The part that words play in teaching art has been underestimated. In a good art class, there is an interplay of ideas about the ongoing work. By using the right words, the teacher can help students develop their creative faculties. (CS)

There are five categories of titles of paintings: descriptive, narrative, directive, poetic, and arbitrary. When children title their work they give clues to its intent and challenge the presuppositions that adults may bring to children's art. Titling can expand students' ideas for painting and provide a greater variety of approaches. (CS)

Through play, children draw ideas from their own experiences and create exciting works of art. Materials and methods that can be used in the classroom to help children play are described. (CS)

Describes an imaginary dialog between real philosophers and artists on how to understand and talk about post-formalist art. Old aesthetic theories which are rational and linear are being replaced by a new vision which is mythic, anti-formal, and, perhaps, not expressible in words. (CS)

Aesthetic education has attempted to teach art history and criticism, along with providing traditional art activities. The viability of aesthetic education is criticized, and a step beyond it is suggested. The purpose of this new direction, aesthetic literacy, is to ensure that students become knowledgeable consumers of the visual arts. (CS)

The Depression of 1929 heralded a difficult time for the teaching of art. Changes during this era included more utilization of technology, a shift from elitism to art for all children, integration of art into the social studies curriculum, and emphasis upon self-expression, rather than art appreciation. (CS)

Presented are four possible content bases for art programs, with an expanded discussion of one of them--the anthropological base, which is described as the study of artistic origins. (KC)

Addressed is how the art curriculum and the school system affect one another, with a pragmatic description of how the art curriculum should fit into the total art program and of how both can be related to the goals of the school system. (Editor/KC)

A comparison is drawn between acquiring linguistic skills and acquiring creativity. It is suggested that aesthetic values have to be taught, that literalism has an important function in artistic development, that media can help to control and direct a child's attention, and that formulas impart a necessary competence. (Author/KC)

The author, an architect, discusses how architecture can provide sources of content for the curriculum in general and the art program in particular. She views architecture as a way of organizing the built environment, important to understanding history, social sciences, and mathematics as well as art. (KC)

Discussed are some of the sins of omission in the art curriculum--lack of substance, absence of artists, ignorance of curriculum concerns, evaluation, and the neglect of technology. (KC)

Viktor Lowenfeld's role in fashioning a predominant ideology and teaching method for art education in schools is an indispensable chapter in the history of art education. His contributions are discussed in this special issue. (RM)

The focus of this special issue is how art facilitates the cognitive maturation of the child. In the last 20 years, the copious research conducted in the field of children's art and artistic development underscores that children's intellectual, as well as emotional development, is of long-standing and continuing interest. (RM)

The artist experiences the world and extracts from it elements that have worth. The study of art is a training in perception. Children should be introduced to works of quality and should be encouraged in their own artistic activity because art educates their responsiveness to values. (CS)

A quarter of a million schoolchildren participated in the 1981-1982 PTA Reflections Project whose theme was "What Makes Me Smile.""Reflections" was initiated to increase childrens'"hands on" experience in the arts. Twelve entries became winners in the visual arts and were on display at Chicago's Junior Museum. (CS)