Expanding the Availability of High School Art

Abstract

Art teachers are dedicated and hardworking people, but as committed as they are it is usually impossible for them to reach all of the students in their schools. As art educators all well know, art in secondary schools is an elective subject following a period when it may be required of all students. This requirement, however-where it occurs at all-may extend from a few weeks to a year or more. As soon as art becomes an elective, only about 10% to 15% of students can be expected to enroll. If there were more art teachers in secondary schools, then a larger proportion of secondary school populations might be reached; but no such prospect is likely. The professional efforts of art educators will continue to be held down to the present token proportions in schools unless means are devised to overcome obstacles of staffing and programming. What follows is a description of an instructional system that has been developed and applied successfully, whereby a single art teacher's effectiveness has been considerably expanded. The full potential of this system has not yet been reached, but even at the present stage of development it is possible to open the instructional enrollment of art in a school quite considerably, virtually without any increase to the load of the art teacher-and yet with the teacher deriving considerable satisfaction from what has happened. The ultimate goal, however, remains as nothing less than making art instruction a natural part of the education of all secondary school students. This topic presents one step along that road.