Response to Alternative Approaches for Implementation of the Regents Policy Statement on Middle Level Education
SUMMARY BY DR. PATRICIA BARBANELL
ADVOCACY CHAIR AND PAST PRESIDENT
NEW YORK STATE ART TEACHERS ASSOCIATION
The New York State Art Teachers
Association (NYSATA) knows that the Honorable Regents and the Commission of
Education have deep understanding of the importance of all content areas,
including the visual arts. In that spirit of mutual respect, I would like
to briefly summarize crucial points that should not be overlooked in
selecting approaches to implement Middle Level Education policy for the
students of New York State.
The Visual Arts are an essential part of our American Society. It is impossible to image a world without art. To illustrate this point, I offer as an example, the cover of the current Economist magazine (see next page). This graphic magazine cover concretizes the fact that the visual communication and expression, in the simplest and most complex ways, enables us to understand our world and make choices within it. To engage the reader and entice the buyer, the Economist moves beyond the printed words -- "AMERICA. Greatest danger? Greatest hope?" -- (which convey little depth and content). Using art as a communications tool, the power and importance of conflicting ideas and perceptions is clearly evident.
Students need a sequential study of art to be able to 'read' the visual and also to communicate in it. In New York State where the Arts are the 3rd largest industry, we would do a disservice to youngsters if we do not ensure that all school aged New Yorkers have the opportunity to learn in the visual arts. Their future employment and their future understanding of their world relies on that opportunity.
Research has confirmed that brain development in the Middle School years is crucial to adult competencies. Particularly significant is evidence that when students do not exercise areas of the brain... such as artistic skills and creative thinking... they loose brain cells and are unlikely to be able to learn the areas that are lost later in life.
The importance of visual skills is not restricted to careers in the arts. Recently the Journal of American Medicine reported on recognition by Johns Hopkins Medical College faculty of the differences among their surgery students in ability to visually interpret signs of illness in the human body. Students who had strong arts backgrounds performed well, others did not. As a result, the medical college and others around the nation, have begun to provide art courses as a remedial tool to help future doctors to visually decode medicine.
In sum, the NYSATA strongly advocates that any and all regulatory changes at the middle level comprehensively and coherently proscribe the necessity for sequential arts instruction for all students throughout their education, and specifically at the middle level.
January 2004
