On the one hand, art is a language that cannot be translated. Each symbol system of art constructs meaning uniquely. In Watertown, Mass., a group of art teachers worked with researchers to try out some learning tools that engaged art appreciation through talking about art. Artistic activities have aspects that are shared by other academic activities, and certainly arts learning has implications for other kinds of learning. The discipline and training that goes into a flawless a cappella tap dance performance by 30 inner city adolescents from Hartford, Conn.'s Artists Collective might be acquired in some other context.
Artistic activities are most importantly unique, and they satisfy or frustrate uniquely.
If experiencing and coming to know one's humanity through art is not as important an exercise as filling in the right blanks on a multiple-choice test, it's time for us to review and revise our values and not to compromise the teaching of art by asking it to be taught to the tests of other domains. We should be careful not to waste the time of teachers and researchers of the arts by applying the wrong questions to their efforts. Let's once and for all stop asking ourselves how we can teach and evaluate art with the same constraints we apply to other subjects. The time is right for asking ourselves how we can use the exemplary models that the arts provide to improve our teaching and assessment of other subjects. The arts need to be incorporated into every child's learning for the more important purpose of enabling a future generation to participate across circumstance, culture, and time in the ongoing human conversation that is perpetuated through art.