EDUCATION I recently attended an orientation session for an arts workshop that focuses on teaching basic principles and theory of arts and its usefulness to children aged 10-15. The workshop was part of an on-going Art campaign that aims at the revival of art education in schools. The workshop was held at a local art school and during the orientation session, students were familiarized with basic principles of art education. The workshop was conducted by a group of local artists who blamed the school structures for keeping arts out of curriculum and thus diminishing the value of this important branch of education. The artists who participated in this workshop were very critical of traditional school system in the United States and felt that art education was not receiving its due share of attention and patronage by local state governments. They felt that art education should be an integral part of school curriculum since it helps in more balanced development of a child.

This workshop was heavily attended by young enthusiasts who had someone gained appreciation for arts and were eager to learn more but most of these children agreed that traditional school structure was not conducive to teaching of arts. One young man of 14, Robert Matthews, felt that his school treated all forms of arts except drama as something useless. He cited an incident which highlighted the degradation of arts in traditional school structure. Robert was an extremely intelligent student and his teachers had high expectations. But when he explained that he wanted to become an sculptor and later pursue a career in art education, his teachers tried to dissuade him and some openly discouraged him too as they felt he was meant for 'better things'. Robert was of the view that this kind of attitude needed to change if arts...

Art education was certainly a part of null curricula because it had been deliberately ignored and school structure favored teaching of subjects that could lead to 'better' careers and 'better things' such as mathematics, science and computers. Eisner felt that by excluding some subjects and keeping others, we were sending a wrong message to children about these subjects. He maintained that the things we don't teach might have same profound impact on a child's development as the subjects we explicitly or implicitly teach. "The major point I have been trying to make thus far is that schools have consequences not only by virtue of what they do not teach, but also by virtue of what they neglect to teach. What students cannot consider, what they don't processes they are unable to use, have consequences for the kinds of lives they lead." 103
Eisner (1985, 1994) explained that school programs have important functions to perform and one of those functions is opening new roads and providing children with options. By not teaching things that may prove to be extremely important, we are closing the doors to alternatives. We cannot expect every child to become a doctor, engineer or computer professional. Some children simply lack aptitude for these fields and without the presence of alternatives; they might feel lost and useless. It is therefore critical to guide them to new doors of opportunities and show them that there exist other paths as well.

'There is something of a paradox involved in writing about a curriculum that does not exist. Yet, if…