Art at school?

[Randy]

Do you think all children should study art at school?

Should it be mandatory?

What are the pros of cons of art class?

Did you like your art teacher(s)?

 

[Dee]

Absolutely, yes. It helps with creativity, confidence, motor skills, and even an awareness of different cultures including their own. It helps us to better understand the world around us and should be something that should be, at the very least, introduced to students.

 

[Nebulous]

Absolutely, yes. It helps with creativity, confidence, motor skills, and even an awareness of different cultures including their own. It helps us to better understand the world around us and should be something that should be, at the very least, introduced to students.

Agreed!

I just worry about grading in art class. A child could pour their heart and soul into a project only be crushed by the art teacher giving them a poor grade on their assignment.

 

[EllieCat]

Yes, as long as it is not graded based. I find some art teachers to be a little judgmental and bossy.

 

[MamaFrankie]

No. There are more important subjects.

 

[passenger]

Do you think all children should study art at school?

Absolutely; at least in the elementary grades; maybe it could/should be offered as an elective in higher grades.

 

[Nebulous]

Absolutely; at least in the elementary grades; maybe it could/should be offered as an elective in higher grades.

It is

 

[Juneberry]

I think generally art is a good class to have: it's important for children, in my opinion, to be taught a variety of things they can learn to do to find what they enjoy. However, I'm not sure how long it should be a required class- perhaps making it an optional class for upper levels remains a better option? For starters, forcing children to use specific creative outlets whether they enjoy it or not, at a certain point, can be more harmful than good, I think. Plus, required classes tend to be graded in a way that focuses on 'skill level', and that can be bad for self esteem, and on some level, makes it less like a 'creative outlet' as it should be in my opinion...

However, I think adding art to already existing classes would also help students quite a bit! In one of my special needs high schools, most of our teachers did double duty- for example, my history teacher also taught music, and my math teacher taught art. For one of our major things in math, our teacher actually included an art project: it was basically instead of one of our smaller exams. She had us make posters that showed how we used math in a way that was important to us (for example, mine was about averaging word counts for NaNoWriMo). She was also one of the few remaining teachers I had that didn't mind me doodling in class or drawing on the back of my test afterwards (in fact, she encouraged it and sometimes gave us something math-related to draw, like fractals). Art has many uses- it can make subjects we normally hate or struggle with more bearable, if it's in a form you enjoy. So rather than a dedicated art class, I think at some points, making art just a general addition to regular classes might be more helpful in a way...

 

[Megan]

Of course. Art is awesome. I always enjoyed those classes. Maybe not mandatory in older years but for young kids they should definitely do at least a bit of it.

 

[Nebulous]

Yes, as long as it is not graded based. I find some art teachers to be a little judgmental and bossy.

Well there needs to be some sort of accountability, if someone doesn't do any of the assignments then they shouldn't pass the class.

No. There are more important subjects.

Should students only focus on the important subjects and have no elective classes?

 

[MamaFrankie]

If they want to take art, fine, that is their choice. But art should not be mandatory.

 

[Nebulous]

If they want to take art, fine, that is their choice. But art should not be mandatory.

I don't think it is, at least it wasn't for me. It was an optional class that we could take if wanted to.