The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

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work in the worlds of business, industry, commerce, scienceand the arts.Creative work has to stand on the shoulders of previouswork and understanding in the discipline in question. In allof them we have to do the hard work of learning the grammarand syntax of the various modes of understanding as part ofour attempts to make advances or innovations within them.This is no less true of the arts than of the sciences. We haveto learn to walk before we can run, much less fly. One hasonly to watch the efforts of dancers warming up, of actorsliving themselves into a role, of painters' close attentionto single strokes, of musicians struggling to find the rightsound, and the long hours of practice for all to realise thatoriginal work, brilliance, even genius, in the arts requires asmuch discipline, control and patience, knowledge and visionas that of any engineer, historian or scientist struggling tosolve a problem, find the evidence or falsify a hypothesis.But as James Gribble remarks:'We do not try to get children to think up scientifichypotheses or put themselves in the shoes of historicalpersonages or paint pictures in order to develop theircreativity or imaginative ability. For what we mean bydeveloping creativity or imaginative ability is gettingthem to perform these varied tasks as well as they areable.' (Gribble, 1969, p!03)42 The role The role of the teacher in the arts is at once vital and comofthe plicated. The task is not simply to let anything happen inteacher the name of self-expression or creativity. Neither is it toimpose rigid structures of ideas and methods upon thechildren. The need is for a difficult balance of freedom andauthority. In principle, everybody can be enabled to developtheir knowledge and skill to a point at which they canbecome innovators. Their doing so depends on their interestand commitment to, and on the extent and quality of theirexperience in, the work in question. Some of them will be,or will become better than others in some areas of work —both in what they produce and in the skills they develop.This is what is implied in the concept of giftedness (seeChapter 7). It will still need a solid basis of teaching andlearning according to the principles we have outlined ifsuch gifts are to develop fully. In each of the arts, it is, asRyle (1967) remarked, the teacher's job to show the pupilsthe ropes. It is up to the pupils to climb them. And in somecases, as he wisely added, teachers must realise that theirpupils may be able to climb faster and higher — sometimesmuch higher — than they can.33
43 Freedom Two further points must be stressed. First, teachers mustand avoid giving the impression that only their views count. Ifauthority we want to promote independent, critical and creativethinking, we shall be working against ourselves if we try toachieve these things by methods of teaching which stifleinitiative and promote the acceptance of some authoritarianfiat of a body of elders or establishment. If the stress is uponconformity of response and acceptance of established ideas,we can hardly expect the emergence of critical and creativework as a direct result. The balance is difficult to strike.The teacher must promote the application and disciplinewhich underpin all creative work but allow for the newdepartures in thinking and doing by which it is characterised.There is a difference then between what we may call teacherinputs which may need to be closely structured and theteacher's responses to what the children produce as a result,which ought to be flexible and open-ended. This brings usto our second point. To encourage creative work we mustput a premium on the pupils' own original ideas wheneverpossible; setting them to use these either to produce newwork or new interpretations, or to propose novel approachesto the solution of problems for which their existing knowledgeor skills provide only partial or inadequate solutions.We are talking here not only about the arts but alsoabout, work throughout the curriculum. If we wish to developyoung people's creative capabilities, we would do well toheed the results of research 8 which argues that only in classroomswhere there is an emphasis on self-directed and selfinitiatedwork — keeping in mind the principles we havediscussed — will there be any departure from the pressuresof conformity, convention and repetition that characteriseso much work in our schools at present.These pressures are particularly acute where the rigidrequirements of certain types of public examinations andthe teaching methods associated with them act as stultifyingconstraints upon pupils' sense of initiative.Downey and Kelly summarise some apposite conclusionsby Torrance which might provide helpful guidelines here.34'Torrance's suggestions are that teachers should be respectfulof children's unusual questions and ideas, showingthem that these ideas have value. They should provideopportunities for self-initiated learning and for periodsof non-evaluated practice, indicating that whatever childrendo may be of some value and is not constantly going tobe assessed by some absolute criterion of correctness setup by teachers. This emphasises not only the need tovalue children in then: own terms, by acknowledging the
Page 1 and 2: THEARTSSCHOOLSPrinciples, practice
Page 3 and 4: © 1982 Calouste Gulbenkian Foundat
Page 5 and 6: Chapter 4 Provision: the arts in pr
Page 7 and 8: The Advisory CommitteeChairmanMembe
Page 9 and 10: Foreword by the Chairman of the Inq
Page 11 and 12: Introduction—1989This is not a re
Page 13 and 14: and many others have done so since.
Page 15 and 16: politicians on all sides were compe
Page 17 and 18: the GCSE examination has addressed
Page 19 and 20: REFERENCESArts in Schools Project (
Page 21 and 22: stances and of the perennial and va
Page 23 and 24: significant than at present.4 The n
Page 25 and 26: likely to be measured publicly by e
Page 27 and 28: seem to improve when taught as part
Page 29 and 30: world around them.e In understandin
Page 31 and 32: ence essential to education? Why th
Page 33 and 34: 10 The artsare notoptions11 Notwith
Page 35 and 36: 1 Education, schooling and the arts
Page 37 and 38: 15 The arts This is the ground on w
Page 39 and 40: for certain forms of artistic activ
Page 41 and 42: arts — is 'merely subjective" and
Page 43 and 44: to and an understanding of certain
Page 45 and 46: school curriculum fall into this se
Page 47 and 48: one who is intelligent but who exhi
Page 49: 38 Quality Quantity by itself is in
Page 53 and 54: 3 Arts education and the cultural h
Page 55 and 56: universally valued archive of stabl
Page 57 and 58: a helps pupils to understand cultur
Page 59 and 60: Child: "They said it was a march, b
Page 61 and 62: their cultural identity'. Haley's b
Page 63 and 64: life and on perceptions and values
Page 65 and 66: 4 Provision: the arts in primary sc
Page 67 and 68: a What should be aimed at?b What pr
Page 69 and 70: composition — Western and non-Wes
Page 71 and 72: learning.' (Schools Council, 1981a,
Page 73 and 74: performing arts — music, dance an
Page 75 and 76: techniques and resources for workin
Page 77 and 78: are thinking particularly of the ar
Page 79 and 80: they will suffer disproportionately
Page 81 and 82: Second, integration can mean many t
Page 83 and 84: arts have a substantial contributio
Page 85 and 86: distributed equally and equitably a
Page 87 and 88: art, craft, home economics, music a
Page 89 and 90: FIGURE 2SHEPSHEDCOMMUNITYCOLLEGEope
Page 91 and 92: in upper schools. Associated with t
Page 93 and 94: 120 A Implicit in such proposals is
Page 95 and 96: 78literature and put money and reso
Page 97 and 98: 80outlined the sorts of provision t
Page 99 and 100: used — are appropriate to the wor
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135 Respon- If education involves t
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we look at, or participate in, visu
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MotivationalChildren on examination
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elevant help in compiling the profi
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ible to some form of appropriate as
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94more in-service training provisio
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1%—2% of the school population
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tuition under well qualified teache
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it is likely that more children wil
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102by professional musicians, many
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frequencies and belongs to the Part
Page 123 and 124:
classroom teacher. Nevertheless, th
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'Within individual schools in certa
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implications of different types of
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We will first outline five main are
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186 Arts In the schemes we have jus
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schemes. The Arvon Foundation, for
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is likely to give his teaching rele
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periods of time. There are possibil
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207 The role The rple of the teache
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to be essential to the future devel
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scheme. The Charlotte Mason College
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d education is something that only
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iture. It does require a different
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225 Initial Initial and post-initia
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Germany 18% of the workforce has be
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outes for the visual arts. In parti
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at the centre on a regular basis. T
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potential. The exceptional situatio
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We have developed our arguments in
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wherever possible, co-ordinate the
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AppendixOur arguments in this repor
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Evening classes range from life-dra
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to work with them. CSE groups with
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from other schools to watch two lec
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the cost). Groups of children have
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iii as a special authorised charge
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BibliographyAdvisory Council for Ad
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Kerr, J F 1968 Changing the Curricu
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NotesThe Issues1 For a description
Page 181 and 182:
the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenste
Page 183 and 184:
for candidates between the 100th an
Page 185 and 186:
their education full-time in school
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