ART EDUCATION ... TOMORROW.

THE direction of this democracy toward its goal, although at times obscured, determines the schools practices in art teaching. Creative expression cannot thrive in countries whose citizens are controlled by methods of total dogma. No great painting has been created by dictation. Our schools realized this decades ago when methods in the classroom changed from teacher-dictation and copybooks to pupil-initiation and problem solution. Science stepped in and helped with its understanding of child differences. The individual and his differences now occupies the stage in most schools, and accordingly art practices have changed.

* A lavish United States of America, rich in natural resources, but with a falling birth rate, has given to each child in the elementary schools the very finest education to be found anywhere. Our greatest problem in education which must be solved tomorrow is the preparation of the adolescent and the retaining of the adult who finds himself in need of increasing skills to meet changing conditions.

* Some say we should determine exactly where we are going and all schools should accept this direction. As soon as democracy does this, it is no longer a democracy. But there are clearly two important directions which must parallel each other in teaching the arts.

* First, the creative practices which recognize individual differences and totality of person must be preserved. No two children create the same conclusions, draw alike, model alike, design alike, choose the same colors, even under the most rigid of copy-book methods, For this important fact, we need more individual teaching, smaller classes, more opportunities for activity, and experimentation. What terms we use in pedagogy, what universities invent new phrases does not matter. The individual must be studied and educated in terms of his interests and creative approaches to his problems. The future of American will take care of itself, if this individual approach is preserved.

* And second, because we live in a country in which it is our ideal to give equal opportunity to all, because we are a democracy in aim, if not always in practice, we must train our pupils in art education in the highest possible degree of cooperation. Any difficulties we may face now grow out of this lack of training.

* Compromise, a quality stifling to the creative individual, becomes an essential in cooperative action in the practical arts. The very nature of a craftsman's tools have taught him a lesson in compromise. In tomorrow's schools, the practical arts will occupy a larger place than school boards and taxpayers are willing now to prepare for. The classroom will be more of a replica of a life situation outside of the walls, not alone in equipment, but more important--in attitudes.

* The keystone of this solution is the classroom teacher. It is a very heavy responsibility. It calls for more training outside of education. It calls for training in administration of people, in skills in performing the arts, in professional attitudes in the trades, on the part of the teacher. We need teacher-artisans, teacher-psychologists, teacher-diplomats. The home cannot do it, administration of schools can only guide it, society cannot accept the responsibility except to pay for the mistakes through increasing crime and insanity. Youth and adults both need cooperative training in the arts which only a good classroom teacher can direct.

* It would be easier to solve the problems by edict, But it is worth the price of preserving democracy through creative expression of the individual and through training him to cooperate. This is where our pioneering must lie. Not in the training for specific jobs alone. There aren't enough ready-made ones to go around, and they never con suit the individual trained in creative expression alone. The art training of the future will lie in training students in IDEAS, and helping him to follow through in cooperation with others to a conclusion satisfying to himself and of mutual benefit to his fellow men.

* There are no minimum essentials in the arts, whether for richer living or a vocation. There are only ever-increasing maximum essentials ad infinitum. Both academic practices and new experiments are needed; pose drawing and plastics; oil painting and air brushes; steel engraving and finger painting; historic ornament and streamlining; plum pudding and vitamins; Latin and Gertrude Stein; Bach end swing music; the philosopher end the World Series; these are all challenges which face the teaching of arts in our schools.

* One hopeful note which eases the task is that 95% of the learning in the practical arts is on the job itself. No school can ever fully prepare a student to meet ever situation. But every school should preserve the creative spark of individual creation, and direct cooperative activity and attitudes. The students will bless you for this! We cannot continue to graduate pampered art students and to flood a market already overrun with individualists who cannot and will not accept the responsibility of some compromises.

ROSE NETZORG KERR, formerly Art Supervisor now Illustrator and Designer, New York City