ABSTRACT
The teaching of art in schools has undergone many changes. In the 1960s and 1970s, educationalists rejected the formal, prescriptive, skills-based instruction of earlier times and instead concentrated on allowing children free expression through (some would say, largely unguided) experimentation. Teacher intervention was actively discouraged and a belief developed that skills teaching was something best left to craft lessons. Art was about ‘spontaneity’, ‘freedom from constraints’, and ‘creativity’, which should not be interfered with.
