About Visual Arts

The visual arts are unique languages and symbol systems for communicating ideas, feelings, and different ways of knowing about oneself and the world. The visual arts provide a record of civilization through diverse cultural artifacts that reflect aspects of human thought, action, and experience, and assist students in making connections across subject matter.

Importantly, the visual arts develop essential workplace qualities of:

• Teamwork
• Collaboration
• Flexibility
• Appreciation and respect for others’ ideas and personal expressions.

The visual arts engage the whole individual in the acts of creating and responding involving the intellectual, the intuitive, the emotional, and the physical being. The richness of the visual arts and its contribution to thinking and learning demand that every student have access to the knowledge, skills, and understandings of visual arts education.

The Visual/Media Arts Program (K-12) goals include having students experience the full range of the visual arts with an emphasis on the NYS Standards for the Arts.

• Developing a lifelong curiosity about the arts, and understanding that art transcends time is one of the Common Core Standards in the Arts.
• Through the process of art making, the study of art pieces, and art movements, the student will be able to make informed hypotheses about art and how it relates to common core disciplines and their world.
• The student will also understand that art is a human endeavor that reflects the values that are important to cultures, society, and individuals.