The Middle School Grades 6-8 Visual Arts Standards are designed so that they can be compacted to serve a brief course of instruction each semester.  These units of instruction consist of Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Ceramics, Textiles and printmaking while continuing the cognitive and emotional growth the students received during their Pre K - 5 school years.  To meet the needs of a wide range of students, art is taught by a certified visual arts specialist with training in curriculum and pedagogy.

Art is an important means of self-expression, self-reflection, and the creation of personal identity. The New Jersey Standards for Visual Art builds opportunities for students to develop an affective, academic, and social ways through the explorations of visual media in their own art making and increasingly rigorous inquiry into art history, contemporary art making and cultural contexts. The standards guide development of the students’ technical skills and higher-order thinking. Aesthetic understanding, imagination, creativity, problem-solving, artistic skills and knowledge, historical and cultural context, critical analysis, and connections to other disciplines are important aspects of these standards.

Form and content cannot be separated. How something is said or done shapes the content of the experience. Personal success stems from the care invested in one’s own work and the ability to work cooperatively with others in a dynamic studio setting.