art

Mrs. McClaire – GBES Art Educator

I believe teachers of art must have a positive, cheerful, and outgoing personality. Students want to rely on and believe in their teacher’s ability to help with important choices in resolving puzzling problems. Teachers of art learn to listen to the children’s descriptions and do not make light of their potential to excel.

Grafton Bethel’s Art Education is firmly established in age-appropriate developmental practices. Elementary lessons focus on process, exploration, and initial experience with skills and concepts relating to art. The Visual Arts Standards of Learning identify the necessary key components of the visual arts curriculum at each grade level for York County public schools. Four strands contain these key components. The strands are:

visual communication and production
cultural context and art history
judgment and criticism
aesthetics

“Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes
and wishes, where we face it as free beings, admiring, asking
and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science.”

Albert Einstein

Benefits of the Arts

The arts serve students with special needs, at-risk, the high achievers, and the average child. The possibilities go beyond the benefits gained directly by the students. Not only do students have a chance to get valuable feedback from their teachers, but they also receive positive feedback from their peers, family, and most importantly themselves.

The content of the Visual Arts Standards of Learning is intended to support the following goals that will enable students to:

*Select and use art media, subject matter, and symbols for expression and communication;

*Know the elements of art and the principles of design and how they are used in the visual arts;

*Solve visual arts problems with originality, flexibility, fluency, and imagination;

*Understand the relationship of the visual arts to history, culture, and other fields of knowledge;

*Use materials, methods, information, and technology in a safe and ethical manner;

*Perceive, reflect upon, and evaluate the characteristics, purposes, and merits of their work and the work of others;

*Identify, analyze, and apply criteria for making visual aesthetic judgments; and

*Develop an aesthetic awareness and personal philosophy regarding nature, meaning, and value in the visual arts.

Board of Education, Commonwealth of Virginia, 2000 May

Welcome to Grafton Bethel Elementary School

"Mrs. McClaire"