Art education

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Art education is the area of learning that is based upon the visual, tangible arts—drawing, painting, sculpture, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics, etc and design applied to more practical fields such as commercial graphics and home furnishings.

The term "arts education" implies many things, but is definable as: Instruction and programming in any arts area — including the performing arts (dance, music, theater) and visual arts, creative writing, media arts, history, criticism, and aesthetics. Within the schools "visual arts education" encompasses all the visual and performing arts delivered in a standards-based, sequential approach by a qualified instructor as part of the core curriculum.

Education in art takes place across the life-span. As a result children, youth, and adults learn about art in community based institutions and organizations such as museums, local arts agencies, recreation centers, places of worship, social service agencies, and prisons among many other possible venues. Education in art also occurs in the home as well as through formal and informal apprenticeship programs.

1 History of Art Education in the US
2 Approaches to Art Education
3 National organizations
4 See also

[edit] History of Art Education in the US

Forms of art education have varied through history, reflecting the social values of their culture. Apprenticeships of individuals were once the norm; more recently the democratization of education, particularly as promoted by educational philosopher John Dewey, has supported providing every student opportunities to create. Enrollment in art classes at the high school elective level peaked in the late 1960s—early 1970s with that period's emphasis on individuals expressing uniqueness. Currently 'art(s) magnet schools', available in many larger communities, use art(s) as a core or underlying theme to attract those students motivated by personal interest or with the intention of becoming a professional or commercial artist. It is widely reported that the arts are losing instruction time in school based upon budget cuts in combination with increasing test-based assessments of children which the federal government's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act requires. It is worth noting that while the NCLB retains the arts as part of the "core curriculum" for all schools, it does not require reporting any instruction time or assessment data for arts education content or performance standards, which is reason often cited for the decline or possible decline of arts education in American public schools.

[edit] Approaches to Art Education

There are thousands of arts education curricular models or models for arts or arts-based professional development for teachers that schools and community organizations use. Here are two prominent models:

A six-fold model divided into "Creative-Productive, Cultural-Historical and Critical-Responsive” components in Canada
In the U.S.A., Discipline Based Art Education covers the same content in terms of four fields; Aesthetics, Criticism, History and Studio Practices

In most systems, “criticism” is understood to be criteria-based-analysis established on acknowledged elements of composition and principles of design which often vary in their verbal articulations, between the different art discipline ambits (applied, fine, performing, & etc.) and their many schools.

Some studies show that strong art education programs have demonstrated increased student performance in other academic areas, due to art activities' exercising their brains' right hemispheres and delateralizing their thinking^{[citation needed]}. Also see Betty Edwards' "Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain". Support for art education, however, varies greatly between communities and between schools in various communities.

Art education is not limited to formal educational institutions. Some professional artists specialize in private or semi-private instruction in their own studios. One form of this teaching style is the Atelier Method. Another is an artist apprenticeship in which the student learns from a professional artist while assisting the artist with their work.

[edit] National organizations

National organizations promoting arts education include Americans for the Arts including Art. Ask For More., its national arts education public awareness campaign; Association for the Advancement of Arts Education; Arts Education Partnership; and the National Art Education Association.