Many students in the United States and around the world live in arts deserts, areas where they have limited opportunities to engage with various forms of artistic expression, cultural events, and creative experiences due to a scarcity of cultural institutions, performance venues, galleries, and community arts programs. This article explores the…

By transforming education to focus on nurturing creativity, teachers can better ensure that their students are receiving the best preparation for a future of rapid change. This article describes how Alla Tkachuk founded MASK (Mobile Art School in Kenya, www.mobileartschoolinkenya.org) to champion art for creativity in Africa. Starting as a small…

Age-appropriate children's books can be an effective way to introduce and discuss issues of social justice with young students. These books can be the anchor for interdisciplinary lessons that integrate core content areas, such as language arts, science, and/or social studies with the visual and performing arts to enrich students' learning…

When her director first asked her to teach an art class in the infant room, the author must admit that she thought her director was crazy. She nodded and smiled, pretending confidence, all the while thinking, "Teach art to infants? What does that even mean?" But when a teacher is trying to get a job at one of the best early childhood…

More and more children are forced to deal with crushing hardships. The responsibilities of adults worldwide to attend to the affected children have never been greater. In this article, the authors first give an overview of the psychological risks for children who experience war, terrorism, and disaster. They then listen to the voices of children…

The organizers of the Decade for Childhood have formulated Ten Pillars of a Good Childhood as basic requirements for an optimal childhood. The pillars can be used to analyze the quality of childhood in homes and nations, and to guide policies and practices related to the experience of childhood. In this article, the author shall illustrate, pillar…

Introduces and describes this special international issue focusing on educating through the arts. Argues that the arts promote children's sense of success, creativity, and self-expression. Notes contributions to this international issue from Canada, Finland, Norway, Australia, and the United States. Includes a bibliography of 11 references on…

Argues that children need play time to explore the world because it is valuable, irreplaceable, spontaneous, and provides situations where children can learn with all their senses. Examines play in terms of its role in exploration, imagination, creative activity, work, learning, knowledge expansion, art, and the culture of children. (Author/SD)

Argues that the arts provide a powerful means with which to promote future-oriented learning because they involve nonverbal, symbolic ways of knowing, thinking and communicating. Suggests that the arts in the emergent curriculum promote central education skills of discovery, pursuit, self-awareness, personal communication, social interaction,…

Demonstrates the ways in which the arts can be used to express ecological concerns and promote responsible environmental stewardship. Focuses on a play and a video produced by elementary school students with the assistance of their teachers and professional artists. (MDM)

Notes that children often need enticement into the world of books and reading and that the arts can be utilized to encourage excitement through aesthetic experiences and appreciation of world culture. Provides an annotated bibliography of age-appropriate books and series for Spanish-speaking children. (Author/SD)

Argues that the arts are basic to educational development, as they provide the tools and skills that are central to early language development including story, metaphor, rhyme and rhythm, binary structuring and mediation, image formation from words, affective abstraction, and others that underlie more complex learning. (Author)

In an imaginary "Agency of Smiles," preschool children pretending to be aid workers are immersed in such activities as typing letters, sending and receiving faxes, answering phones, and negotiating with clients. A mail carrier delivers a letter from an immigrant preschool boy in the Netherlands, who requests help in making friends in his…

Emphasizes the importance of spontaneous play for growth in cognition and social values. The author specifically discusses finger painting, water, blocks and dramatic play. (AJ)

Discusses the need for improving the quality of relationships between people, and for concentrating on "more human values": observation, memory, curiosity, imagination, sympathy. Examples of teachers aiding children to communicate are compared. (ST)