So there are many opportunities to establish connections, to significantly broaden the kinds of things a youngster learns from the simple act of making a pot. There is a difference between aesthetics in learning and the learning of aesthetics. Aesthetics in learning is the feeling of satisfaction one gets from making a beautiful object, for example, or in doing a scientific experiment, for that matter. For example, do works of art need to be beautiful . . . . Raising those kinds of questions, particularly with adolescents, opens up the artistic world in a way that the making of images does not.
Criticism pertains to growth in perception.
It's also possible to relate some of the things that children are learning in art to some of the things they're learning in the social studies or other curriculum areas. As you know, one of the great needs, particularly in our secondary schools, is the construction of conceptual bridges across subject matters. There are three basic ways to handle the teaching of the arts in a classroom. A particular block of time during the week is assigned to teaching the arts, and each of the arts is treated in terms of its own aesthetic or artistic features. Ideally, the arts should be taught in relation to other subjects.