Why Use an Arts-Infused Approach?

Rationale for Using the Arts-Infused Approach to Learning

"Today, art education provides opportunities for the visual arts to form the core in a variety of learning environments..."

Art education affirms and embraces interdisciplinary links between the arts and academics by advocating a balanced approach that asserts that arts are a vital part of interrelated art education for all students—not simply an instrument used to raise test scores, but also a domain of knowledge on equal footing with other school subjects considered academic and integral to a holistic education for all students (Aprill, 2001; Clark & Zimmerman, 2004; Costantino, 2002; Gibson & Larson, 2007). The integrative abilities of the visual arts position it at the center of school curricula and play an essential role in linking all subjects, while keeping the arts’ integrity as a domain of knowledge that is fundamental in diverse learning environments (Efland, 2002; Gibson & Larson, 2007).

All students must be educated to use their imaginations and spatial abilities, and attempt problem solving, without relying solely on mathematical or verbal skills. On the other hand, to be successful in the visual arts, an art student or professional artist needs to effectively use skills from other domains such as mathematics, science, and language arts, as well as personal skills including visual thinking and spatial abilities. Today, art education provides opportunities for the visual arts to form the core in a variety of learning environments that highlight individual processes, cultural practices, and technological communication systems. Art education therefore plays a major role in our increasingly visually oriented world by ensuring all students use their creative skills to develop their imaginations through the study of art and its relationship to the world inside and outside their classroom environments (Zimmerman, 2009b, 2010).