• Art teaches students many skills that they cannot learn in the regular classroom.art student image by feisty from Fotolia.com
  
  Many schools have eliminated their art and music programs in the effort to raise test scores and trim budgets. An ever-increasing emphasis is being placed upon teaching students how to pass the standardized tests, and students are required to spend longer hours in the academic classroom. However, some researchers feel that this approach is wrong. Students can learn many important skills in art class that they are unable to learn in a traditional classroom.
  
  

Thinking Skills

• In September 2007 Ellen Winner, a psychology professor at Boston College, and Lois Hetland, an associate art education professor from the Massachusetts College of Art, collaborated on an article published by the Boston Globe called "Art for Our Sake." Winner and Hetland feel that children will suffer academically if they are not exposed to the fine arts. Art can teach a student vital thinking and observational skills. For example, art students learn how to visualize, which is a skill that they also need to become better readers and problem solvers. Students in art classes learn how to be innovative and take risks, and they are less afraid of making mistakes. Finally, students learn how to look at objects and people objectively rather than subjectively. This allows them to distance themselves from a problem and look at it from a different angle, which is another important problem-solving skill.
  
  

Job Skills

• Jonathan Rappaport, the executive director from the Conservatory Lab Charter School, published an article in 2007 in the Boston Globe called "Arts Skills are Life Skills." In this article, Rappaport noted that corporate executives are actively looking for employees who can think creatively, use reasoning skills, and present information effectively to others.
  
  Art classes can teach students all of these critical skills. Creative thinking is one of the most important skills students can learn in a visual arts course. Students also learn how to solve problems using logic and reasoning skills. Finally, they learn how to present their artwork to others, but even more importantly, they learn how to accept constructive criticism and how to work towards improvement.
  
  

Mental Skills

• Winner and Hetland found that students who were taught using a fine arts curriculum had desirable mental habits. First, students learned how to work on tasks for long periods of time and how to keep working even when they became frustrated. Next, they were better at making connections between the classroom and the outside world. They also used emotion and expression in their work. Last, children who were exposed to art were able to reflect upon their own work and self-evaluate their creations.