Arts in Education

|Back|

New York State Learning Standards for the Arts

Since the dawn of history, the arts have involved people as creators, performers and audiences. People of every society in the world have expressed and still express themselves through design, visual arts, architecture, dance, drama, theater, music, media arts, poetry, story, and other media. What they create gives them and their audiences pleasure and says something about their culture and its concerns. 

. . . Preliminary Draft Framework for the Arts, NYS Education Dept.

The arts represent multiple forms of intelligence and multiple ways of knowing the worlds that are not duplicated by other means. For the learners, the arts invite both active learning and reflection, affirm diversity of learning and are intrinsically rewarding, resulting in motivation to learn.

For the first time in history, standards of achievement have been developed for the arts, reflected in the National Standards for Arts Education and in the Framework for the Arts in New York State. The Framework grew out of the efforts to realize the educational excellence voiced in Goals 2000 and echoed in the Compact for Learning, calling for schools to work with arts, cultural and community groups.

Curriculum Frameworks are documents that provide direction for local schools and districts to follow as they design curriculums that address the needs of students. They also guide assessment development and staff development. They help develop a coherent vision of what students should know, understand and be able to do over the course of their education, both within and across disciplinary areas. They allow for schools to focus on results while adopting different approaches to achieving them, thus encouraging innovation and flexibility. They support rigorous decision-making about curriculum by requiring that decisions be justified in terms of learning goals.

The four aspects of instruction that are the core of the New York State Learning Standards for the Arts are outlined on the following page. The four disciplines - dance, music, theater, and visual arts - as well as levels of achievement and performance are addressed in the complete document. Through the arts standards and other discipline standards, the schools of New York State take their place in encouraging children and young adults to explore and participate in the arts and other disciplines and to enjoy them in the home, work place and community both now and as life-long learners.