The Importance of Visual Arts in Schools

Saya merasakan betapa pentingnya Pendidikan Seni Visual di sekolah. Oleh yang demikian saya mengambil sebuah artikal oleh Simen Oliver bertajuk 'The Importance of Visual Arts in schools'. Artikal ini dalam bahasa Inggeris.

Visual arts are a class of art forms that include: painting, sculpture, photography, and other disciplines that focus on the creation of artworks which are primarily visual in nature. Visual arts are said to be important in schools since they tend to develop the intelligence, as well as the overall personality of students. In fact, studies have shown that students who are exposed to visual arts tend to display above average intelligence when it comes to mathematics and science.

Likewise, students who are greatly exposed to visual arts have been observed to exhibit refined manners and develop a much-matured outlook on life. Most educators have also noticed that students perform better in class when visual arts are incorporated in their curriculum.

Moreover, visual arts provide meaningful self-expression of all students. This is also the reason why a great number of educators have integrated visual arts in some of their subject areas in the curriculum. Visual arts educators make use of rich arrays of content to design curriculum that will enable students to be able to meet various standards at different grade levels.

In order to meet the standards, students must be able to learn vocabularies as well as some concepts that are associated with diverse types of work in the visual arts. Likewise, students are expected to exhibit their competence in various levels in visual, oral, and written form. As early as kindergarten, children are taught how to make choices that would enhance the communication of their creative ideas.

Students that are in the middle grades are expected to apply the knowledge as well as the skills in the visual arts to their ever-expanding personal world. Students at this level tend to consider visual art works within its historical concepts that creates in them a deeper appreciation of their own values, and likewise appreciate the values of others and somehow discover the connection of visual arts to the universal needs of people in terms of their values and beliefs.

Students in the higher levels are expected to create more complex and insightful works of visual arts that will reflect the maturation of their creative as well as their problem-solving skills. And although, visual arts classes make use of varied tools, techniques, and processes, students are expected to understand the relationship of different types of media, styles, forms, techniques as well as some of the processes involved in the creation of their own form of visual art. Students are also taught how to recognize the intrinsic value of visual arts and what makes it important in the lives of all educated persons.

Visual arts are also used in therapy procedures for aiding child development. Visual arts assist in educating disabled children, especially those who are blind and have hearing problems. Aside from that, visual arts also help in building communities, mural projects, and are also used to provide education for mentally ill individuals.

At present continuous studies are being conducted to discover more benefits derived from incorporating visual arts in educating students.