Based on over half a century's personal experience with the Australian community's poor understanding of art, this paper concludes that exposing thousands of secondary students to the subject "Art" over this period has had little or no effect on competency. Instances are documented. Possible reasons explored include: the common…

Arts and crafts education opens up the creative ambitions of hearing-impaired children, cultivates their ability to express themselves, strengthens their organizational ability, helps them develop visual and tactile sensitivity, and increases their interest in learning. Self-respect and self-confidence are the result. (RM)

The ancient dichotomy between fine arts and crafts is examined. Crafts should be taught in school art programs. The art of craft can expose students to the diversity of human art expression. (RM)

Asks ten questions about the future of art, crafts, and design education. Focuses on why art, crafts, and design education should be included in the curriculum; how the curriculum should be defined; and how art educators should respond to conflicting calls for cultural relativism and for cultural nationalism. (DSK)

For art to survive in the schools, a new image must be presented to the public. Art should be distinguished from crafts, which have a purely recreational connotation, and promoted as a utilitarian subject, teaching fundamental production skills leading toward mastery, as the Suzuki method does in music. (SJL)

In open letters to the faculty affairs committee, an art education department chairman attacks the aesthetic approaches being used by a lecturer in art education to teach elementary education majors, and the lecturer defends his deemphasis of crafts and projects with R. G. Collingwood's philosophy in "Principles of Art." (SR)

Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) is an art center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where Creative Learning Out of Doors (CLOD) takes place. The program involves 6 to 14 year olds with artists from the region, art ideas, and techniques in using materials with which artists teach in their studios. (KC)

Questions the origin of design history and its relationship to art history. Maintains that design historical knowledge is produced, and it must be acknowledged that there are design histories and not one monolithic body of knowledge. (KM)

Appreciating children's art involves considering all work as an expressive form which conveys its own meaning. Characteristics that can be examined include the medium and materials used; the size, shape, colors, and angles present; the subject, scene, idea, or emotion represented; and the nature and origin of the idea for the work. (JW)

Describes the different approaches to art by the American Indian and western cultures and the approach of students at the Institute of American Indian Arts, combining elements from each to create new Indian art forms. Discusses the Indian Arts and Crafts Bill of 1990 and its definition of Indian art and artists. (DLM)

The gallery and weaving workshops of the Wissa Wassef School, located near Cairo, Egypt, are described. The school was started 30 years ago by the Egyptian architect Wissa Wassef, who believed in innate creativity and the need to encourage artistic creation by the practice of the craft from early childhood. (RM)

Argues that art education does not meet its objective of creativity and instead is replicative rather than original. Contends educational journals such as "Instructor" and "Good Apple" reduce fine art to its antithesis, popular art. Concludes that art educators must work diligently to protect fine art from becoming "dumb…

Examines the effects of institutionalized appropriation and colonization on mountain cultural artists, arts, and arts education in West Virginia. Interview excerpts convey the conflict between institutional representatives and mountain cultural artists regarding questions about authenticity, artistic intentions, marketing, and who should teach…