Art is Life...Embrace the Journey
Arts have intrinsic value. They cultivate the whole child, building many kinds of literacy while developing
intuition, reasoning, creativity, imagination, and dexterity into diverse forms of expression and communication.
The Arts enable students to make decisions and seek multiple solutions. They improve perception,
reflection, and creative thought. They advance higher order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis and
evaluation. The Arts provide powerful tools for understanding human experiences and cultures—past,
present and future.
Arts education engages students in a creative process that helps them develop the self-motivation,
discipline, cooperation and self-esteem necessary for success in life.
The Arts consists of Dance, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts. The content and performance standards
for the Arts describe what all students should know and be able to do in the Arts. Although
literary arts are generally considered a part of the Arts, standards for the literary arts are integrated throughout
the Communication Arts.
Students understand and express themselves in depth through an art form by:
• generating original art;
• participating, re-creating, and exhibiting; and
• reacting and placing value.
As a result, they arrive at their own knowledge and beliefs for making personal and artistic decisions.
The ability to use and share knowledge is fundamental to human experience. The Arts: Dance, Music, Theatre,
Visual Arts, provide many of the tools for students to successfully interact with their world.
Artistic expression is a critical form of self-expression and communication requiring specific skills, knowledge,
and techniques. In the Arts there is no one correct answer. Students must exercise judgment. This
helps to develop the ability to weigh the benefits among alternative courses of action. This process yields
multiple rather than singular solutions.
Reflecting on the Arts heightens critical thinking and qualitative judgment. Students practice and use higher
order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation to understand works of art.
It is important for students to be knowledgeable about the nature, value, and meaning of the Arts in the
context of their own humanity with respect to community, environment, and culture.
Arts are part of everyone’s daily experience. The Arts reflect the culture that produces them. As students
work in the Arts, it is important to understand how the Arts disciplines relate to one another, to other
subjects, and to their life.
From the Montana Office of Public Instruction