When the Puritans landed on the East coast their intent was to build a church to worship in and houses to live in. The Puritans came from England to live where they could have the freedom to worship as they pleased. The Puritanical philosophy saw arts as an image not to pursue and was sinful and forbidden under Biblical beliefs. Art was considered by a pioneering and ruggedly individualistic early America to be an unnecessary and somewhat useless avocation. This idea still persists in the minds of millions of people and educators. It is a phenomenon that the arts have managed to attain the peak of development, public acceptance and admiration since the turn of the century. Art was legislated as a component of public school curriculums from state to state beginning in 1870 and now art education had to be justified. It had to do what other school subjects were designed to do – help children grow and develop skills useful to society. In our American society the school is the only institution officially responsible for educating children in art. The status of art in the past and present is one of the most misunderstood, misused and mistrusted of skills developed by people.
As long as school administrators fail to see how arts activity can be assimilated into the mainstream of the curriculum art classes will have a very minor status in the school programs. The visual language of art is a communication form found in all forms of daily life. Art has provided people tools for the discrimination of knowledge over the entire history of human development. Teachers can learn to integrate art into all areas of the curriculum when they recognize that visual art elements of language provide powers communication. Substantial proportions of Americans feel there are not enough opportunities for children to have art experiences in music, plays and art classes. The excuse given for not developing art programs in elementary schools and middle schools is that the schools can’t afford the time because they must concentrate on bringing up reading and math scores. Teaching art in elementary school helps the child to: express themselves in many different ways, learn to communicate with others, understand individual differences, become aware of different cultures, gain exposure to art expressions and choose leisure time activities. All of these abilities help students to learn and grow and adapt easier to learning of other subjects. Therefore, teachers who integrate art into these areas of learning will find reading and math scores are no longer an issue.
Jaylene Armstrong is a retired art educator from Madison, Wisconsin. For more information, please call 661-255-3050.