WHY ART EDUCATION?

What does art education do for the individual and for society?    Why do we teach art?  How does art contribute to

education at all levels?  There are many good answers to these questions, but three stand out as crucial in today’s

social and economic climate.  We believe that art—and therefore art education—means three things that everyone

wants and needs.

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; 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.

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.  Com-

plete 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 teach-

ing pupils to describe, analyze, and interpret visual images, we enhance their powers of verbal expression.  That is no

educational frill.

Art Means Values.

You cannot touch art without touching values: values about home and family, work and play, the individual and

society, nature and the environment, war and peace, beauty and ugliness, violence and love.  The great art of the past

and the present deals with these durable human concerns.  As art teachers we do not indoctrinate.  But when we study

the art of many lands and peoples, we expose our students to the expression of a wide range of human values and

concerns.  We sensitize students to the fact that values shape all human efforts, and that visual images can affect their

personal value choices.  All of them should be given the opportunity to see how art can express the highest aspira-

tions of the human spirit.  From that foundation we believe they will be in a better position to choose what is right

and good.