As a specialist art teacher in a school where the perceived 'core subjects,' take precedence among the parent clientele; I have heard this statement a few times: "You can't make a career out of art." Tell that to the millions of people who work in all the industries asscoaited with the arts and who are earning huge amounts of money. The arts and visual art is a basic learning area. Therefore as important as competency in language, mathematics and any other subject. Herbert Read, an eminent commentator on arts education and critic said once in an article I have read that involvement in the arts and manipulation of raw materials was the basis of our intelligence and civilization. We as a group of people have become one step removed from the materials that make up our existence and we don't shape them; we are either spectators to others who do or we are mindless automatons pushing buttons; too removed from raw materials that make upour world. Creating, making and inventing using materials comes naturally to us. Just watch any group of five year olds with a stack of materials and see what they do when left to flourish using their own creative drives. Unfortunately most schools and parents bash this out of them by the time they are twelve or thirteen. Artistic expression is one of the dominant features of our history. We have made art since we could stand on two legs and club each other to death. Maybe if more of us made art we would be less obsessed with violence. The topics link will take you to the Batu Hijau International School website where I teach art. The page has links to many slide shows I have made as teaching resources to use with students.

Some art work from the students I teach at Batu Hijau International School