Art as a Second Language

In her article, "Changing Lenses: It's All About Art," which forms the basis for the Out of the Box Training Kit A Thinking Approach to Art, Patricia Pinciotti talks about expressing ideas through art:

"We are beings of communication. From our very first entry into the world, we scan faces for responses. We learn to cry and coo various ways to convey different feelings and desires. The significant adults in our lives learn to read and understand our sounds, movements, thinking, and feeling. How can children continue to communicate their emerging quantity of complex ideas and feelings if they are not given multiple languages to communicate well? How can they put things together for someone to understand if they are required to use only words or numbers?

"Describe a spiral staircase or a helicopter just using words? Impossible!  Significant involvement in the arts provides a repertoire of tools to communicate ideas and feelings openly and thoughtfully. Artistic choices are made so these ideas and feelings are expressed with care. We know learning is impeded in the absence of personal interest.... An environment where children are required to put things together mentally and physically gives them reasons to come to school, reasons to exist. Maybe it's all about art."

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