Educators and psychologists have long recognized the benefits of art creation as part of a child’s education. But simply spending time among great works of art can be even more rewarding. That’s why I invite you to skip the pool or park one Saturday afternoon and take your kids to an art museum instead.
As a school docent at a major art museum, I’ve spent the last ten years taking students on tours of our gallery. I’ve seen with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears, the benefit from meeting great works of art face-to-face. What a joy to watch kids from ages four through high school open their eyes and hearts to the beauty of art!
You don’t have to take my word for it. The British educator and reformer Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), one of modern-day home-schooling, as well as one of classical education’s key influencers, saw the value of educating children in the study of art history more than a century ago.
Children’s minds are hungry for ideas, Mason reasoned. Just as Great Books provide intellectual sustenance, she saw the arts as providing “picture study” – the careful study of a body of paintings from a single artist or era each term – as a complement to the broader curriculum.
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