cation, of course, covers a number of activities -- art appreciation, art history, and the techniques and processes of making art. Perceptual skills that are developed in these areas can carry over into other kinds of study. Visual evidence in history is just one example. When a student with well-developed perceptual skills is shown a photograph from the Civil War, she will not simply accept it as evidence of the way things were. She will ask which side the photographer was on, whether the shot was natural or staged, and what lies outside the range of the camera. Art history and aesthetics may not play a role in primary education but the acquisition of critical skills in visual perception begins in the earliest art classes.
Beyond the basic skills provided by art education, however, the study of art itself is significant. Southworth is justified in pointing out the basic na
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