An education in the arts benefits society because students of the arts disciplines gain powerful tools for:

    -understanding human experiences, both past and present;
    -teamwork and collaboration;
    -making decisions creatively when no prescribed answers exist;
    -learning to adapt to and respect others' (diverse) ways of thinking, working, and expressing themselves;
    -learning problem recognition and problem solving, involving expressive, analytical, and developmental tools to every human 

     situation (this is why we speak, for example, of the "art" of teaching or the "art" of politics);
    -understanding the influence of the arts and their power to create and reflect cultures, the impact of design on our daily life,    

     and in the interdependence of work in the arts with the broader worlds of ideas and action;

    -developing the essential senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and kinesthetics as intellectual, emotional, physical,

    creative, and expressive acts;
    -analyzing nonverbal communication and making informed judgments about cultural products and issues; and
    communicating effectively.

 

My Purpose as an Art Teacher

 

    The twenty-first century needs creative minds that can face the complications of a multi-layered world. Today’s youth will need to present answers and create meaningful outcomes. The idea of art explains abstract principles that can help prepare a young mind for the future. Art can be practical to any subject and any aspect of life. The visual arts are tools to develop higher thinking and independent critical reasoning. As an art teacher, I know that creating engaging lessons and authentic experiences in art making that address concerns of young people in our current society is extremely important.

    An art curriculum can strengthen a student’s sense of identity and cultural awareness, which is growing more and more important with diversity in schools. I also want to teach art to prepare young minds of decision-making, and its true outcome is to prepare students with the flexibility of mind and ability to approach real life situations from different perspectives and points of view. Our society is identified more and more forcefully by visual images. The ability to take images apart to find meaning and hidden cues is a must. I want to help kids beginning at the kindergarten level all the way through twelfth grade with the knowledge to interpret the growing amount of visual images thrown at them.

    More specifically, art education benefits both student and society. Involving the "whole child" in the arts gradually teaches many types of literacy while developing intuition, sensitivity, reasoning, imagination, and dexterity. This process requires not merely an active mind but a trained one. Arts education helps students perceive and think in new ways. The arts also help provide and extend meaning. Because so much of a child's education in the early years is devoted to acquiring the skills of language and mathematics, children gradually learn, unconsciously, that the "normal" way to think is linear and sequential, that the pathway to understanding moves from beginning to end, from cause to effect. In this early mode, students trust those symbol systems (words, numbers, and abstract concepts) that separate the person from their experiences. But the arts teach a different lesson by often starting in a different place. The arts cultivate the senses that trust the unmediated flash of insight as a legitimate source of knowledge. The arts connect person and experience directly, building bridges between verbal and nonverbal, logic and emotion--the better to gain an understanding of the whole. Both approaches are powerful; both are necessary. To deny students either is to disable them

    In my classroom, I want to lead students to think more abstractly and give them the ability to make connections between concepts. Recognizing that any artwork is open to diverse interpretations, and understanding all opinions can be equally valid and true is what I want my students to understand. Exchanging perspectives will appear in many aspects of life besides just art. I don’t want to put my students down for a project that I myself might not find aesthetically pleasing. I want to provide constructive criticism to support my students with their exploration for their artistic self.

    This frameset of an art curriculum gradually liberates students from guided support from the teacher in an effort give a choice in personal visual strategies. My art lessons are progressively less structured as students mature to increase imagination and the right of exploration. I place more emphasis on the older student’s self-analysis of their work. In creating lesson plans, I first create a lesson overview with my goals of the project. I list my learning objectives focusing on furthering student knowledge and bettering or acquiring skills. I  also consider prerequisites, background knowledge, and materials available when creating activities for my students. After the completion of the lesson, I assess the behaviors and feelings as well as successes and problems my students had to make adjustments for the next class or next year.

    “Education itself improves the quality of an individual’s life opening new possibilities to thinking and learning (Spring, 2008, p. 33).”  I want to open new ways of thinking and learning to my students as a future art teacher. I hope to create an authentic appreciation of art to today’s youth. Art is more than just an outside appearance; it is a genuine expression used for another way of communicating. As a teacher, I yearn to enhance our youth’s ability to create and appreciate artwork, which plays a huge role in today’s graphic society. Art is everywhere in our world and it’s important that students are aware of and can understand visual communication.