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NJPEP Home > Standards > Visual and Performing Arts (Revised)

The Vision

Experience with and knowledge of the arts is a vital part of a complete education. The arts are rich disciplines that include a vibrant history, an exemplary body of work to study, and compelling cultural traditions. An education in the arts is an essential part of the academic curriculum for the achievement of human, social, and economic growth. The education of our students in the disciplines of dance, music, theater, and visual art is critical to their personal success and to the success of New Jersey as we move into the twenty-first century. The arts offer tools for development. They enable personal, intellectual, and social development for each individual. Teaching in and through the arts within the context of the total school curriculum, especially during the formative years of an elementary K-6 education, is key to maximizing the benefits of the arts in education.

For students, an education in the arts provides:

  • The ability to be creative and inventive decision-makers;

  • Varied and powerful ways of communicating ideas, thoughts, and feelings;

  • An enhanced sense of poise and self-esteem;

  • The confidence to undertake new tasks;

  • An increased ability to achieve across the curriculum;

  • A framework that encourages teamwork and fosters leadership skills;

  • Knowledge of the less recognized experiences of aesthetic engagement and intuition;

  • Increased potential for life success; and

  • An enriched quality of life.

Recent studies such as Critical Links and Champions of Change provide evidence of the positive correlations between regular, sequential instruction in the arts and improved cognitive capacities and motivations to learn. These often result in improved academic achievement through near and far transfer of learning (i.e., music and spatial reasoning, visual art and reading readiness, dance and non-verbal reasoning and expressive skills, theater and reading comprehension, writing proficiency, and increased peer interaction). Additionally, the arts are uniquely qualified to cultivate a variety of multiple intelligences.

For our society, an education in the arts fosters a population that:

  • Is equipped with essential technical skills and abilities significant to many aspects of life and work;

  • Understands and can impact the increasingly complex technological environment around us;

  • Has a humanities focus that allows social, cultural, and intellectual interplay, among men and women of different ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds; and

  • Is critically empowered to create, reshape, and fully participate in the enhancement of the quality of life for all.

It is the intent of the standards to ensure that all students have regular sequential arts instruction and that specialization takes into account student choice. This is in keeping with the National Standards for Arts Education (1994), which states:

"All basic subjects, including the arts, require more than mere exposure or access. While valuable, a once-a-month visit from an arts specialist, visits to or from professional artists, or arts courses for the specially motivated do not qualify as basic or adequate arts instruction. They certainly cannot prepare all students to meet the standards presented here. These standards assume that students in all grades will be actively involved in comprehensive, sequential programs that include creating, performing, and producing on the one hand, and study, analysis, and reflection on the other. Both kinds of activities are indispensable elements of a well-rounded education in the arts."

In New Jersey, equitable access to arts instruction can only be achieved if the four arts disciplines are offered throughout the K-12 spectrum. At the K-6 level, it is the expectation that students are given broad-based exposure through instruction as well as opportunities for participation in each of the four arts forms. In grades 7-8, they should gain greater depth of understanding in at least one of those disciplines. In grades 9-12, it is the expectation that students demonstrate competency in at least one arts discipline.

The state arts standards also reflect the same expectations as those stated in the National Standards for Arts Education (1994). The goal is that by graduation all students will be able to communicate at a basic level in the arts, and that they:

  • Communicate proficiently, demonstrating competency in at least one art form, including the ability to define and solve artistic problems with insight, reason, and technical proficiency;

  • Be able to develop and present basic analysis of works of art from structural, historical, and cultural perspectives;

  • Have an informed acquaintance with exemplary works of art from a variety of cultures and historical periods; and

  • Relate various types of arts knowledge and skills within and across the arts disciplines.

The revised arts standards assist educators in delineating the required knowledge and expected behaviors in all four of the arts disciplines. This format reflects the critical importance of locating the separate arts disciplines as one common body of knowledge and skills.