| CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Real World - There are practical reasons to study art as well. "We're a very visual culture," says Roland. Training in art helps you interpret our culture and the images that bombard us, he explains. It helps you become a better consumer of visual culture found on computers, the Internet, and television. By becoming more culturally and historically aware, you will enjoy and understand the modern culture all around you, including movies, television, internet, and music. You'll enjoy museums more, too. If you take a ceramics class, you'll know how to look at things made of clay. You'll learn what's easy to do and what's difficult, what makes a piece of pottery well made or poorly made. Photography classes will teach you how to look through a camera lens, and how that's different from looking with your eyes alone. For the rest of your life, your photo albums will display your skill. Whether you like making things or just want to become a more interesting person, art classes can teach you important skills for your entire life. Art Means Language - Art is a language of visual images that everyone must learn to read. In art classes, we make visual images, and we study images. Increasingly, these images affect our needs, our daily behavior, our hopes, our opinions, and our ultimate ideals. That is why the individual who cannot understand or read images is incompletely educated. Complete literacy includes the ability to understand, respond to, and talk about visual images. Therefore, to carry out its total mission, art education stimulates language�spoken and written�about visual images. As art teachers we work continuously on the development of critical skills. This is our way of encouraging linguistic skills. By teaching pupils to describe, analyze, and interpret visual images, we enhance their powers of verbal expression. Art Means Work - Beyond the qualities of creativity, self-expression, and communication, art is a type of work. This is what art has been from the beginning. This is what art is from childhood to old age. Through art, our students learn the meaning of joy of work�work done to the best of one�s ability, for its own sake, for the satisfaction of a job well done. There is a desperate need in our society for a revival of the idea of good work: work for personal fulfillment, work for social recognition, and work for economic development. Work is one of the noblest expressions of the human spirit, and art is the visible evidence of work carried to the highest possible level. Today we hear much about productivity and workmanship. Both of these ideals are strengthened each time we commit ourselves to the endeavor of art. We are dedicated to the idea that art is the best way for every young person to learn the value of work. In "The Nation and the Arts," a Presidential briefing paper prepared by the Independent Committee on Arts Policy, it was stated: "Well-developed programs of making and studying art serve many functions. They help students better articulate their perceptions and shape coherent responses to their experiences. When children learn to appreciate form and color...when they learn the importance of fashioning their own images of the world around them, they achieve greater discipline and self-confidence. Further, the arts have extrinsic public value as they are increasingly important to this nation's economy." "Too often, the value of participation in the arts is underestimated. The arts enrich our lives and enrich our learning. And the arts are a valuable learning tool that reinforces the other disciplines, like reading, writing, social studies, even science and math." New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman From classroom to living room - "People are afraid of color," says Caitlyn Ahlquist, an interior decorator with Barbara Herman Interiors in Worcester, Massachusetts. "Their homes reflect this. I'm not, though. I studied color theory in college and experimented with color in art classes.... People come to me afraid. I suggest colors, and they're thrilled with the results." As a textile design student at Syracuse University, Ahlquist took basic art classes, including painting and drawing. I'm terrible at drawing," she admits. But she loved all the classes where she made things: handbags, shoes, jewelry. Some of her experiments in class worked, some didn't. She learned from her mistakes as well as her successes. "I learned about texture, line, and design as well as color. These are all elements that I use in decorating a room." The analytical ability and critical thinking skills that she honed in art classes help her figure out why a room doesn't look its best, what will improve it, and how to explain all of this to her client. "As an interior decorator, I use art all day long. But lots of people use art in their work," she says. "When the upholsterer decides how to lay out fabric on furniture for the best effect, he's using art skills. People who make false teeth are sculptors that are creating smiles. And I sure wouldn't want a plastic surgeon working on me if he didn't know a lot about design." ~Back to Page 1~ ~More Art, Better Schools~ |