Some Aims and Values in Domestic Art, Vol. 7

Excerpt from Some Aims and Values in Domestic Art, Vol. 7: One of the New Subjects in Our School Curriculum The familiar proverb, "There is nothing new under the sun," may be true from some points of view, but when we remember the schools as we knew them in the first years of our school life, when reading consisted of repeating the alphabet or of reading such inspiring stories as, "Do we go up? We do go up. Do we go in? We do go in," when spelling began with a-b ab, e-b eb, i-b ib, o-b ob, when to draw a picture was an offense worthy of punishment, when the work in the upper grades was of this same abstract nature, when we compare such a school with the best schools of today we realize that there is something new in the schools at least. In fact, there is much in them that is new. Domestic Art is part of this new element. Its introduction into the schools of today, along with drawing, manual training, domestic science and the rest, is the result of new needs and ideals in the educational world, brought about largely by changes in the economic and social world. These changes have found expression along two distinct lines-an ever increasing demand for universal education, for equality of opportunity, and an ever growing belief in the principle of development through participation-learning through doing. Psychologists agree that a very much larger per cent of children and young people are concrete thinkers and persons of action than abstract thinkers. That is, a much larger per cent learn naturally by studying things, actually seeing and handling them, and performing processes with them, than by studying about things. We do not need, however, to depend upon psychologists for a realization of the truth of this statement; we have only to consult our own experience to know that it is true. Descriptions, pictures, explanations, will all contribute to the understanding of a process, to the forming of a mental picture of places or conditions. But they fail to give the clear, intimate understanding that we gain by seeing, doing and experiencing. The natural way to learn is by coming in contact with real things, by performing real processes, by having experience, and then supplementing what we have learned by the experience and ideas of others as recorded in books, in works of art, etc. Our school work in the past has concerned itself too largely with abstract work, idea study. Students have been informed about many things, but they have had little help in transforming this information into power. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.