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The Arts enhance students' right-hemisphere
creativity as well as their creative problem-solving ability.
Skills to address different, multiple-answer
questions of life are developed. Both sides of the brain are engaged.
The Arts are a complete part of human
development in measurements of mental,
affective and psychomotor skills; and learning styles.
The Arts increase communication skills
especially needed in today's complex society
with its emphasis on technology and mass communication.
The Arts develop self-esteem and help
students gain a more positive self-concept. Low
self-esteem is considered the root of major societal problems
such as violence, teenage suicide and substance abuse.
The Arts are emotional medicine.
The Arts improve the school atmosphere
that can aid in improving school attendance
and in decreasing the dropout rate.
The Arts are never finished and can always
be made better and better and better! This
fosters the appreciation of and the drive for excellence in education,
in one's life, and in the world.
Why Art Education?
"I must be a warrior, so my
children can be farmers, so theirs can be poets."
Thomas Jefferson
"I must study war, politics,
so my children can study math and science and architecture and history,
so their children can study dance and drama and music and painting
and poetry."
John Adams
Art Means Work - 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 and 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.
Art is the visible evidence of work carried to the highest possible
level.
Excerpt from "Why Art Education?"
prepared by the National Art Education Association - NAEA Publication
office, 1916Association Drive, Reston, VA 20191-159.
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