DeKalb County School District

Goals for curriculum, instruction, and assessment in art draw their content from the five foundational domains of the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) for visual arts: meaning and creative thinking (MC), contextual understanding (CU), production and response (PR), assessment and reflection (AR), and connections (C). The new Visual Art Performance Standards are available on the Georgia Department of Education's website.

Art education is based on the belief that the arts have intrinsic, cognitive, and enduring value for our students. Art education is comprehensive and sequential and integrates the four curricular components of the arts: art history (knowing who, what, and when); art criticism (knowing why); aesthetic perception (knowing about); and art production (knowing how).

Structured learning situations that include the exposure to and application of a wide variety of media, techniques, and processes are an essential part of the art education instructional program.

Art education contributes to the intellectual, social, and emotional growth of every child, and the art curriculum is designed to develop the unique mental capabilities which foster flexible, divergent, original, fluent, creative, and imaginative thinking.

While art enhances learning in all subject areas by providing visual, auditory, and sensory experiences, it has intrinsic value and is worth learning for its own sake.

We believe the aims of art education are consistent with the aims of general education, which foster the development of creative potential, transmit cultural heritage of one's nation and humanity as a whole, and contribute to the social order and the betterment of mankind.