Art in education has always had somewhat mixed reviews. There are many schools that don’t believe that art belongs in education. They believe that there is art and then there is education and the two have nothing to do with each other.

I am a big believer in the importance of art in education, as part of education and I what I believe is based on the research that having art in education helps kids learn.

When I was a graduate student at Bank Street College of Education there was a wonderful book I read when  taking my Art  for Teachers course. It was called “An Experiment in Education” by a woman named Sybil Marshall. Ms Marshall  died in 2005 at the age of 91. The book itself was printed in 1963 in England and tells of Ms. Marshalls experiences  in working with children in very remote rural locations, using art as a basis for her educational philosophy.

There were many ages grouped together and children learned according to their level.

I would like to share with you some of the things I learned from Ms. Marshall and if you choose  you can choose  AN EXPERIMENT IN EDUCATION and read it yourself, it’s a great read.

Sybil Marshall believed that the first prerequisite of a good teacher is to know what she/he is trying to teach. As a result one needs to be actively involved in always educating yourself and then to have the ability to judge which part of the knowledge you gained is suitable for the children.

The second prerequisite would be to be able to pass on this knowledge in as few words as possible.

There are still too many she says that regard “to talk” and “to teach” as synonymous.

One needs to know the place of arts in education as a whole and there is no limit to the variety of subjects the children will tackle with complete confidence if their early experiences with art is free enough.

Courage and enthusiasm will take them places you never dreamed of.

It is essential to grasp all of the ideas that make learning more interesting and more easily assimilated and then by teaching children through the means of art this will open doors to the children that may not have been opened to them previously.

Children have a natural gift for expressing themselves in art form and will paint as naturally as they talk or move if they are allowed to.

One cannot tell children however “paint what you like” as it can be terrifying to select just one thing from all of their experiences.

Children that are instructed like that tend to make the house with the chimney and the smoke or something else someone “has shown them how to make”

This is not art or self expression.

When children begin with free exploration and have lots of experiences with art they then will have the confidence to plunge right in when told to paint what they like if the materials are enticing enough.

The search for the right kind of subjects is the teachers job but pretty soon the children will be working alongside the teacher with ideas of their own.

When the children are illustrating a story they need to pinpoint which moment in the story to they want to catch.

One of the most important points that she stresses in the book is that things that really matter are that because of what we teach children, they become interested enough to go on wanting to know and because of how we teach children they learn to think for themselves and have confidence in their own judgment.

By incorporating art into our educational curriculum we are thereby causing the children to love learning more and to want to keep learning.