To prepare children to become functional adults in our modern civilization, we must educate them not only to understand our world but to contribute to it. They need to know how to do more than survive; they need to know how to make their own way in an ever-changing landscape of technology and information exchange. In the range of modern human experience, there is far more information to be gained than can be conveyed in words and numbers alone. This is why the arts are included and required in the Utah State Core Curriculum. The arts enable the students' perceptions and imaginations to grow and develop. An education in the visual arts gives students the opportunity to perceive and interpret knowledge in existing images as well as the opportunity to express themselves meaningfully and creatively through visual images.

To attain this kind of visual literacy, the Visual Arts Core provides experiences that prepare the students to generate, identify, and then solve aesthetic problems throughout their lives. The core also fosters artistic perceptions and thinking skills such as observation, memory, imagination, innovation, interaction, reflection, and independent thinking. The Visual Arts Core teaches that art is a mode of inquiry as well as a form of expression helping people communicate and deal with ideas that cannot be captured in traditional academics. It also gives opportunities to create works of art that reflect the students' uniqueness and deal with significant ideas that possess personal meaning. Indeed, the Visual Arts Core Curriculum will provide a powerful and lasting contribution to Utah students' ability to acquire life skills to be successful.