Aesthetic education offers instructional methodologies and subject area content that make art an important part of general education. Instruction in this area should emphasize artistic heritage and appreciation as well as production. Curriculum reform efforts are reviewed, and recommendations for changes in teacher education are made. (PP)

The author describes several higher education classes he has taught in an attempt to test out approaches to nondirective, unstructured art education classes and the students' responses to such approaches. (KC)

Discusses reasons for Chinese childrens' greater skills in drawing when compared with their Western counterparts. Describes teaching methods and learning strategies found in China. Notes Chinese emphasis upon attainment of high skill levels and concentration until a task is complete. Criticizes art education in the United States for its lack of…

Presents ideas concerning the art-as-center and art-as-means dichotomy, European heritage, the art and humanities relationship, and the economic context. Synthesizes some of these ideas and makes recommendations about priorities for policy work. Suggests that both the graduate research establishment and the professional organization need to look…

Describes how students incorporated the use of faux finishes in the construction of scenery for a school production of "Cinderella." After researching medieval castles and different types of stone surfaces, students used a sponge printing technique for exterior walls and a marbling technique for columns in the ballroom scene. (GG)

Presents three classroom activities based on four portraits from the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art (Florida). Discusses cultural context and values represented in the portraits. Includes lesson plans and four full-page color photographs of the portraits. (CFR)

Discusses why art is important in students' lives, features of artistry that captivate the mind, and reasons why arts should be fully integrated into school curricula. Change in art education should be grounded in substantive insights about artistic content, child development, teaching methods, and curriculum as a meeting ground. (SM)

Maintains that teachers and artists are alike in that they are communicators, inquirers, required to know themselves, trained to think qualitatively, concerned with technique, and evaluated by their work. Argues that using the model of the teacher as artist is superior to using only technical and quantifiable methods. (CFR)

Education needs to move away from the existing product approach to the arts in classrooms. The article highlights some benefits of adopting a more unified approach to the arts and demonstrates how various theories of art might provide useful metaphors for teachers as they continue to explore educational questions. (SM)

Compares provision for and the practice of craft education in England (and Wales) and Japan. Focuses on craft within the national curriculum subject of art at the lower secondary level, and on art teachers' perceptions of its educational value and the factors impacting delivery of craft education. (Contains 34 references.) (Author/SV)

Teachers from an urban public high school and from a preK-12 private school in one metropolitan area discussed selections from John Dewey's works on education, art, and experience, in small study groups between 1996 and 1998. I facilitated these study groups as a joint inquiry with teachers about connections between Dewey's aesthetics and thinking…

This paper distinguishes several closely interrelated aesthetics terms, establishes criteria for and facets of the aesthetic experience, and examines aesthetic theories which have guided values systems for imagery of the past and present. These include: (1) mimetic theories of art as imitation; (2) instrumental theories of art as teacher; (3)…

Proceedings from the Sunbird Seminar for artists, art historians, and art educators from the California State University campuses are documented in this volume. The presentations included discussions about the national context for art education and teacher credentialing in California, the Snowbird projects sponsored by the Getty Center for…

Meaningful drawing curriculum construction is an especially difficult challenge for art teachers of early adolescent students, given such students'"crisis of confidence" with art skills and the cultural diversity of present day classrooms. This document describes an analysis of six published drawing instruction programs employing three approaches…

Proceedings from a seminar devoted to a discussion of issues related to discipline-based art education (DBAE), this document features three scholars addressing a given topic from the perspective of their particular discipline and experience in the field. Six topics were explored: (1) "New Voices on the Integration of Art Disciplines";…