Issues that require visionary leadership include the provision of qualified staff, districtwide sequential curriculum, instruction and assessment, well-equipped facilities designed to meet program needs, and adequate instructional time and materials. An effective arts curriculum emphasizes development of students' skills and understanding of creating, performing, and responding. Students involved in these ways of learning gain knowledge about the arts, refine their perceptual and expressive skills, and exercise their powers of analysis in order to make and justify judgments about works of art. Students who are given such opportunities in school are better prepared to continue active engagement with the arts as adults. Creating refers to generating original art.
Students learn to use the symbolic languages, structures, and techniques of each discipline.
With these skills they may express and communicate their own ideas and feelings when they draw, paint, or sculpt visual images, write dramatic works, or compose or improvise an original piece of music or dance. Performing refers to interpreting an artwork that already exists such as a play, a song, or a symphony. Here students apply skills in singing, reading music, playing instruments, directing, acting, or dancing. Responding refers to the analyzing and evaluating artistic expression. Students demonstrate their ability to respond with understanding when they describe, analyze, interpret, and evaluate their own artwork and the artwork of others.