Art Education

Art education is the area of learning that is based upon the visual arts—drawing, painting, sculpture, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics, etc and design applied to more practical fields such as commercial graphics and home furnishings.

The term "arts education" implies many things, but it is defined as: Instruction and programming in all arts areas—including but not limited to dance, music, visual art, theater, creative writing, media arts, history, criticism, and aesthetics. Within the schools "visual arts education" encompasses all the visual and performing arts delivered in a standards-based, sequential approach by a qualified instructor as part of the core curriculum.

Education in art takes place across the life-span. As a result children, youth, and adults learn about art in community based institutions and organizations such as museums, local arts agencies, recreation centers, places of worship, social service agencies, and prisons among many other possible venues. Education in art also occurs in the home as well as through formal and informal apprenticeship programs.

Forms of art education have varied through history, reflecting the social values of their culture. Apprenticeships of individuals were once the norm; more recently the democratization of education, particularly as promoted by educational philospher John Dewey, has supported providing every student opportunities to create. Enrollment in art classes at the high school elective level peaked in the late 1960's—early 1970's with that period's emphasis on individuals expressing uniqueness. Currently 'art(s) magnet schools', available in many larger communities, use art(s) as a core or underlying theme to attract those students motivated by personal interest or with the intention of becoming a professional or commercial artist. It is widely reported that the arts are losing instruction time in school based upon budget cuts in combination with increasing test-based assessments of children which the federal government's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act requires. It is worth noting that while the NCLB retains the arts as part of the "core curriculum" for all schools, it does not require reporting any instruction time or assessment data for arts education content or performance standards, which is reason often cited for the decline or possible decline of arts education in American public schools.

There are thousands of arts education curricular models or models for arts or arts-based professional development for teachers that schools and community organizations use.

Strong art education programs have proven to increase student performance in other academic areas, due to art activities' exercise of the brain's right hemisphere and lateral thinking. Support for art education, however, varies greatly by community.