By Adekunle Gomez
The discussions generated by the Government’s Green Paper, Education for a Changing World, resulting in the holding of various regional meetings, and the setting up of the recently-held National Education Convention, has also revived the debate on the place of the arts in the curriculum.
In an article in The Irish Times in October, 1992, based on a talk delivered to the Glenstal Abbey parents’ meeting, Brother Mark Hederman, a former principal, lamented what he felt was the neglect of the arts in the Green Paper. “I am not merely recommending a place for the arts in education for the purposes of either employment or entertainment. I am claiming that art is an education in itself. Its all-important role in any curriculum should be obvious: it opens new worlds to us, it teaches us to be more fully alive, it makes us sensitive to otherness, to what is different, it pulls us out of ourselves and reveals what is new. Without it we would produce a generation of aggressive, boring, controlling predators. Art teaches wonder, deference, vulnerability. These, too, have to be learned by every generation. This Green Paper must accommodate the arts in a central and protected place”, was Brother Hederman’s view.
Unfortunately, art’s “all-important role in any curriculum” has not been as obvious as is suggested by Brother Hederman for which I will offer this somewhat provocative suggestion. That is, the failure on the part of advocates of the arts in education to define and explain properly, in a language everybody will understand, what the arts are, and of what creating art involves, has resulted in this perceived neglect. In saying this, I am not suggesting that artists themselves don’t know what the work they do is about, but rather, an assumption is made that the public already knows what this is, and hence have done very little to dispel the notion that culture equals the arts, and the arts equal leisure, QED.
While ‘art’ is normally conveyed in a narrow sense to mean gallery paintings or sculptures, ‘music’ is equally used as a substitute for the kind called ‘classical’, and which could (preferably) only be heard in concert halls. In the broader area of cultural activities, theatre-going would also be considered a more desirable activity. The arts are thus defined in a way the ‘ordinary’ person is often made to feel excluded; and with the perception of the arts as a way to occupy leisure time, makes any participation in them seem rather self-indulgent. Transferred to the educational environment, such a perception is bound to influence policy in terms of which subjects received priority.
One art form which is identified with leisure and entertainment more than any other is music. However, other aspects to it appear to be less readily recognised, such as the fact that music in Ireland is an industry calculated to be worth around £100 million annually. Surely, this must require a high level of enterprise on the part of all involved, musicians included, in an industry with such a massive turnover.
There are reasons why certain art forms have become ‘redundant’. Evolution in science and technology has changed the utilitarian functions some of them now fulfil. For example, painting and/or sculpture (in some societies) was the means of recording events in previous times. These forms of recording images, however, have been changed due to the invention of film and photography. Yet humans still feel the need to paint or sculpt, but this is a topic for another article. A definition of the arts should therefore begin with the following assertions: (i) that they are the products of a society’s culture and hence exist within a particular social and cultural context. (ii) Painting, sculpture, crafts, drama, poetry, storytelling, music and dance, then, are the result of a human creative process in which different elements and materials are brought together, through a high level of social and technical organisation, to achieve the end product.
(iii) Thought, planning, design, the right choice and use of materials and tools, as well as the eventual function the object will serve, constitute this process; (iv) the creative process must also be carried out in a systematic manner to achieve the desired result. As the great painter, Pablo Picasso, once said, “You cannot have art without hard work: manual as well as cerebral dexterity”.
To return to the Green Paper, it must be noted that it does make two positive references to the arts. In the Primary Curriculum one of the aims is to enable students to “acquire an appreciation of the arts and participate in and enjoy creative activity”, while in the second-level Junior Cycle, “it is desirable that students are exposed to subjects, such as Art and Music, that would develop their expressive abilities”.
A ‘core’ programme for the Junior Cycle set out in the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment’s review has also been endorsed by the Green Paper, which then proposed a new subject, Enterprise and Technology Studies. Outside this core programme, other subjects - Art and Music among them - have been proposed as options.
“However, since the proposed core programme, excluding a modern European language, would contain six subjects, such a choice no longer appears to be a realistic option”, the Green Paper itself admitted a few sentences later. What could then be described as a ‘severe case of timetable overcrowding’ therefore makes the Green Paper’s desire “that students are exposed to subjects, such as art and music” somehow impossible to fulfil, hence the somewhat justified criticism of the Green Paper’s attitude towards the arts. The problem therefore is not whether the arts are a good thing but rather that of lack of space in the present timetable.
But if the number of core subjects makes it impossible to have room for any others, how then can the arts be accommodated in a central place? The various arguments in favour of arts education have already been presented in several reports and submissions and will therefore not be rehearsed. The focus here will be on how the present set-up can put the arts in a central position.
An art form involves historical, geographical, scientific, technological and commercial elements to it, so I will suggest as an approach a concept called Education through the Arts, as distinct from 'Arts Education'. This is an approach which would entail making the arts a tool in the teaching of other subjects (and thus being much more than a worthwhile end in themselves).
As recently as 1984, the secondary school system in England was said to encourage teachers to see each subject in isolation. The ‘Arts’ were seen as the province of their specific teachers. It was even claimed that in some schools, it was rare for teachers of physical and regional geography to collaborate on their work.
Fortunately, flexibility is one encouraging new aspect of the junior cycle programme where “schools and teachers have more freedom to introduce material and activities that suit their pupils”. Another positive aspect is that: “Numerous opportunities exist for cross-curriculum linkages: these should be exploited through collective teacher planning and through individual teacher initiative”.
The key phrase here is “cross-curriculum linkages”, and indeed in the junior certificate History syllabus teachers’ guidelines, for example, one of the approaches suggested is as follows: “this section [Renaissance] of the course provides opportunities for co-operation with the school’s art department and teachers are encouraged to exploit such opportunities”.
One very interesting example of Education through the Arts I came across was implemented by Frieda Meaney, a batik artist who worked in a Cork National School under the Arts Council’s Artist-in-Residence-in-Schools scheme.
Exploring with the group the life-cycle of a butterfly through batik, it was an approach which went beyond the obvious biological link with batik, in this case cotton, by choosing as the design the butterfly and using the different stages of its life-cycle. Similarly, silkscreen printing could incorporate a lesson in the life-cycle of the silkworm and the production of silk.
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| Frieda Meaney - Autumn Morph (1) |
Her approach, had this been a secondary school, would obviously have required close co-operation with both art and biology teachers, and perhaps even the chemistry teacher. "Allowing staff and students realise, through experience, that making art requires attitude, dispositions, skills and knowledge which represent human intelligence of a very high order”, was how she summarised her work in the school.
An art form in its historical aspect involves a background knowledge of the art form itself, as well as a knowledge of the history of the people who created it. Geographically, it is necessary to locate the artist in a particular place, while physical and environmental features are important in explaining the development of the art form.
Artists would need to have detailed knowledge of the properties of their raw materials if the finished products are to meet the highest standards, which is where the Science subjects are highly relevant to their occupation. They are also the one group of people who would understand the possibilities and limitations of their materials. Thus Science and Geography lessons would be immensely enhanced further by looking at the work of artists.
A Physics lesson in sound and acoustics could also be emotionally enriched by a few tracks from Beethoven, Sean O’Riada, U2 or Engine Alley; while at the same time explaining, in a Biology lesson, the different effects decibel levels have on the eardrums. The properties of chemicals and metals used by artists, as well as the quantities required, occupy the domains of Chemistry and Mathematics respectively.
Enterprise and Technology Studies is the Green Paper’s proposed core subject inviting the strongest attack in the arts in education debate. But there need not be conflict here. For, in the module in ‘knowledge and skills’ of the Technology course, students are expected to take units in communications, craft and materials, energy and control, technology and society, as well as design procedure.
The point being made here is that to produce an art form, the knowledge and skills first needed to be acquired are the same as those prescribed for the technology course; and indeed the closest cross-curricular link could be forged between Technology and Art, Craft & Design. Furthermore, modern technology has itself also evolved from the methods of traditional arts.
Similarly, since earning a living is the preoccupation of every human being, the artist is no exception. Producing an art form, therefore is also an economic activity in which artists would need to have a knowledge of basic economics and commerce in order to handle the commercial organisation of their work. An aspect of art which would find an amicable place in the enterprise course. So, rather than seeing artists as less ‘enterprising’ or ‘technologically’ minded, a serious attention to their work would prove the opposite and, more importantly, be educationally beneficial.
An objective of the Junior Certificate Geography course is “to promote a sensitive awareness of [the] environment”, while a module in the Technology course deals with “the effects on the environment of technological developments”. In August 1990, a group of artists held a symposium in the Dublin/Wicklow Mountains. Titled the Bogland Symposium, Aidan Dunne remarked in the exhibition booklet that it “had in one way or another actually changed the lives of the participating artists. It had transformed their attitudes to the environment around them. It had made them re-evaluate their work practices, their relationship with materials, their ambitions, their priorities. Many felt it that it marked a milestone in their artistic progress. Such a happy confluence of interests as well, between the aesthetic and the environmental, points to a promising line of approach for the future.”
Very few people would by now not be aware that the environment has suddenly become the number one item on the agenda of international concern and action. At the same time, one could ask how many people are also aware of the relationship or would make the connection between the artist and the environment, which goes beyond the views expressed by Aidan Dunne. For there is a vital ecological contribution that the study of the arts can make to understanding this.
More than anyone else, because artists depend on materials from their immediate environment, the continued availability of these raw materials is of paramount importance; and since it is also in the artists’ own interest to ensure that the particular raw material is not over-exploited, will maintain a balance between exploitation and regeneration. Artists therefore have to be recognised as the leading guardians of the environment. Such a vital role and contribution of the artist as an ecologist could easily be emphasised and form the basis of conveying the environmental message across at the school level.
In 1985, The Arts in Education discussion paper produced by the Curriculum and Examinations Board (now the NCCA ) concluded that “Better provision of arts education in schools is unlikely to be brought about until more positive attitudes towards the arts are developed by those engaged in the forming of educational policy. ..... Failure to effect changes recommended in previous reports on the arts cannot be blamed entirely on financial constraints, but if arts education is valued, financial commitment should follow”.
Eight years on, the Green Paper may again be criticised as not having fulfilled the expectations of advocates of Arts in Education. At the same time, it must be admitted that it has already signalled positive intentions at both the Primary and the Junior Cycle levels regarding the arts. While waiting for an official policy and, hopefully, backed by increased allocation of resources, the present set-up could also introduce innovative ways, such as Frieda Meaney’s highly imaginative approach, of making the arts assume a central position in the classroom - something the junior certificate programme has already recognised. One such approach is Education through the Arts which, furthermore, would also fulfil the aims of artistic and aesthetic education which the 1985 discussion paper identified.
Adekunle Gomez is a founding member of the African Cultural Project, an organisation established in Ireland to provide cultural and education programmes relative to African countries. He has designed a programme based on the Asante people of West Africa for schools and young people.
This article first appeared in Art Bulletin December 1993/January 1994.
