A quality arts program imparts a critical set of intellectual habits and skills that are unique and supportive of other areas of the curriculum. They are critical because they are connected and crucial to a student’s continual intellectual and personal development.
“It is well established that intelligence and thinking ability are far more complex than what we choose to measure on standardized tests…. They reveal little about a student’s intellectual depth or desire to learn, and are poor predictors of eventual success and satisfaction in life.”
The skills taught in arts classes offer “a remarkable array of mental habits not emphasized elsewhere in school.” These skills include visual-spatial abilities, reflection, self-criticism, and the willingness to experiment and learn from mistakes.
We need the arts in school to introduce students to aesthetic appreciation, and teach other modes of thinking we value. These habits and skills taught and developed in the arts incorporate:
• Developing artistic craft – acquiring the specific skills of diverse art forms.
• Persistence – persevering through the frustration of prolonged and evolving work.
• Expression – moving beyond technical skill to create works that express emotion, atmosphere, and one’s own vision and voice.
• Making connections – finding links between the classroom and the real world past and present.
• Observing – looking more carefully and objectively at the world and letting go of preconceptions.
• Envisioning – forming mental images and using them to guide actions and solve problems.
• Innovating through exploration – experimenting and taking risks, to see what can be learned.
• Reflective self-evaluation – nonverbal and verbal thinking through reflective self-evaluation, distancing, analyzing, judging, and re-conceiving works.
*Hetland Massachusetts College of Art
*Hetland Massachusetts College of Art
As I prepare to experience students' creations through an approaching celebration of the arts event, I savor the many ways I observe these skills burgeoning in students’ artistic performances and endeavors.
