Art Education Practice

Students are sensitive to their surroundings. The world presses in on them; they become impressed with its beauty and meaning. Those impressions lead to expressions. Expressions are the way young people connect with the world—how they make meaning of their experiences.

 

Art Educators encourage healthy expressions. Expressions are healthy when they are honest and hopeful, and when they are helped along by good art choices. Learning to choose the good for bad, beauty over what's ugly, builds student confidence. [Young people often misunderstand impressions and misinterpret feelings, leading to a lack of confidence in their expressions, and at a critical time when unfortunately many give up on art.] Impressive art experiences make for the best art expressions.

 

Teachers, then, build student confidence through encouraging healthy expressions and good choices by providing students with good content (art history, criticism, aesthetics) and meaningful experiences.