Design Education The Other Side of The Coin

Abstract

The development of Design Education Courses in our schools has been part of a very necessary and valuable evolvement in Craft teaching. It has gone some way towards opening up and enlivening an area of education previously encumbered by limited objectives and over-preoccupied with out-moded and time-consuming processes. It has helped to eradicate the manual and menial tag so unfairly attached to Craft teachi ng in the past. It has given Craft teachers more sense of belonging in the main stream of education by requ iring them to relate their work to that of teachers in other disciplines.

These developments can only be applauded - and yet for all that is good in Design Education, there has been during the past two years, a growing sense of unease amongst Art educators and amongst teachers of Home Economics that some aspects of this movement are having unfortunate effects upon those subjects normally associated with Design Education.