed for educators, teaching artists, arts administrators, and education administrators. The goal of the VSA arts Institute is to enhance the ability of practitioners to integrate the arts in education to address the needs of people with disabilities. The VSA arts Institute offers hands-on, arts-infused learning experiences and provides opportunities for attendees to dialogue and to reflect upon their learning. As part of its unique learning environment, VSA arts designed a series of core sessions to be complemented and expounded upon in workshops, and finally, to be talked over and reflected upon in small, interactive study groups. The VSA arts Institute explores five key elements in arts, learning, and disabilities: inclusive practice and universal design for learning, developmentally appropriate practices, multiple intelligences and learning styles, links to academic standards, and ongoing assessment and evaluation.

VSA arts Educational Programs

Insturctor and individual in wheelchair practic dance movements VSA arts is designated by the United States Congress as the coordinating organization for arts programming for children and youth with disabilities. The educational programs of VSA arts use arts-based learning and teaching strategies designed to promote optimal learning experiences in a fully inclusive environment. VSA arts works to ensure that all students, including students with disabilities and special needs, receive equal and adequate opportunity for involvement and instruction in the arts as part of a basic education.

A person with disability paints in a studio The arts are a proven way to include children of all abilities in classroom activities and to promote academic success. Specifically, recent studies show that participation in the arts enhances critical thinking and problem solving skills. The arts also provide people with the means to improve communication and interpersonal skills, and participation in artistic endeavors promotes teamwork, mutual respect, and understanding. VSA arts and its affiliates are working at the national, local, and international levels to provide educators, parents, and professional artists with resources and tools they can use to support arts-based programming in their communities.

Start With The Arts

Start with the Arts(c) is an early childhood educational program (ages 3-7) which uses arts-based learning to support literacy and to facilitate full inclusion for pre-school age children with disabilities. Fifty-four lessons offer theme-based activities drawing from the visual arts, drama, dance and movement, music, and literature. Adaptations described for each lesson ensure that every child will participate fully regardless of his or her particular abilities or learning style. Start with the Arts(c) learning experiences bridge the child's school and home lives by emphasizing activities that the child can do with his or her family. The Start with the Arts(c) instructional materials have been translated into Spanish making them a highly effective tool for advancing arts-based, inclusive early childhood learning in diverse settings.

Express Diversity!

Express Diversity Express Diversity! provides elementary and secondary teachers and other interested organizations or service providers with a resource for teaching disability awareness through the arts. The resource guide is comprised of arts-based activities related to the following disability topics:

Introduction to Disability

People First

Communities for Everyone

Important Contributions

Inventions for Independent Living

These topics are organized into five modules that include lesson plans with extension activities, parent's pages, a glossary of relevant terms, and stories about people with disabilities. Teachers, students, and families are using this tool to conduct an exploration of disability while promoting inclusion, fostering communication skills, and enhancing personal growth.

Multi-Arts Resource Guide

Multi-Arts Resource Guide The Multi Arts Resource Guide is the essential tool for special and general education teachers for bringing together students of diverse backgrounds by using the arts as a vehicle for learning and supporting basic curriculum. The lessons in the guide provide an avenue for building inclusive school environments for preschool through middle school and high school students with special needs. VSA arts conducts comprehensive training programs designed for teachers, trainers, and parents which fully explore the hands on visual and performing arts activities featured in the Guide. The Guide is designed to specifically meet education goals and objectives which include literacy and basic language development, self expression, self esteem, trust, mutual respect, appreciation, diversity, decision making, and inclusion.

Artist-in-Residence

Artist teaching a child with a disability Artist-in-Residence programs are the longest standing means by which the cultural community is linked to formal education. However, increasing educational accountability and performance demands are pushing the work of artists to the margins of education. To address these accountability needs, VSA arts is developing a model for training artists to effectively align their work with state and local educational goals and standards, and to improve inclusive teaching skills to engage students with disabilities and special needs.
These programs also serve as effective means to engage the arts in lifelong learning. Through a variety of Artist-in-Residence programs, artists work in the context of community arts centers and health care centers to provide individuals with and without disabilities the opportunity to engage in arts activities that expose them to positive and creative outlets for self-expresion and communications with others.

A Guide to Disability Awareness

Following are two excerpts from Access and Opportunities: A Guide to Disability Awareness, a publication written and distributed by VSA arts in Washington, D.C.

Affirmative Phrase	Negative Phrase
Person with a disability	The disabled; handicapped; crippled; suffers from a disability
Person who is blind; person with a visual impairment	The blind
Person who is deaf; person with a hearing impairment	The deaf; deaf and dumb; suffers a hearing loss
Person with a mental illness	Crazy; psycho; lunatic
Person with mental retardation	Retarded; mentally defective
Person who uses a wheelchair	Confined or restricted to a wheelchair; wheelchair bound
Person with a physical disability; person with a mobility impairment	Cripple; lame; handicapped; deformed

Speaking with Awareness "People-First" Language

Language shapes the way those around us speak and act toward one another and conveys the respect we have for others. The use of appropriate language about people with disabilities can be an important tool in building a community that accepts all people.

Appropriate language is both sensitive and accurate. VSA arts promotes the use of "people-first" language - language that puts the focus on the individual, rather than on a disability. People-first language helps us remember that people are unique individuals and that their abilities or disabilities are only part of who they are.

Suggestions to Improve Access and Positive Interactions

Avoid euphemisms such as "physically challenged," "differently abled," or "handi-capable." Many disability groups object to these phrases because they are considered condescending and reinforce the idea that disabilities cannot be spoken of in an upfront and direct manner.

Do not sensationalize a disability by using terms such as "afflicted with," "suffers from," or "crippled with." These expressions are considered offensive and inaccurate to people with disabilities.

When referring to people who use wheelchairs, avoid terms such as "wheelchair bound" or "confined to a wheelchair." Wheelchairs do not confine people with disabilities - they provide freedom of movement to assist them in traveling throughout the community.

When writing or speaking about people with disabilities, emphasize abilities rather than limitations, focusing on a person's accomplishments, creative talents, or skills. This does not mean avoiding mention of a person's disability, but doing so in a respectful manner and only when relevant to the situation.