Art is critical for educating the whole child

• Arts education fosters brain development, especially of the creative and intuitive right brain functions.
• Skills developed through art lead to better learning in other areas.
• Students in quality art programs benefit from a wide range of positive effects including development of creativity and thinking skills, better self-expression, appreciation of art and music, learning about other cultures, and enriched personal satisfaction with their achievements. (Harland, Critical Links).
• The arts provide experiences that cannot be duplicated by other means.
• Art gives pleasure and meaning to our daily experience.
• Insights from the arts are as important in giving meaning to the world as those from science and history.
• Through art, students develop cultural awareness and appreciation of other viewpoints. (Welch)
• Art develops social skills and teamwork. In art class, students are encouraged to share ideas and help each other.

Art is a basic part of a good education

• Creating art helps children discover the unexpected possibilities of their creativity.
• Art teaches critical thinking rather than getting the right answer.
• Through art children learn that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.
• Art teaches students about subtleties.
• Art teaches children to evaluate and make good judgments about qualitative relationships.
• Art reminds us that the limits of our language do not define the limits of our thinking.
• Art celebrates multiple perspectives and different ways to see and interpret the world.
• Art teaches students to explore through and within possible responses.