The arts are essential parts of the human experience, they are not a frill. We recommend that all students study the arts to discover how human beings communicate not only with words, but through music, dance, and the visual arts. During our visits (to schools) we found the arts to be shamefully neglected. Courses in the arts were the last to come and the first to go.

- Dr. Ernest Boyer
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

THE VISUAL ARTS

Children today are growing up in a highly visual world, surrounded by the images of television, videos, advertising displays, and other media. The human brain has a visual cortex that is five times larger than the auditory cortex. Is it any wonder that students respond so positively when they have opportunities to learn through the visual arts? And is it any wonder that words alone do not reach all students? A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

Mona Brookes, founder of Monart Drawing Schools and author of Drawing with Children, describes her work in training teachers through her methods. She says, "I had to develop a structured curriculum that taught enough basics for success and enough freedom for creative expression. It was a delight to find that the structured lessons did not interfere with the symbolic drawings that students did on their own."

Teachers who taught reading reported that children who learned to draw and see through her visual alphabet had dramatic increases in letter recognition and reading readiness. (Jacov Agaam, famous French artist, has found similar results with the visual alphabet he has developed and used in schools throughout the world.)

Brookes reports that "teachers also noticed that the motivation to read expanded when the children drew characters and subjects from their books. Drawing the content of science, geography, and social studies lessons resulted in noticeable differences in speed of learning and retention. When teachers used the abstract design lessons to teach math concepts, they witnessed children break through conceptual blocks with ease while having fun." Districts have reported as much as 20% increases in reading, writing, and math scores as a result of these visual arts experiences.

The discipline of understanding how to take an idea from its inception through the process of experimentation and refinement and into a final satisfying visual product is itself a worthwhile learning experience. Children today do not have many opportunities to experience processes from beginning to end, and too often see only end products on television or grocery shelves. The visual arts not only provide these experiences, but offer the means for helping students to understand and consolidate what they learn. Think of the other skills involved: learning to use the tools of the visual arts, learning to observe carefully, learning to express one's ideas visually, and learning that without discipline there is no real freedom.

Paul Ricouer says, "The arts offer us models for the redescription of the world. They attach us to others, to our history, and to ourselves by providing a tapestry rich with threads of time, place, character, and even advice on what we might do with our lives."

Images of classroom practice in which the arts are taken seriously as modes of learning and methods of teaching cut across grade level and subject matter:

In a high school English classroom, students studying Macbeth design settings of scenes in order to understand and convey the underlying atmosphere Shakespeare's words suggest. Interpretations are made using color, line, texture, and shape.

In a sixth-grade social studies unit on Mexico, students "read" the work of Diego Rivera in order to understand the conditions and situations of life that cannot be expressed in other ways. Perceptions and interpretations of the symbols of visual arts employed by Rivera taught students the skills of "reading" the arts.

In an elementary school, students create a colorful timeline illustrating important historic events posted on the walls of the hallway and growing in length throughout the year.

In growing numbers of classrooms eye-catching posters created by students reinforce current learning.

At all levels, children are producing multi-media reports that include drawings and paintings, photographs, and other illustrations.