The State of the Art: Art Education in the Elementary School
Abstract “The future of art education looks bright,” concludes the author of this latest report in our state-of-the-art series on curriculum developments in the elementary school. She provides a fascinating historical perspective as she traces art education from its beginnings to the present time.
Visual Arts Instruction in Primitive Societies—its Implications for Art Education
Highway beautification programs, arts and humanities programs, mailorder art seminars, and other pleas for visual arts education are, no doubt, positive and worthy enterprises. Yet, taken collectively, they are reflective of certain conditions surrounding the posture of the visual arts in America today. Apparently any natural universal aesthetic inclinations have not always been fulfilled in American culture as witnessed by various, and at times ineffective, efforts to educate the public in this realm. Some art educators viewing the contrast between young children's spontaneous visual representations and adolescents' rather general cessation of creative activity in the visual arts have been inclined to decry the existing societal values. Among these, Sir Herbert Read observes that, "The art of the child declines after the age of 11 because it is attacked from every direction-not merely squeezed out of the curriculum, but squeezed out of the mind by the logical activities which we call arithmetic and. . . . even literature as it is taught."' Pessimistic as this may sound, Read does feel that the disappearance of visual modes of expression can and should be opposed. The question of whether societal conditions unfavorable to development and support of the arts can be effectively countered has been approached by both artist and critic. Beck2 writing in The Sixty-fourth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education considers that, "Art loses in just about all the assays made by artists contemplating the social conditions for art." He concludes, however, that "While many join the list of those despairing of modern society being a generous host to fine art, there are artist-critics who feel that resistance can be made." Noting the decline in the time alloted art study in senior high schools, Beck observed that, "Most Americans who have written and spoken about educational objectives in recent times have agreed that society has more need for scientific and technological skills-including those of communication-than for personal expression. Clearly, the artist does not agree, but the artist has been overruled." It becomes apparent that we do not necessarily lack ways and means of doing a fairly good, if not excellent, job in visual arts education-if given the opportunity-but supportive values do not sustain the full utilization of existing knowledge. Assuming, then, that the predominant American values generally have not
Organic constituents in process water from the in-situ retorting of oil from oil-shale kerogen
Capillary-column gas-chromatography/mass-spectrometry (GC/MS) was performed on the acid, base, and neutral fractions o'f liquid- and particulate-phase methylene chloride extracts of a composite sample of raw process water collected from separator Tank 6 by the Laramie Energy Technology Center. Of. the 160 extractable and chromatographable organic comP.ounds tentatively :identified, the following compou~d classes were found· (listed in decreasing order of. abundance):