Highlighting many of the author's own experiences as an artist and an art instructor, this paper laments the problem of visual ignorance among contemporary children and proposes a course in basic visual literacy. Such a course would teach form and content as interactive and synergistic concepts rather than as separate attributes. Students could learn to analyze visual statements at newsstands, at galleries, in the classroom, and at home. Visual literacy is as important as verbal literacy; it gives a person the power to overcome boredom by becoming interested in even the most trivial things, it nurtures the imagination, it enables critical viewing, and it makes one aware of the visual statement that one's own demeanor and appearance is making. (BEW)