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An Academic Perspective
Our art education program products and services educate, influence and enable. The Art Smart Club follows in the footsteps of the Americans for the Arts to help make sure art thrives in every American community, with every citizen participating in some way, and every child receiving arts education. According to 2002 Americans for the Arts research shows…
The benefits of arts education:
- Stimulates and develops the imagination and critical thinking, and refines cognitive and creative skills.
- Strengthens problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, adding to overall academic achievement and school success.
- Teaches children life skills such as developing an informed perception; articulating a vision; learning to solve problems and make decisions; building self-confidence and self-discipline; developing the ability to imagine what might be; and accepting responsibility to complete tasks from start to finish.
- Nurtures important values, including team-building skills; respecting alternative viewpoints; and appreciating and being aware of different cultures and traditions.
Experts Agree on the Social and Academic Impart of Art Education:
- Art is defined as something aesthetic to the senses. A "work of art" is both an activity and a result; it is a noun and a verb. "One of the great aims of education is to make it possible for people to be engaged in the process of creating themselves. Artists and scientists are alike in this respect."
- Arts curricula is typically process-driven and relationship based, so its impact on academic performance is often underestimated and undervalued. The arts provide a logical counterbalance to the trend of standardized testing and should not be marginalized just because the curriculum is more difficult to measure.
- The emphasis and time given to a particular school subject sends a message to students about how important that subject is in life.
- Arts programs, especially those including trained professionals, can help draw students out of "formal" ways of approaching relationships, outcomes, and perceptions.
- The arts can play a crucial role in improving students' abilities to learn, because they draw on a range of intelligences and learning styles, not just the linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences upon which most schools are based. (Eloquent Evidence: Arts at the Core of Learning, President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, talking about Howard Gardener's Theory of Multiple Intelligences, 1995)
Adults Agree on the Importance of Arts Education:
- Ninety-one percent of respondents believe the arts are vital to a well-rounded education.
- Ninety-five percent of respondents believe the arts teach intangibles such as creativity, self-expression, and individualism.
- Seventy-six percent of respondents somewhat or strongly agree that arts education is important enough to get personally involved. However, just thirty-five percent of those who are closely involved in the life of a child have done so.
- Sixty-seven percent say they do not know how to get involved.
- Eighty-nine percent of respondents believe that arts education is important enough that schools should find the money to ensure inclusion in the curriculum.
- Ninety-six percent agree the arts belong to everyone, not just the fortunate or privileged.
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