Philosophical Foundations for Art Education in Fulton County Schools

Art Education in Fulton County Schools integrates the study of art history, art criticism, aesthetics, and art production. As a subject in our schools, art education is based on the belief that looking at, talking about, and making art are processes essential to the well-educated student.

The well-educated person is conversant with a breadth of ideas about–

• functions and styles of art in a wide range of cultures and societies
• influences, impact, and relationships of art to events and the human condition throughout history
• purposes, functions, and theories of art and artists in society
• knowledge, application and use of a variety of art media, skills, techniques, and processes.

The study of art provides major opportunities to nourish high level thinking. When well taught, skills associated with artistic thinking include the ability to see clearly, analyze, reflect, make judgments, forge connections among ideas and information, and generate new ideas from diverse sources.

Additional issues are integrated fully and/or accommodated in art education curriculum:

• Cultural diversity: Art images, objects, processes, and purposes are embedded within contexts and cultures across space and time.
• Interdisciplinary connections: Art teachers seek out opportunities to work with other teachers to integrate a variety of curriculum content into art and art content into curriculum.
• Technology: As a burgeoning career field, creative use of technology requires high level thinking of the kind associated with artistic endeavor. Because today’s world depends upon being able to, with a discriminating eye, “read,” interpret, consume, and (often) produce technologically rendered visual imagery, technology and art will become increasingly critical to success in the work force of the 21st century.
• Reading and Writing, K – 12: Writing-Across-Curriculum and Reading-Across-Curriculum are fundamental to art education in Fulton County Schools at all levels. Art criticism and aesthetics, in particular, provide rich opportunities to reinforce writing, reading, and oral presentation. Art Criticism and aesthetics necessarily involve speculation and reflection as students develop an ability to form convincing, persuasive, predictive, and well supported propositions, positions, and judgments.
• A premise for art education: The four reading strategies (predict-visualize-connect-question) can be applied to reading visual text as well as verbal text about art.
• Adaptive Art: Most students with exceptionalities and special needs are accommodated in regular art classes, K-12. Eight Adaptive Art specialists, however, serve certain self-contained special education classes, special needs kindergarten, special needs pre-school, and serve as a resource to teachers as time allows. The program serves students in over forty schools.
• Character Education in Art Education: Art Education provides an abundance of instructional opportunities to model and enhance understanding of character traits. Exploring the artistic heritage of many cultures across space and time, analyzing qualities and features of art, thinking about and making informed judgments about art, creating art, and connecting understandings among subjects all call upon responsible and informed practice of the traits of good character. These processes require a strong respect for self, a strong respect for others, and understanding of traits associated with citizenship.
• Assessment, K – 12: Assessment is integral and essential to the teaching and learning of art. Assessments must be aligned with the content of objectives at the various cognitive levels at which they are specified. Measures to assess progress may include quizzes, tests, notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, portfolios, rubrics, self-evaluations, presentations, demonstrations, and teacher observations.

  Elementary: Students receive both a subject grade and a conduct grade. At this level we do not grade children's artwork; we grade children's art learning.
  Middle and high school: Students are graded on the learning of art content and knowledge, as well as the art work produced as a result of such instruction.
  All art education curricula, K-12, inclusive of technology, reading/writing, and assessment, are guided by and aligned with the following Goals for Art Education:

Goals for curriculum, instruction, and assessment in art draw their content from the four foundational disciplines of art and align with National Standards for Visual Arts Education:

• ART PRODUCTION (the making of art)
  Making art is a major part of curriculum and instruction for art education; however, hands-on activities are placed into a broad context by an approach that integrates all four disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary connections. Artwork produced in this kind of “environment” tends to be informed, content grounded, and purposeful.
• ART HISTORY (exploration of the artistic heritage of many cultures)
  Study of art works, styles, and movements provide historical and cultural contexts for under-standing art as a vital and significant aspect of the achievements of humankind. Students learn to see and value connections among art and events across space, time, and cultures.
• ART CRITICISM (analysis of qualities and features of art)
  Students learn the language of art, how to critique art, and how to support and defend preferences as informed reasons, rather than opinions. Expressing ideas, reasoning articulately – both verbally and in writing – is essential to processes of art criticism.
• AESTHETICS (thinking about art and making informed judgments about art)
  Objectives and strategies tailored to appropriate developmental levels help students think about and respond to aesthetics questions (for which there are rarely “right” answers). Students learn to understand, appreciate, and generate their own ideas about art, culture, and the human condition. They learn to select and use evidence, justify, defend, and present a persuasive case for their views. Students also learn how people justify judgments about art by applying appropriate criteria to determine the intent of an artwork as representational (realistic), structural (formal) or expressive (emotional).