Aubrey Allison
20 April 2010
Art in Education: Abstract
Art programs should receive at least equal attention and funding as math, science, and reading programs in public primary schools. As education favors math and science, students lose integral lessons, skills, and mental habits necessary not only for their academic career, but for their future career and citizenship of the world as well. Math and science classes, while teaching valuable knowledge and analytical skills, encourages an unhealthy mindset of pass or fail, right or wrong. Art programs, by contrast, promote innovative and imaginative thinking in students. The challenges of art teach students to reflect, envision, take risks, and learn from their mistakes, all of which are needed for a successful career. Most importantly, art programs in primary schools motivate and inspire students to engage in learning, while helping develop the whole person. This paper will propose an original art curriculum and show how it teaches students not only much-needed skills and lessons, but also gives a better understanding of how one person can contribute to their global society and connect with others.
Art in Education: Valuable Beyond Measure
Art education needs equal funding to math and science in public primary schools. Classes based on standardized testing reduce the quality of learning for the young leaders on which our society will depend in the future. As focus in education shifts to strengthen math and science at the expense of the arts, young students lose the skills they need for their academic performance as well as their future careers. Increasing funding of art programs in public primary schools will facilitate a higher quality of learning for young students, and help them understand that they are part of a global community. Great art is universal, and all art can be used to communicate beyond the power of words alone. Educators must empower students with art.
In his article ÒArt Smarts,Ó Scott LaFee identifies a strange dichotomy within our society. Fine arts are held in high regard as we recognize their capacities for expression, creativity, and abstract definition, yet in schools they are shoved to the side and often inadequately funded. With aid of real educatorsÕ perspectives, LaFee declares that while arts education is discussed and even praised as a perfect way to help open young minds learn and express individuality, the actual funding for such programs is inexcusably low. In fact, recent legislation in states such as California have made high standardized test scores the only requisite Òfor schools to qualify for millions of dollars of incentives that were set aside to spur such achievementÓ (Wood). ÒSuch achievementÓ is narrowing and heading away from well-rounded education. These kinds of incentives and funding requirements undermine the quality of education for our youth. A well-rounded, positive education must include art just as much as it must include reading.
Countless art advocacy groups tout the benefits of art education. Many claim that students who participate in art programs score better on standardized tests and get better grades in subjects such as math, science, and reading. While these may be statistically true, the correlation does not require art as the cause (Winner). This does not lesson the urgency for increased art funding in primary schools. While arts may not improve a studentÕs entire report card, none can deny that arts education is necessary to help young minds learn critical thinking skills and become engaged in their education. Visual, musical, and performing arts teach lessons and skills that subjects such as math, science, and reading do not. Arts education improves the minds of students as it Òstimulates creativity, builds communications skills, promotes teamwork, and engenders Ôlove of learningÕ in all subject areasÓ (Gee). Students who participate in art will gain skills necessary in their future careers and leadership roles. Most importantly, students who create art will use areas of the brain that other subjects simply do not reach.
Another strong argument for art in education is that it will launch students into successful, fulfilling, and lucrative careers. Early exposure and engagement in the arts promotes graduates who are creative problem-solvers, effective communicators, team players, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Increasingly, employers are looking for degree-holding graduates with the same qualities as those gained through the arts (Lynch). The schools charged with educating these future employees, however, are heading in the opposite direction. Policies and mindsets such as the No Child Left Behind Act promote education based on standardized testing and yielding consistency rather than creativity. Erica McWilliams boldly asserts in her book, The Creative Workforce: Launching Young People into High-Flying Futures, that schools and universities are becoming Òmore important and less relevant than ever.Ó Teaching students that only the ÒrightÓ answer matters and punishing ÒwrongÓ answer undermines any inclination to be innovative and explorative in the classroom. When students of these classes graduate, how can they then be expected to be creative innovators? The solution to this conundrum is increased involvement in arts to keep students engaged, thoughtful, and creative during their schooling.
While test scores and future careers are convincing reasons to fund art in primary classrooms, it is imperative that art is does not become simply a means to an end. Art is valuable for its own sake, and students must be exposed to its value at the primary level. Art has the power to motivate, to communicate, and to inspire. It empowers students to express ideas in a way that math and science cannot. Because of the value of art, it deserves to be a core subject in public primary schools.
The United Nations,
in their 2008 Development Goals Report, stated, ÒAchieving universal
primary education means more
than full enrollment. It also encompasses quality education.Ó In order for our students to earn a quality,
well-rounded education, art must be an essential component of the curriculum. As
public education shifts to set standards for students and emphasize math and
science, our youth become simply more able to memorize and regurgitate facts
and definitions. Is this the kind of education we want the leaders of tomorrow
to be taught today? In our rapidly changing world, which faces pressing issues
such as global warming, new virus pandemics, terrorism, rising national
deficit, and healthcare costs, should we not be enabling our youth to recognize
patterns, learn from mistakes, and be innovative and imaginative? The current
system of standards encourages mediocrity in our youth (Dupuis). Standardized
tests will not prepare tomorrowÕs leaders to be successful. Education that
includes the arts, however, will.
Curriculums based on standards encourage students to Òlearn the right answer.Ó They are negatively reinforced for giving a ÒwrongÓ answer. They come to fear failure. How can we expect someone who fears giving an incorrect answer to become an innovative leader for the future? Sir Ken Robinson makes bold and thought-provoking assertions in his lecture on creativity in modern schools.
If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. É We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. É Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children.
The students entering school this year will be retiring around 2070. The future is uncertain, yet we can be certain that these students will face many challenges as adults. We can be certain that we need to prepare them now. Arts critic Max Wyman points out, "Art educates us for uncertaintyÉ because it questions our assumptions and throws new light on received knowledge -- lets us know that it's okay not to know for sureÉIt generates an imaginative energy that lets us dare to innovate in our own livesÓ (qtd. in Dupuis). An education that includes the arts will fully prepare our futures leaders for the obstacles to come.
Paul D. Houston in a School Administrator article declared that current school reform is flawed.
The very things that make America uniquely American -- our innovative spirit and our creative expression -- are being pushed out of our schools in favor of a narrowed curriculum built around norm-referenced, high-stakes tests. Schools now are rewarded and mostly punished for their performance on multiple-choice tests, the least creative and innovative activities found in schools. And because the stakes are so high (schools that don't meet testing standards risk being labeled as "failing" and risk losing control of resources and students), other activities are being shed. So courses such as art, music and creative writing are less valued and less taught.
Houston points out that ÒCognitive scientists remind us that fear inhibits cognitive processes, and yet we are trying to make children and schools smarter by threatening themÓ with failure. Unless we provide our youth with an educational environment free from fear of failure, we will be robbing them of their potential to be innovative and successful in the future.
Sir Ken Robinson observes, ÒTruthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side.Ó Our education system gradually rids students of their innovative inclinations. Math and science are important, as is reading and language. Art and creativity is, however, Òas important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same statusÓ (Robinson). The generation of students in schools today will be facing innumerable challenges in the future. It is our duty to help them develop into confident, well-educated, creative people. Art in education is essential for our societyÕs successful future as well as our studentsÕ.
Our future economic power will come from the culture we create, and that will come from what our schools produce. Our success is much less dependent upon the skills our children have than on our children's ability to see the world through fresh eyes. The future will be shaped by those who see through new eyes and who can imagine new things. For that to happen, schools will need to be freed up from the coercive policies that have been promoted, in part, by big business so that students can find their own voices and visions. (Houston)
Art programs in schools encourage self-reflection in students, helping them to understand themselves, their roles in their local and global communities, and their peers. They give students skills needed to relate to others. Art education in schools Òfosters tolerance of and appreciation for cultural and ethnic diversityÓ (Gee). By creating original artwork, students learn effective ways to express and communicate. Participation in art classes can improve youthÕs self-esteem and sense of self-efficacy. Making art shows students that they have power to create, be unique, and make a difference in their communities and in the world. For these reasons, art education promotes the UN Millennium Goal of promoting global partnerships for development.
Citizens of the United States often do not realize that primary education is not universal even within their own communities. Students with learning differences such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADD, and ADHD often struggle in classes, fall below the average set by standardized tests, and may even give up on their education and themselves. Recent educational reforms promote Òa deficit model where students' shortcomings are identified and remediated. Since motivation is a critical part of the educational process, it is difficult to use a deficit approach to motivateÓ (Houston). Art is one of the most important ways to motivate students (Eger). Art programs provide an outlet for expression and energy, offer new ways of visualizing and understanding, and encourage students to recognize and prize their uniqueness and originality. Brody Carmichael, a student who has dealt with ADHD and dyslexia and is now a thriving film major at Savannah College of Art and Design, declares that art Òhas given me back a purpose. Before I created art, I didn't require a discipline for myself and didn't really have any sort of directionÉ If it were not for arts programs, I would have never really found my passion.Ó Just as future historians, authors, and science researchers discover their passions in the classroom, so artists should have that opportunity as well. Travis Ratcliff, currently a hard-working film student at Savannah College of Art and Design, has this to contribute.
As
a student with Dyslexia I faced many difficulties throughout my primary
education. As badly as I wanted to learn, the system in place made life
extremely difficult and quickly learning became a chore. When I entered
high school the arts became the light at the end of every day. I knew I
always had theater and film to help get me from one day to the next, one week
to the next. Eventually as my studies in the arts grew bolder in their
scale, skills were required of me from my traditional schooling. I began
to see my performance in school increase as the skills I learned in the theater
transferred to my studies, as my desire to do better in school was led on by my
artwork. I graduated high school among the top of my class, with
achievements I am proud of in the arts and academics. What I ultimately
learned from my involvement in art above all else was how to learn. I
will always treasure that knowledge and light in my life.
With this powerful testimony, how can we deny any student the opportunity to realize their potential and gain skills to learn, and to enjoy learning?
The United States is a unique population, including a variety of cultures and languages. Many schools teach children who come from houses where English is not the language regularly spoken. Students from such backgrounds often struggle with lessons based in English. An easy way to reach them is through art. In his article, ÒWhy the Arts Deserve Center Stage,Ó Richard J. Deasy asserts that Òfor students who speak little or no English and who may face other barriers to fully engaging in the life of the school, the arts are the ÔlanguagesÕ that reveal their abilities and potential to teachers -- the crucial connection that motivates them to learn.Ó Arguably the most important benefit of art in education is its remarkable ability to motivate students to learn – no matter what their background or talents.
An art curriculum with subject matter based on the United Nations Millennium Goals educates students about their role in the global community in a more tangible way. A lesson about color theory can include a discussion about the emotion associated with each color, and an assignment to choose an appropriate color scheme for a picture illustrating the need to care about our environment. One student may choose to draw a picture of a factoryÕs smoke stacks polluting the air. She colors the sky an orangey red, to show the danger of pollution and how it denaturalizes the usually blue sky. Another student draws hands in dirt, cradling a small green sprout, illustrating the human ability to foster a healthy planet. He tints the dirt an adobe red, as he knows red is the complement to green on the color wheel. Both of these students have made decisions based on what they learned in class to best express their message. Neither of their ÒanswersÓ to the assignment is wrong. Art provides challenges to be confidently and creatively tackled.
I have composed a short art curriculum for students in fourth grade and above, with subject matter centering on the UN Millennium Development Goals. The course includes five lessons, including an introduction to the UN Goals and basics of composition. With each lesson, students are taught different elements and principles of visual art, and how to use them to better express their message as an artist. The projects are challenging and thought provoking for young, creative minds.
The purpose of first lesson is to give the students an understanding of the United Nations and their goals, the reasons these goals are important, steps that can be taken towards these goals, how art can help, art as an expressive outlet of communication, and how learning the principles and elements of art will improve their ability to convey meaning. For an elementary student, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals can easily seem unintelligible and inapplicable to their lives. Throughout each class, the students will learn ways they can contribute to the Goals. Discussion is vital for these young artists to come to a full and clear understanding.
The first lesson is also the
time to introduce a few basic principles of visual art. An important
compositional tool for young new artists is to Òfill the frame.Ó Remind them
that their subjects can be big and go off the edge of the paper – in
fact, this is more interesting. A short presentation on a laptop or screen
helps keep students interested as examples help them understand the lessons. As
a first assignment, the children create name cards that express their
personalities or interests. Hannah, one of the students who participated in my
art class, used bright, warm colors and lots of squiggly lines to illustrate
her active, fun-loving personality.
Lesson
number two concentrates on composition and line. Line direction –
horizontal, vertical, or diagonal – will lend specific feelings to a
piece of art. In an example picture, students see how horizontal lines help an
image feel thoughtful, restful, and peaceful. A drawing with many diagonal
lines feels active and dynamic, while vertical lines have potential for
movement. This concept is perfectly illustrated with a marker on a table. When
it is placed standing up, it is temporarily vertical or strong, and could
easily fall at any moment. As it falls, the marker is diagonal in the air. Then
it comes to rest on the table, a horizontal line. Example drawings also show
the young artists how they can use different lightness or darkness of line,
smoothness or roughness of edges, jagged or curved lines, to express a variety
of feelings. The assignment for this lesson is to choose from a selection of
words related to the UN Millennium Development Goals – hunger, peace,
help, poverty, achieve, universal, empower, etc. – and illustrate it. The
students must include
the word itself in their illustration, and are strongly encouraged not to rely
on literal pictures, but rather line direction and line quality. The goal of
this project is for an illiterate viewer to see their drawing and know what
word is illustrated. This is the most challenging and abstract assignment of
the curriculum, so examples are extremely important.
Students
learn about highlights, midtones, and shadows in the third lesson. Highlights
are the lightest areas of an object, where light is hitting directly.
Highlights appear almost or completely white. Midtones are the indirectly lit,
in-between values of an object. Shadows appear dark or black because little to
no light reaches these areas. In real life, as in photographs and realistic
drawings and paintings, highlights, midtones, and shadows create the illusion
of Òoutlines.Ó To practice this new concept, students choose a picture related
to the UN Millennium Goals and illustrate it with the words of the related
goal. Sam chooses an image of a hand writing on a chalkboard. He studies the
picture and decides where the shadows, midtones, and highlights are. Then in
his drawing, he wrote, Òachieve universal primary educationÓ many times, over
and over, to create successively darker values. He left the highlights blank,
letting the white of the 
page create the lightest
areas. In the midtone areas, he wrote the words a few times, still letting
quite a bit of white show through. For the shadows, he wrote Òachieve universal
primary educationÓ so many times, words on top of words on top of words, that it
was almost black.
Lesson four introduces color. The lecture, with help of a visual presentation, teaches the students about the color wheel, primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, complimentary colors, hues, shades, tints, and four basic color schemes: monochromatic, analogous, complimentary, and split-complimentary. A monochromatic color scheme uses only one color, or hue, but utilizes many values of that hue. Lighter values, or tints, can be created by lighting using a colored pencil or by mixing white with colored paint. Darker values, or shades, consist of the specific hue combined with black. Because the students learned about highlights, midtones, and shadows in the previous lesson, the concept of value is already familiar to them. An analogous color scheme uses three hues that are next to each other on the color wheel, such as greenish blue, blue, and purple. Complimentary color schemes use only two hues, opposite one another on the color wheel – complimentary colors. A split-complimentary color scheme uses one hue as a main color, as well as the two hues on either side of its compliment to serve as accent colors. For example, green could be used for most of a painting, but is accented by reddish orange and reddish violet, which are the two colors beside greenÕs compliment, red, on the color wheel. Every color scheme may utilize a variety of values of each hue. To put this lesson to practice, the students choose a UN Goal-related image and simplify all the shapes. Then they may choose any of the color schemes learned and use it to color the now-simplified shapes.
The fifth lesson explores the many feelings and connotations of each color. Mary OÕNeilÕs book Hailstones and Halibut Bones is a helpful tool to show students the many associations between color and life. To keep them engaged, allow students to read aloud about their favorite color. In a visual presentation, students see how changes in color can change the entire feeling of a piece of artwork. The class discusses warm and cool colors, and the importance of a well-chosen color scheme for an expressive art piece. Students may then work on a new, original colored drawing related to the UN Millennium Development Goals, or they may add color to their lesson two assignment, the illustrated word.
A review during the last class is important to reiterate all the lessons taught over the past five class sessions. Students take turns talking about what they learned and what they enjoyed doing in the class. A final discussion of their ideas for the future can help them apply their new knowledge of the United NationsÕ Millennium Development Goals, foundations of visual art, and powers of expression.
The full curriculum with example student work can be found and used for free on aubreyallison.com/capstone. The projects are designed to be accessible to all students at all schools, so the only supplies needed are paper, drawing utensils (pencils, pens, black markers), and coloring utensils (colored pencils, markers, or even paint). For the more complicated picture-based assignments, such as that of lesson three, the teacher may decide to print relevant, simple stock images for the students to use as a reference. Towards the end of the course, however, students should be creating their own original images to illustrate.
These lessons give students the skills to better express themselves and understand the expressions of others. As they meet the challenge each assignment presents, they push themselves to think in new ways and expand their ideas. For some students, the abstract and open nature of some of the projects is difficult to understand. While it would be false to say there is no wrong way to complete the assignments – each project has specific goals and parameters that cannot be ignored – it would also be false to say there is one absolutely correct way to complete them. The students learn that their techniques and thought processes may be different from those of their classmates, and yet both are valid and should be respected.
This art curriculum has the most direct connection to the United NationsÕ goal of achieving universal primary education, as art helps more students succeed in their academic careers. It is also relevant to the goal of developing a global partnership for development. During the introductory lesson about the UN Goals, Meredith raised her hand to speak. ÒMy girl scout troop has a pen pal in Ireland. IÕll draw a picture for her.Ó Art is the perfect way to communicate with citizens of our global society, regardless of their language.
All kinds of art are excellent supplements to academic lessons of all subjects. Students need to explore the worlds of creative writing and poetry, theatre, and music, as well as visual art. Theatre helps build self-esteem and public speaking skills, while the organization of the performance teaches teamwork. Creative writing encourages students to take the English skills they must learn for class and apply them to a creation of their own imagination (Buenaflor). Such opportunities not only prepare students for the future, but give them motivation and passion for the present.
The result of increased emphasis on art in public primary schools is more students getting more out of their education. Instead of merely improving statistics, art helps improve our students by equipping them with confidence and skills needed to be successful global citizens in the present as well as the future. Art classes are not only a means to an end, however. Promoting the originality of individual students is monumentally important, and we must facilitate the growth of our youth rather than suppress their creativity and uniqueness with standardized, narrow curriculums. The time has come to end the scaling-back and cutting-out of art programs. Art is equally as beneficial to young minds as math, science, and reading, and it deserves equal time and funding in our public primary schools.
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