The Contribution of Art Museums to Art Education

Over the years, in recognition of the need to increase opportunities for art education and art learning, schools have endorsed the value of museum learning and its role in facilitating knowledge acquisition and enriching the educational experience of students. Nevertheless, Jordanian schools ignored the enormous advantages of art museums and they consider them as an additional resource for classroom art. The intention of this study is to activate the role of art museums in art education, as such, the study analyzed contribution of art museum as an integral part in teaching art to students and children in particular. Moreover, the issue of educational tours and school visits to art museums were discussed. In order to establish a base for discussion, books and articles on this subject were reviewed. The study revealed that museum learning is not a supplement to art curriculum, instead, museums are a parallel educational system to schools and they have their own potentialities for providing quality programs, therefore, they should be an integral part of any school art curriculum. Collaboration between schools and art museum is the key to achieve a successful art teaching and learning, where students and children acquire different skills as communication, self-expression, criticism and aesthetic judgment.