By Betsi Foster
Last year around this time, I wrote a piece about the importance of the arts in our schools. Shortly after it was posted, I was contacted by a stranger, my now-friend and colleague Mr. JC Burnett-Gordon, professor of Dance Education at UT Martin. He wanted to let me know that I had forgotten to include the art of dance in my rundown of impactful arts opportunities we should be striving to provide more of in our schools. He made a compelling case, and we have added some dance opportunities in a few places as a result. That conversation also made me think about what our students actually need from school these days.
This year, I’ve thought a lot about our students and what teachers call cognitive load. Cognitive load refers to everything a student is carrying in their mind at any given moment. At a school-year kickoff, a speaker put it this way: imagine the brain as a cup that can be filled with water. The water is new or challenging information, current stress or physical or environmental situations, or unresolved trauma. All those things are water in the cup, and when the cup gets too full, nothing else gets in.
For teachers, the goal is to teach new and challenging information – to fill the cup – without overflowing it.
Therein lies the challenge. Many students come to school with cups already full. Maybe they haven’t had breakfast (this is why schools serve breakfast). Maybe they were arguing with a parent before getting out of the car. Maybe they’re carrying trauma from three years old and it’s just there (the need for counselors and social workers is real). Teaching and learning isn’t always as simple as it seems.
In order for teachers to be able to teach new and challenging information and skills, to do their jobs and create our future critical thinkers and problem-solvers, we at school must have tools and resources to lighten those loads, empty those cups, so that there is room for learning.
One of the most powerful tools we have to do that is the arts.
Expression. Humans, kids included, can reduce the weight of their mental load with output: offloading, creating, expressing. In researching ways to help students through test anxiety, I read about a strategy called “anxiety writing,” in which the teacher instructs the student, ten minutes prior to the test, to just write freely about what they’re feeling; simply get it all out on paper, then take the test. Student anxiety decreases dramatically because the simple act of expression empties the cup and makes the space for information recall.
When kids go to art class, it’s not just a chance for budding artists to shine. It’s a chance for all kids to release the stress of the day. The same is true for music, dance, theater, recess, P.E., and athletics. Students need those regular opportunities to produce output without input to prepare the brain for learning.
Think about your own life. Have you ever taken a break from work and scrolled on your phone? It doesn’t feel like much of a break, does it? That’s because you kept adding input. Have you taken a break and done something like taken a walk, worked in the yard, or created something? You should try it. Those activities feel different; they help you reset.
(By the way, meditation, “mindfulness,” or prayer? make your cup bigger, allowing you to handle more “life” before needing those breaks).
The world is throwing more input at our kids than ever before. We must keep working to ensure that they have opportunities to offload that stress, express themselves, and be ready to learn. In doing so, they will learn for themselves how valuable the arts are in their school lives and to society as a whole.
As our schools continue to work on providing more opportunities in the arts, we ask for your continued support, knowing the bigger picture of all the arts provide for our kids. And we hope you’ll join us Saturday, April 18th at Greenfield School for the 2026 Weakley County Arts Festival! View the art submissions and listen to our talented musicians starting at 11:00AM.