CCPS Visual Arts K-12
As part of the required curriculum Carroll County Public Schools provides all students in grades K-8 with a program in the Visual Arts. The curriculum is aligned with the Maryland State Department of Education Voluntary State Curriculum for the Visual Arts, which can be found here:
Maryland Curriculum Standards
The high school Visual Arts program offer opportunities to explore sophisticated media and creative expression. Enrollment in these classes fulfills the fine arts graduation requirement mandated by the State of Maryland. The high school Visual Arts programs offer course work that can provide students with the ability to begin their journey toward a profession in the visual arts or to gain a richer insight to a life long avocation.
Visual literacy and the arts are a fundamental element of human life and experience. The practice of visual arts within an educational program is essential to facilitate growth and foster skills in cognition, critical analysis, and physical motor development. Students grow in their creative capacities, problem solving skills, and ability to derive aesthetic judgments from the richness and complexity of the images of art.
Creativity: Creativity is the source of all possibilities. We are constantly challenged to explore this area of the mind. The Visual Arts appeal to the part of the mind which opens new horizons. The study of Visual Arts support wonderment, imagination, appreciation, and sensitivity. Visual Arts allow us to experience creativity as an inventive thinking style.
Communication: The Visual Arts are a language unto itself. Artwork is a direct, unspoken communication between the artist and the person viewing the work. If we do not expose children to the arts, we are depriving the individual of an array of personal understandings that cannot be found in any other part of life.
Critical Assessment: Intelligence is the ability to process facts and respond according to the given situation. Emotional stability stems from the capacity to deal with life’s many inconsistencies. To accomplish both, the individual must be able to access the cognitive (factual) and affective (emotional) sides of the mind. Visual Arts are one of the few academic