Making Sense of It All: A Perspective on Interdisciplinary Learning

by Dr. Sarah Tambucci, Director
Arts Education Collaborative
Never before have we had such access to information than we do now.  Technology enables us to access a ‘factoid factory’ at our fingertips.  Bricks and mortar schools as traditional places where we have access to treasure troves of knowledge are no longer even necessary.  Cyber schools and home-schools are schools in space and schools without walls.  After all, there may be little evidence that teaching/learning models are not keeping pace with students’ needs to make meaning.  Why else would the drop out rate continue to climb?

Our thirst for information is insatiable while our skill in applying knowledge continues to diminish.  Reform structures that focus on retrieving isolated bits of data are institutionalized and success at these tasks is rewarded.  It is in this climate that we continue to identify examples in which we see the parts while the whole remains obscure. After September 11th we were told by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the commision assigned to review the circumstances of the devastation) that all of the pieces were there, but no one put the pieces together.  After the most serious economic downturn since the Depression, we conclude that we weren’t paying attention to the practices that were certain indicators of economic ruin.

Yet we continue to remain on course.  While we have never known so much about how the human brain functions, we continue to ignore what we know.  We continue to identify the symptoms of a serious disease.  More information to cover, shrinking curriculum, lack of time for adequate processing and making personal meaning, yet our structures for instructional delivery remain basically unchanged.  Content remains predominantly in silos with little effort or emphasis on relating thinking and learning in ways that lead to deeper and richer understanding.

Proponents of interdisciplinary methods and tools to help students connect and extend understanding have long touted its virtues.  Known by many names (multi-disciplinary, thematic, integrated, etc.) it is the related ways in which the disciplines can be studied that is so effectively born out of learning in the arts.  What is it that happens in experiencing the arts that is so readily transferable to thinking and learning in all disciplines?

Come learn with us.  Join us on January 12 as we explore ways in which the arts can have a transformative impact on the educational system.  Are we moving from an Information Age to the Age of Creativity and Innovation?  When is interdisciplinary learning authentic and when is it ‘hokey’?

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