September 25th, 2009 by El Ed Mom

What Do We Mean by Arts Education?

If human beings are to survive, we need all the symbolic forms at our command because they permit us not only to preserve and pass along our accumulated wisdom but also to give voice to the invention of new visions. We need all these ways of viewing the world because no one way can say it all. Charles Fowler Former Director, National Cultural Resources Washington, DC.

The arts are essential parts of the human experience, they are not a frill. We recommend that all students study the arts to discover how human beings communicate not only with words, but through music, dance, and the visual arts. During our visits (to schools) we found the arts to be shamefully neglected. Courses in the arts were the last to come and the first to go. Dr. Ernest Boyer, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

The term arts education has had various meanings throughout the years. Following the lead of both the national standards and the Washington State Essential Learnings, the term arts includes music, dance, drama and visual art. The visual arts and music have traditionally received the lion’s share of attention in education. This report takes the position that all four art disciplines are essential to education and does not favor any one discipline over another.

Since the beginning of a common curriculum for public schools, arts educators have struggled to have the arts taken seriously. Over the years, the arts have assumed the role of promoter of good citizens, accessory to academic subjects, special programs for the gifted or extracurricular activity. In Becoming Knowledge: The Evolution of Art Education Curriculum, Denny Palmer Wolf writes that, “research in arts education has consistently shown that the arts are a distinct form of knowledge requiring sustained and demanding work and yielding kinds of empathy, understanding, and skill both equal to and distinctive from those available in chemistry, civics, or shop.”

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