The climate crisis threatens the sustainability of global ecosystems. To address climate change education, which has traditionally focused on scientific and technical approaches, one can consider learning from the ecological wisdom of ancient peoples. This qualitative paper explores the ecological wisdom behind the traditional painting of Wayang…

This article discusses research that employed practice-led and action research methods to study the tacit knowledge of painting practice and its application to teaching. Polanyi's theory of tacit knowledge is used to analyse the non-verbal, experience-based knowledge of painting to construct a discursive relationship between the dual practices of…

It is common in the everyday art class to find many examples of avoidance, omission and exaggeration in young adolescents' depictions of the human figure. When students depict sophisticated human images, they make every effort to avoid the difficult parts, and some students tend to exaggerate the size or distort the shape of the human image. Art…

A eulogy to art educator and researcher Henry Schaefer-Simmern, explaining his theory of gestalt visual conceiving and artistic cognition. (SJL)

This handbook, written for teachers, art teachers, and parents of young children, describes actual elementary school classroom experiences. Each anecdote is juxtaposed with a simple explanation of its philosophical and psychological rationale. Symbolic representation of the environment through art making is seen as a natural language, a…

Incorporating the arts into the educational process can help children learn to think clearly and to set and reach goals, so that they can meet change more effectively. Numerous examples of this approach are described. (TE)

Reports on a study of seven preschool children engaged in drawing activities with traditional media (crayons, felt-tip pens, etc.) and a mouse-driven computer paintbox program. Finds that the same basic media-independent strategies are used when children try to establish a relationship between their mark-making actions and the resultant effects.…

The structure of inquiry in art is a set of behavioral stages, comparable with creative process stages, in which persons think in and about the visual mode of perception. The stages include behaviors identified by Dewey as factors or phases of reflective thought and as stages in the pattern of inquiry. The stages also show relatedness to problem…

The case study of Nadia, an autistic child, documents the phenomenally accurate drawings she made. Nadia's precocious drawing capacity raises questions about the drawing hypothesis adhered to by F. Goodenough and D. B. Harris and Gestalt theories of perception and representation. The argument is made that Nadia drew realistically because she…

This book presents a philosophical and pragmatic approach to the teacher's active role in fostering a developing understanding of painting in 1-11 year-old children. Cognitive processes behind children's painting are explored; each phase of imagery is seen as emerging from and building on the thought processes of the previous phase. Tasks are…