The arts and education

If thou of fortune be bereft
And of thine earthly store hath left 
Two loaves, sell one, and with the dole. 
Buy hyacinths to feed the soul.

(Sir Alec Clegg's favourite little rhyme)

This is not culture change part 2 as promised, but it is related. This week has been a week when I have been reflecting at work (with MPhil students from around the world, and as an idea for research), at school (as a governor), and at home (as a mother) on the idea of what we value, and how we show it to others. When I read Lord Puttnam on the BBC website this morning, my thoughts demanded a short blog. He said,  "If we fail to offer our young people the opportunity to participate in the arts and culture, then we fail to support them in becoming the leading thinkers, innovators, creative business and community leaders of the future." This sums up my concerns about the narrowing of the curriculum, and a view that the 'academic' curriculum will somehow sort out all the problems of society if we can just teach it correctly and to maximum effect. It is also the latter kind of thinker in David Puttnam's statement that we need and should value more, whilst at the same time helping people to be successful in the core competences of their language and maths. There are many schools in the UK as a whole that do this successful, and rarely get a mention either in the news, or by politicians of all political persuasions. Some of my Scottish friends may argue that the Curriculum for Excellence goes someway towards this ideal. I am, of course, heavily influenced by my own long ago days as a primary teacher, and my own bias towards the arts. However, for some young people drama and dance, for example, can open up the meaning in all the other subjects. For me, education is often about finding a sense of meaning and understanding that underpins all the learning that you do. Many young people having gone through our system are now NEETS. What will draw them into education again, if anything?


My students will know that I will quote Sir Alec Clegg remorsefully at them, because I believe he was able to find this balance between what he called 'pot filling' and 'fire lighting'. I think this debate is very relevant to where we are today, even if some of the language may sound a little dated to us. Clegg was not saying that basic skills were not important, it was all about getting the balance between the two.


 Here is what he said to the Royal College of Art in 1960: 


"Education is a preparation for life . . . The main aim of the schools is to see to it that the skills which all of them will need in later life are thoroughly learned, that the body of knowledge which each responsible elector ought to possess is acquired, and that the adult disciplines to which they must conform are thoroughly understood.(...)It is important that minimum standards of attainment should as far as possible be uniform over the country as a whole and this can best be achieved by examinations at various stages, notably at 11, 16, and 18"


Yet at the same time, he pointed out the role of education and the teacher:
"There are those who say that the main aim of education is not just to prepare for something that is to come in the future, but to promote healthy growth and development now. The best way of doing this is to place the child in a stimulating environment, give him a wealth of experience rather than a welter of facts, and let his training and technique come through the activities into which he is guided by a wise and sympathetic teacher (...) each child is encouraged to mount the ladder of his own achievement, building it rung by rung as he goes. His own success kindles the fire, and he no longer measures himself to his own detriment against his more successful fellows. The emphasis is very much more on making the child want to learn, and this, of course, is in essence real education."

I am also inspired by the way he talked about the essentials- here he is in 1946:

"I believe that first and foremost we must give absolutely sound training in the three Rs. A child must learn to read, to read thoroughly, he must be encouraged to read, he must like reading, and he must like reading what is good and there must be no limit to his reading or his desire to read. He must learn to write, and write fluently and easily, and if he wants to write there should be no limit put upon the amount that he is allowed to write. He should learn to do the arithmetic which he is required to do. He must use it easily and confidently"

Sir Alec was well known for his sense of humour. In the debate over phonics (yes, back in the 1950s) he enjoyed quoting such examples as ‘it is a sin to sit on a sod’. Wanting to learn, and being able to learn went hand in hand, but at the same time Sir Alec was realistic about children, and he said of himself that if his teachers had waited for him to be ready to learn fractions, ‘they would be waiting yet’. He was certainly not a 'touchy feely' educator!

"I do stress with all the urgency at my command that however much we digress from the orthodox, however much we endeavour to evolve methods of education which we believe have an effect on the emotions and the temperament, our approach to this difficult problem should be strictly intellectual. Let us know what we are doing, let us know very clearly what we are doing, and let us avoid everything which might be considered as stunting or quackery or window-dressing in our education."

That's why I started with the hyacinth poem, which Sir Alec read as a boy in his Aunt's house, as it encapsulates his philosophy. As I said to my students this week, what would Sir Alec think of the policies of the last fifteen years?