A few weeks ago, in a combative mood, I gleefully posted an attack on “tacky craft activities” as the enemy of aesthetic education. Today, in a more contemplative mood, I am wondering what is it specifically about these activities that make them so perennial?

As a total Wikipedia addict, I often encounter the term “disambiguation”, which frequently appears at the top of Wikipedia pages.  Here’s the definition : "The process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural title for more than one article.

Despite valiant efforts by arts education advocates over the last several decades, and real gains in arts education policy and practice, the current reality is that the visual arts education that most American children receive in schools consists primarily of tacky craft activities presented to them by classroom teachers. I actually have a great fondness for many of these activities, but that has more to do with lingering nostalgia for childhood than it does with aesthetic education.

Click the link below to see the video for the song, "Not on the Test," that Tom Chapin wrote with John Forster. The two wrote the song to express their disappointment in the lack of arts education in public schools:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dAujuqCo7s

This video was made available through Fred Klonsky's PREA Prez blog:
http://preaprez.wordpress.com/

I love Chicago. I also love New York. One of my favorite pleasures in both cities is street food – fresh mango slices dusted with chili powder, steaming hot dogs with hot peppers and slices of dill pickle on steamed poppy-seed buns, the sweet melt of coconut paletas dripping down their flat little wooden handles, raspberry Italian ice dyed bluer than anything in nature. One for my favorites, fresh chestnuts, are roasted by vendors on the streets of New York City, but alas, not on the streets of the Windy City.

Book review
"Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century"
edited by Nick Rabkin and Robin Redmond, 2004, Columbia College, Chicago.
http://www2.colum.edu/center_for_arts_policy/putting_arts_picture.htm

"Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century" is an important book -- a breakthrough document that cogently explores the role of the arts in innovative educational practice and school-improvement policy in the contemporary world. What makes it a break-through book?