WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER DONATING TO OUR FUNDRAISER! Keep reading if you want to know what theatre education can do for your child or other students. The benefits of theatre education are varied and vast and do not all revolve around fostering creativity – although that’s a major gain. No, this type of education helps to create well-rounded students in a variety of ways, honing numerous skills that are critical to success on and off the stage. Let’s explore the top eight (of many!) reasons why theatre education truly matters. 1. Creates Social Tolerance and Empathy Greater civic engagement and social tolerance lead to higher levels of social intelligence, empathy, and emotional regulation – all of which are critical to interpersonal relationships, both personally and professionally. 2. Encourages Positive Behavior Through the creation of an open, welcoming community and through the education of the hardships of others – real or fictional – theatre education encourages positive behavior in students. It’s like a domino reaction: theatre fosters empathy, which then fosters better behavior. 3. Builds Confidence Arts education, at its core, helps students to make creative decisions, take risks, trust in their own ideas, improve self-esteem, and cultivate a positive sense of self. All of this leads to greater confidence – not only on stage but in other academic settings, extracurriculars, and life outside of school. 4. Fosters Creativity and Out-of-The-Box Thinking Theatre gives students an outlet for self-expression, allowing them to rid themselves of conventional academic structure to get more creative in at least one class or one extracurricular. In this way, students are exploring new ideas, perspectives, and ways of doing things – which help them to develop their own voices. 5. Improves Critical Thinking and Reading Comprehension As it relates to reading comprehension, actors, crew members, and other people involved in a theatre program need to know their materials backward and forward – whether that’s to find deeper meaning in character work or to truly nail and find the emotional response behind a lighting or sound cue. This, in turn, boosts reading comprehension, which will come in handy in a variety of academic settings. Additionally, jumping into historical or complex works will boost a student’s vocabulary and awareness of historical events. 6. Fosters General Academic Achievement The numbers don’t lie as they relate to theatre involvement and its correlation to general academic achievement and graduation. Theatre education boosts academic performance – from higher test scores to higher graduation rates, better language and motor skills, reading comprehension, and more. 7. Helps Encourage Attendance and Engagement We’ve already seen the facts: kids involved in theatre graduate at higher rates than those not involved in theatre. And you can’t graduate without attending class. But why are theatre students attending class more regularly? Because they’ve cultivated a community, and are truly engaged in the work. In fact, integrating theatre within other subjects – math, science, history – may reach students who might not otherwise be engaged in their academic classwork. Thus, theatre education can be a huge motivator for students to attend school, leading to greater outcomes down the line. 8. Develops Soft Skills for Career Readiness A few of the most commonly needed soft skills within a professional environment are collaboration, enthusiasm, the ability to listen, delegation, problem-solving, cooperation, resiliency, and communication. You don’t get many, if any, of these skills in a lecture hall. But you do get them by collaborating on a theatre project or putting on a show with your team.