Sometimes we think of arts as "extra," but in addition to aesthetic appreciation, the arts teaches other modes of thinking that are valuable across every discipline. Students who learn lessons in the arts are prepared to see patterns, learn from mistakes, and envision solutions. (How 21st century!) These 8 habits provide a framework and language that supports such a disposition:
Develop Craft: Learn to use tools, materials, and artistic conventions. Learn to care for tools, materials, and space.
Develop Craft: Learn to use tools, materials, and artistic conventions. Learn to care for tools, materials, and space.
Engage & Persist: Learn to embrace problems of relevance within the art world and/or of personal importance, to develop focus conducive to working and persevering at tasks.
Envision: Learn to picture mentally what cannot be directly observed, and imagine possible next steps in making a piece.
Express: Learn to create works that convey an idea, a feeling, or a personal meaning.
Observe: Learn to attend to visual contexts more closely than ordinary “looking” requires, and thereby to see things that otherwise might not be seen.
Reflect: Learn to think and talk with others about an aspect of one’s work or working process, and learn to evaluate one’s own work and process and the work of others.
Stretch & Explore: Learn to reach beyond one’s capacities, to explore playfully without a preconceived plan, and to embrace the opportunity to learn from mistakes.
Understand (Arts) Community: Learn to interact with other student artists and within the broader society.
