Art instruction faces multiple challenges, including meeting educational standards that require students to achieve proficiency in at least one art form and basic communication skills across dance, music, theatre, and visual arts.
The Challenge of Meeting Standards in Art Instruction
The standards suggest that students know and be able to do the following by the time they have completed secondary school:
Be able to relate various types of arts knowledge and skills within and across the arts disciplines.
Have an informed acquaintance with exemplary works of art from a variety of cultures and historical periods.
Be able to develop and present basic analyses of works of art from structural, historical, and cultural perspetives, and from combinations of those perspectives.
Be able to communicate proficiently in at least one art form, including the ability to define and solve artistic problems.
Be able to communicate at a basic level in the four arts discipline: dance, music, theatre, and visual arts.
Ethical Issues Associated with the Use of Images and Other Materials
Students must know that they need to cite sources and request permission to use information, images, or other sourced materials.
Accessing Images Used in Art Instruction
If schools use filtering software on computers to protect students from unsavory materials (e.g., pornography) a lot can be filtered out:
- nude as metaphor for beauty, nature, and life.
- the works of lesser known, more contemporary artists can sometimes blur the line between what is generally considered to be art.
- great works of art.
Funding for Art Instruction
Funding for arts education is at an all-time low as a result of lean economic times and the ever-increasing emphasis on accountability in mathematics and reading in standardized testing.
Teachers and school administrators must increasingly find ways to stretch funds available for arts education.
