Using the national visual arts standards to your best advantage.

State standards, benchmarks, or frameworks have become a way of life for most art teachers. When they write lesson plans, they look over their state's visual arts standards and insert a couple that seem to fit that lesson. We've been doing it for years now and most of us don't question this activity. We just select some standards, paste them in, and keep going. But this quick-and-dirty way of using standards is probably not the best way to use them. A more organized way of developing a curriculum is to review the standards, think about what you plan to teach, and then develop lessons that allow students to meet each of these standards in lessons during the course.

National Arts Standards and No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

Even though art isn't mandated in every state, most states have arts standards that school districts require teachers to include. However, this was not always the case. The National Art Education Standards were developed and adopted in the early 1990s in response to mandates for educational reform and accountability. Now in the age of NCLB, arts are listed as an academic core subject, but in reality the teaching and testing of math and reading have squeezed time and funding from the arts.

The Difference Standards Make

Now arts standards have become more important than ever. They define what a world-class art program should expect from students. Even in the smallest schools, we want to educate students to think creatively and critically so that they become contributing citizens in both their communities. By including standards similar to the national arts standards in our school curriculum, we and our school administration affirm that to be truly educated, a person must have at least a basic knowledge of the arts.

As class time is being shifted from the arts to areas that can be assessed by multiple-choice tests, the standards remind art educators and school administrators that a quality art program demands time. The standards require a rigorous, rich art program, not fluff, for all students--a program that leaves no child behind in art.

Content and Achievement

There are six national content standards that remain constant for kindergarten through grade twelve. These are understanding and using art processes, media and techniques; knowledge of art structures (elements and principles) and art functions; choosing and evaluating ideas, subjects, and symbols; understanding the art of diverse times and cultures; reflecting on and assessing art; and connecting visual arts with other disciplines.

Each of these content standards has achievement standards indicating proficiency. At the high-school level advanced achievement standards are included in addition to the proficiency standards. So, in most art classes you should expect students to meet achievement standards that indicate proficiency but in upper-level high school courses, you should also expect them to meet the advanced achievement standards.

Addressing Standards

Not every standard must be met in every lesson, but all the standards should be met in an art course. Usually two or more standards can be addressed in an art lesson. For example, if students were painting masks, they would meet Standard 1 as they learned to apply the paint, Standard 2 as they considered the color and design they would use, Standard 3 if they learned about symbols to include on their mask, Standard 4 if they learned about masks and art of another culture, Standard 5 when they wrote an assessment of their masks, and Standard 6 when they connected their mask-making with that of a culture they had studied in social studies.

Evidence of High Expectations

The national standards are intentionally stated broadly to allow teachers and schools to structure their programs to meet the needs of their communities and students and yet still achieve the national standards. Some states call their visual arts standards "benchmarks" because they deal with what students should be able to do or know at certain points in a sequential art program. Others call them "frameworks" suggesting that these are a structure or backbone of a basic art education.

The standards provide communities, school boards, administrators, teachers, and students descriptions of the knowledge and skills that students will be expected to achieve in art classes. They describe the basics found in the best, thorough, sequential art programs. Standards are more important than ever as we seek to provide our students with the art skills, knowledge, and critical, creative thinking abilities to succeed in tomorrow's world.

References

Arts Education Partnership Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington, DC.

WEB LINKS

ARTSEDGE, The National Standards for Arts Education artsedge.kennedycenter.org/teach/standards

Kaye Passmore is an assistant professor of art education at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. [e-mail]