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Habits of Mind
In 2001 Jensen estimated that people receive more than 90% of their information visually, but contemporary culture has become even more dependent on the capacity for instant visual and universal communication (Metros, 2008). Increasingly students must be able to encode visual concepts through creating art and to decode meaning by responding to society’s images, ideas, and media(Sandell, 2003).
Art teachers traditionally have provided access to the meaning of art as a language and thus are instrumental in developing visual literacy—that is, “the ability to interpret, use, appreciate, and create images and video using both conventional and 21st century media in ways that advance understanding, thinking, decision making, communication, and learning” (Texas A&M, n.d.). To develop visually literate citizens, teachers must engage all learners with art in its myriad forms, ideas, and purposes, using it as a qualitative language that, like poetry, explores how, not what, something is. Through the
Teachers of all subject areas must teach their students transformative and informative processes. Quality visual arts instruction gives students opportunities to be proactive learners through direct, firsthand experiences that involve transformative creative processes as well as informative critical thinking processes that apply to learning for life. Quality student engagement in visual art occurs through pedagogy within three interactive studio structures: demonstration and lectures, students at work, and critique (Hetland, Winner, Veenema, &Sheridan, 2007). Diverse aspects of studio thinking help learners:
Develop craftEngage and persist
Envision
Express
Observe
Reflect
Stretch and explore
Understand the art world
(Hetland,informative process are connected to visual imagery and structures, past and present. Through the of creative expression, art learners generate artistic ideas that can be elaborated, refined, and finally shaped into meaningful visual images and structures.
Winner, Veenema, & Sheridan, 2007). Beyond their connection to making or responding to art, those habits of mind are essential to developing 21st century literacy skills that are needed by all citizens.
An Interdisciplinary and Sensory Language
Jacobs (2010) addressed the need to reexamine the traditional school disciplines in the 21st century and said that “central to becomingan educated person is the cultivation of an aesthetic sensibility and the capacity to give form to ideas and emotions” (p. 55). The interdisciplinary nature of the visual arts correlates with the sciences and humanities—among other disciplines—to connect to life, past and present. According to Goldonowicz (1985), Like FRENCH or SPANISH, ART is a language that can be learned and understood. It is a form of communication that one can learn to read and speak through study and practice. Reading art means understanding a visual statement. Speaking art means creating a visual statement. When art seems strange or meaningless, it is only that this language is yet to be understood.informative process are connected to visual imagery and structures, past and present. Through the of creative expression, art learners generate artistic ideas that can be elaborated, refined, and finallyshaped into meaningful visual images and structures.
Learning that incorporates the arts, movement or physical enactment offers students opportunities to engage their academic subjects through talents and abilities which they have not previously recognized as being relevant to their scholastic and cognitive potentials. The representation of learning through creative arts also reduces mistake anxiety by removing expectations for a single correct response or product. When students have choices in ways to practice, use and demonstrate understanding of learning through drawing, computer art, skits, script writing, raps and songs, the brain can be released from the mindset of low expectations of success. When confidence grows through the arts, it may be the first time some students will experience success in certain academic subjects.
The arts can be used to re-motivate frustrated students or enrich the conceptual learning for bored students who have already mastered the information. In these cases, however, artistic activities should be authentic and meaningful; they should not be perceived by students as "add-on fluff" to academic subjects. Indeed, the authenticity of the incorporation must be evident to them if they are to participate to their highest potentials and grow in confidence and competence from their achievements.