10 Skills the Arts Teach

How many times a day do you have to explain the value of arts education, or defend your program against the nay-sayers who think drama class is just a bunch of games? Drama teacher, your class is essential: It teaches students how to be thoughtful, expressive, and fully human.

Here are 10 skills your drama program teaches every day.

1. Problem-Solving

Every artistic process involves challenges: how to stage a scene with limited resources, how to revise a monologue based on feedback, how to discuss and make decisions when working in groups. Students learn to experiment, adapt, and try again when solutions aren’t obvious. And there’s rarely only one solution!

2. Resilience

Failure is an essential part of the process. Rehearsals fail. Improvs go wrong. Drafts get revised. Students learn persistence and how to keep going after setbacks. Realising that you need to fail in order to succeed may be one of the most important skills you pass on to your students.

3. Healthy Expression

Drama Teachers ask students all the time to recognize, name and express different emotions. Students who participate in all of the arts (acting, music, visual art, movement, or writing), learn what they’re feeling and how to communicate it in healthy ways. This is such a valuable life skill; emotions are often misinterpreted or miscommunicated.

4. Empathy

By stepping into characters, interpreting stories, and responding to others’ work, students practice seeing the world from perspectives beyond their own. This builds understanding and compassion.

5. Communication

The arts teach students how to communicate ideas clearly and creatively through voice, movement, visuals, and storytelling, not just through essays or tests. Not only must students learn how to communicate to an audience, they must also communicate their ideas to scene partners, or as a director, designer, or choreographer. Practicing how to communicate in a theatrical context helps students to apply these skills in the real world.

6. Confidence

Sharing creative work takes courage. Standing onstage takes a lot of courage! An arts education gives students repeated opportunities to take risks, be seen, and realize their voices matter. The more comfortable students feel in their own skin, the more they will be able to step into unfamiliar situations with confidence.

7. Collaboration

Theatre is not a solo experience. It requires students to work together, show up for each other, listen to each other, and sometimes compromise and contribute to a shared goal. The ability to collaborate is essential in school, work, and life.

8. Critically Thinking

Students use their analytical skills in drama class when they ask why choices were made and how meaning is created. They learn to support interpretations with text-based evidence. 

9. Openness

An arts education exposes students to stories, traditions, and voices from many cultures and time periods, helping them understand both differences and shared human experiences. There is more than one way to see the world!

10. Self-Awareness

Through creative exploration, students discover who they are, what they value, and how they want to express themselves. The arts help students make sense of their own stories.