Art Department Mission Statement
Visual arts education inspires students to perceive and shape the visual, spatial, and aesthetic characteristics of the world around them. Using a variety of ways to explore, learn, and communicate, students develop their capacity for imaginative and reflective thinking. The field includes the traditional “fine arts” of drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture; the design fields including industrial, ceramic, textile, furniture, and graphic design; and architecture, landscape design and urban, regional, and rural planning. Visual arts is a continuously evolving field that also explores technologies such as film, holography, video, and other electronic forms of image-making.
The curriculum is designed to provide many different types of experiences to allow each child to discover his/her interests, talents, and potentialities and to develop the skills, appreciation, and love of art that will continue for life.
Experiences are planned so that immediate success is possible, yet graduated in difficulty so that progress is always being made in some of the many aspects of art creation.
These experiences are meaningful so that students understand the purpose of whatever is being undertaken.
Teachers guide students in a variety of activities and use the level of difficulty appropriate to the particular situation. Art will be integrated with other subjects whenever this is appropriate and meaningful. Student’s work will be assessed according to personal improvement based on their level of understanding. Special opportunities, such as participation in district, state, and national exhibits will be available to students who have the interest and ability.
Art Department Philosophy
The arts are recognized by the Massachusetts Common Core of Learning, as being an essential component in the total development of each child. Nationally, the Goals 2000 educational reform, approved by both the 104th Congress and President Clinton, and NCLB also includes the arts in the core curriculum. In 1993 the Massachusetts State Legislature voted into law that the arts were to be a core subject, alongside math, science, social studies, and language arts.
The United States Senate passed its bipartisan Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Every Child Achieves Act in 2015. The Falmouth Public Schools concurs with national and state leaders in declaring that aesthetic knowledge is central to the development of the well educated child. Believing that mastery in art is a sequential, life-long process, the Falmouth Public Schools is committed to providing every student with a comprehensive art curriculum that promotes artistic learning, exploration, and expression.
Students need direct, participatory experiences with art in order to develop literacy and skills, understand how artists make aesthetic choices, and interpret, create, and express.
Active engagement in art and an interdisciplinary curriculum contributes to the development of holistically educated students who are better able to solve problems, use their imaginations, develop critical-thinking skills and enjoy life. These experiences also provide students with cognitive and affective skills with which to explore and understand more about themselves and the world.
Art education takes into account the various learning styles inherent in each child. It serves as a catalyst to facilitate non-traditional modes of learning. Students learn by doing. While gaining knowledge, students develop a multiplicity of skills by working collaboratively, being judicious risk-takers, and benefiting from mistakes. Students also strive toward higher levels of achievement, become self-motivated learners, and derive great pride and satisfaction for all that they have achieved.