educators. Multidisciplinary teaching is defined as lessons or units developed across many disciplines with a common organizing topic that connect the arts with mathematics, science, language arts and social studies in a parallel design (Jackson & Davis, 2000) . As Graham and Sims-Gunzenhauser (2009) suggest: "It is important that the arts become curriculum partners with other subject disciplines so they can contribute their distinctive richness and complexity to school learning" (p. 19).

more »

... ing to the National Middle Schools Association's research summary of characteristics of exemplary schools for young adolescents, successful schools provide curriculum that is relevant, challenging, integrative, and exploratory (Andrews, Caskey & Anfara, 2007) . In addition, curriculum supports development of a common cultural milieu. According to Bell (2000) , "Cultural literacy is centrally to do with a disposition to reflect critically on the basic attributes of being educated. Creativity, aesthetics, history, and the literary, visual and performing arts are the keys to this capacity to think critically for they celebrate the role of the imagination in becoming human" (p.14). As young people enter high school, they become sensitive to the adult world of responsibility, and inevitably the necessity of work and implications for their future lives. John Dewey (1934) determined that in order to make learning most relevant, students must be able to connect the foundational skills they have learned to their own life experiences. Integration of social studies concepts of labor and consciousness of impending work force involvement into the fine arts curriculum serves high school students well, because art teachers facilitate the opportunity for students to explore their worlds through creative use of visual media. Labor studies content has the potential to be especially relevant to youth during their high school years, as it is the time when they most often confront the immediacy of their need for adult employment, and contemplate entrance into the working world. "They are beginning to be aware of the fact that they must soon be on their own and must fit into society in order to make a living, although as many as a third of these students may already be working at part-time jobs" (Lowenfeld & Brittain, 1987, p. 436). Although most students aspire to go to college someday, many need to work to earn the money required for tuition and living expenses. On the other hand, high school students at risk of academic failure due to low literacy skills may be unable to complete their studies and to adequately prepare for the world of work. Whether college-goers or not, students need appropriate and timely information about employment and labor environments to make them less vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous employers. Schools today are expected to develop students' academic skills as an aspect of their preparation to be productive workers. As a matter of social justice however, school programs also need to provide opportunities for students to learn about human, civil and workers' rights and to recognize the role of labor unions as the collective voice for workers in a democratic society. However, many social-justice-minded teachers recognize that due to the decline in union density, most high school students have few opportunities to learn about unions from their families or from the community. Students