Book excerpt: This book champions the arts as essential to the K-12 educative process. Exploring apparently oppositional approaches to the arts and their role in education, it provides both an overview of arts learning in and out of school as well as a set of artful lenses through which to regard non-arts teaching and learning. With strong implications for practice, the work celebrates inquiry and multiple perspectives as it explores a range of reflections on art, artistry, artists, art education, and the methods and results of arts-related educational research. Featuring discussions and illustrations of selected works of art by children and professional artists, the text: offers practical ideas for thinking of the arts as a model for improving teaching and learning in schools; reaches beyond arts educators and advocates to include those who have no experience in the arts; includes a broad vista of settings for arts teaching and learning, including non-arts classrooms, schools that focus on the arts, community art centers, and art museums; and examines lessons from urban community art centers with a history of working successfully with, and providing safe havens for, disenfranchised students.