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A child's education is incomplete without opportunities to experience and become a part of the arts. These experiences must begin at an early age and be based on sound principles of child development. It is the responsibility of the school to provide equitable arts opportunities for all children.
The arts:
provides a vehicle for personal expression, universal understanding, and flexibility of thought and action.
celebrate human variety, the value of the individual, and the universality of all human experience.
redefine competition, organization, and success.
promote depth of understanding, self discovery, divergent thinking, and empowerment through the creative process.
elevate and enrich the human experience by providing intensely personal modes of expression that add depth and understanding to all learning.
As in all content areas, the successful student first acquires a body of information and learns the language of the discipline. It is essential that these foundations be guided by highly-skilled specialists who can provide the history of the arts, cross-cultural experiences in the arts, a broad range of skills, flexibility of opportunity and appreciation of innovative outcomes. Beyond this, teachers in every discipline must recognize the value of the arts as a catalyst for other content areas, and must be trained to infuse the arts in an interdisciplinary framework. Arts instruction provides the language and tools; infusion of the arts with academic curriculum multiplies a child's ability for interdisciplinary understanding and creative expression.
Every child should be both a consumer of the arts and a participant. Community/school district partnerships should provide exposure to performances and exhibits of all kinds and encourage parent understanding and support through parent education.
Rockford District 205 supports Illinois State Board of Education guidelines that recognize the arts as a basic content area. Its mission to develop the potential of each child includes a commitment to making the arts an essential and lifelong part of every child's experience. |
