The VISUAL ARTS: So much MORE than what you SEE! A R T E D U C A T I O N KINDERGARTEN THRU GRADE 5 Mrs. Bivona’s BLOG - www.art-on-the-move.blogspot.com Bernards Township Philosophy ofArt Education Art is a necessary component of ourlives, a vital contributor to ourlearning, to our well-being and, in essence, to our existence.It helps us develop values, understand the past,and organize the elements ofour lives.It enables us to communicate ideas, to expressfeelings, and to respect the values, attitudes and beliefs ofothers.It encourages us to develop in both creative and critical thinking. Art is, after all, a combination ofperceptual, intellectual, manual and technical skills which can be learned. The visual impact on the lives ofstudents today is greater t han everbefore.This bombardment of visual images has a profound effect on the activities in which our young peo ple participate.The Visual Arts teach students to shape and build an aesthetically sound future in a highly technical society. The essential outcome of the aesthetic experience is a fully developed self whoseexplorations and growth-persona l, social and cultural-result in fulfillment.Anaesthetically aware person is, therefore, prepared to contribute positively to socie ty . B E R N A R D S T O W N S H I P S C H O O L D I S T R I C T “A man paints with his brains and not with his hands” ~ Michelangelo
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
1. The arts teach children to makegood judgments about qualitativerelationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in thearts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
2. The arts teach children thatproblems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more thanone answer.
3. The arts celebrate multipleperspectives. One of their large lessons is thathere are many ways to see and interpret the world.
4. The arts teach children that incomplex forms of problem solvingpurposes are seldom fixed, butchange with circumstance andopportunity. Learning in the arts requires theability and a willingness to surrender to theunanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
5. The arts make vivid the fact thatneither words in their literal formnor numbers exhaust what we canknow. The limits of our language do not definethe limits of our cognition.
6. The arts teach students that small
differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.
7. The arts teach students to thinkthrough and within a material.All art forms employ some means through whichimages become real.
8. The arts help children learn to saywhat cannot be said. When children areinvited to disclose what a work of art helps themfeel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to
find the words that will do the job.
9. The arts enable us to haveexperience we can have from noother source and through such experience todiscover the range and variety of what we arecapable of feeling.
10. The arts' position in the schoolcurriculum symbolizes to the youngwhat adults believe is important.
• Provide materials and space for your child to create art.
• Do art activities with your child
• Encourage experimentation andcreativity.
• Accept the child’s work and givehonest praise for their efforts ( e.g., color choice, use of space, theme).
• Display your child’s artwork where it
can be seen and appreciated.
• Encourage you child to check out artbooks.
• Display art work of all kinds in your home.
• Enroll your child in art classes andprograms.
• Make a point to visit museums,galleries and exhibits.
Local Museums....Somerset Art Association, soon to be The
Center for Contemporary Art Bedminister, NJ908 234-2345
Zimmerli Art Museum @ RutgersNew Brunswick, NJ732 932-8201
Hunterdon Museum of Art
Clinton, NJ908 735-8415
Visual Arts Center of NJSummit, NJ908 273-2895
Metropolitan Museum of ArtNYC212 535-7710
HIGHLIGHTS of Arts Education Research
Did You Know?•Young people who participate in the arts for at least three hours on three days each week•through at least one full year are:• 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement• 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools
• 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair• 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance• 4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem•Young artists, as compared with their peers, are likely to:• Attend music, art, and dance classes nearly three times as frequently• Participate in youth groups nearly four times as frequently• Read for pleasure nearly twice as often• Perform community service more than four times as often
(Living the Arts through Language + Learning: A Report on Community-based YouthOrganizations, Shirley Brice Heath, Stanford University and Carnegie Foundation For theAdvancement of Teaching, Americans for the Arts Monograph, November 1998)