In 1975 John Lidstone and Clarence Bunch unveiled the pedagogic potential of environmental actions, specializing ideas of artist like Ant Farm, Otto Piene and Willoughby Sharp, among others.
Their illustrated book Working Big, A teacher’s guide to environmental sculpture (1975) turned children’s natural inclination to outdoor play and lack of mental schemes during early years of life, into an innovative educational program.
Sadly, we could not find any more infos on the eventual outcome of these programs on specific classes of children, nor on the biography of the two authors, except for this bibliography of mainly children-destined DIY books by John Lidston
”Children who have the opportunity to work together with large-scale materials are more likely to have meaningful, in-depth experiences than those whose background has been restricted to participation in small-scale classroom activities. …A school should recognize that (such projects are) not only a logical extension of the classroom curriculum but also a way that students can become involved with art forms that are relevant to the world they live in.”
You can find the whole scanned PDF of this book, among other, in the wonderful Public Collector site.
Take a look also at “I HATE MYSELF AND I WANT TO DIY* KEN ISAACS: HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN LIVING STRUCTURES“, a post on Socks about another great book found in the collection.
Leave a Reply