Why is teaching art important?

The following is a summary of an article from NAEA news (National Art Education Association) (Reprinted with permission from The Boston Globe).  My opinion is given at the end of the summary.  The article concerns advocating the arts in schools and some of the benefits the arts provide for our children.

In the article “Art for our Sake: School Arts Classes Matter More Than Ever – But Not for the Reasons You Think” Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland explore the varied thinking processes that art educators teach students, how the teaching of them is unique to the arts classrooms and why they are and will be important to students’ ability to succeed in this ever changing world. Winner and Hetland studied five visual arts classrooms for one year to determine what exactly happens in the art classroom. Through careful analysis and reviewing of many hours of videotape and notes, they identified eight “studio habits of mind” that arts classes teach that are not taught elsewhere in the school. These habits included persistence, expression, making clear connections between schoolwork and the world outside the classroom, observing, envisioning, innovating through exploration, and reflective self-evaluation. These skills can’t be measured on a standardized test, yet each of these skills has a very high value not only in school, but also in life beyond school. Winner and Hetland gave several real world examples of how these skills are used in professional adult life.

Due to the increasing focus on improving children’s test scores, particularly in language and math, educators are teaching knowledge specific to these areas but are not paying attention to the other aspects of a person’s intelligence and mental habits. Not present in the teaching of standardized test taking, it would seem that the only area these skills are being taught is in the arts. Winner and Hetland contend that instead of debating the value of the arts, the arts and how they are taught should be looked to as a model for how academic classes could be taught to help students more effectively retain information and make connections between their subjects and real life.

In this rapidly changing world that we live in, our children need to learn vital modes of seeing, imagining, inventing and thinking. The memorization skills being taught today are not enough and if this is all we teach, our future generations will not be able to deal with the huge problems facing our world. As a future art educator I could not agree more with the authors’ contentions. In the climate of today’s education, I am all too aware that I will most likely have to advocate for my art program and for proper and/or increased funding. Sadly this is not a problem new to American schools. When I was in high school in the late ‘80’s, one of my memories of my H.S. art teacher is his constant frustration with the lack of funding for the art department. I feel that continual, strong advocacy for the arts is the only thing that will make budget decision makers aware of the benefits the arts bring to our students. Art educators need to be aware themselves of specifically how the arts are important and they need to actively educate and inform the public, internal administration and policy makers if changes are to be made in the way people view the arts.

Hetland, Lois. Winner, Ellen. (2007, September 2). Art for Our Sake: School Arts Classes Matter More Than Ever – But Not for the Reasons You Think. NAEA News. (Reprinted with permission from The Boston Globe). pp. 1, 5.