WHAT USE ARE THE ARTS? PART 4: THE ARTS AND EDUCATION: Eamon de Valera's no-frills approach to education sidelined the arts in our schools for years, and though attitudes have changed, there is still a lack of consistent policy and action to back up the gestures.
'The only possible teacher, beyond torture, is fine art," wrote George Bernard Shaw in The Doctor's Dilemma, privileging art as the most crucial tool for understanding the world. Scientific experiments might divine the secrets of physical existence, Shaw tells us in his play, but they will never be able to anatomise pain: our experience of the world is of far greater worth than our knowledge of it.
A century after he philosophised on the subject, Shaw's line of reasoning on the value of art remains a source of tension for arts and education providers in Ireland.
The role that the arts play in teaching us about the world is largely undisputed: their ability to help us develop different languages (symbolic and visual) through which to understand the world; their capacity to translate the unfamiliar into more easily accessible images and narratives; their encouragement of the development of self-expression. However, the status of the arts in the education system is constantly under threat when weighed against the more practical goals of passing exams, achieving vocations and, eventually, earning a living. On a practical level, the arts can be, and are, dismissed as ancillary to real-world needs. Historically, and more pertinently today, this is a seriously contentious issue in the Irish educational system.
Eamon de Valera said "What I am afraid of is that teachers are thinking all the time of making subjects interesting and attractive . . . I am less interested in the teacher's method of teaching than I am in the results he achieves. I am for cutting off every frill possible to us to make certain that the essentials are properly done."
The devaluing of the arts in the Irish education system is historic, and can be linked to de Valera's functional attitude to schooling, which was adopted as policy for Irish schools in the 1940s. De Valera's call for a "no-frills" primary and secondary curriculum, which would be geared towards exam results rather than the enjoyment of the expansion of the mind, was the guiding principle of the evolving educational system. In line with de Valera's pedagogical philosophy, the emphasis in education was to be on knowledge accumulated rather than lessons learned.
The current Leaving Cert system retains a similarly functional philosophy, as exemplified by the points system, although among education providers the need to facilitate personal development within the school system is seen as increasingly important, with subjects such as SPHE (Social, Personal and Health Education) and programmes such as transition year crucial in delivering such objectives. Arts access and arts education are also regarded as valuable tools for enhancing pupil development outside the curriculum. However, support for education-related arts initiatives at national policy level has been slow.
In fact, despite restructured syllabuses (the most recent primary curriculum was initiated in 2001, the latest secondary syllabus in 2005), the place of the arts in the educational system is still a cause for considerable concern. The allotment of two hours a week at primary level is seen as insufficient for adequately fostering creative childhood experiences or long-term interest in the arts. At secondary level, meanwhile, the poor arts subject take-up figures (around 35 per cent at junior cycle, less than 20 per cent at senior cycle, and no other mandatory provision for the arts), the limited availability of practical arts subjects other than visual arts and music, and the absence of the performance-arts-focused second-level option available in the UK, are further evidence of the poor status of the arts in the education system.
The educational imperative (and the failure to cater for it) dovetails with broader issues of human rights and social inclusion where children don't have the material or physical independence to seek out or participate in arts experiences. Research has found that it is from childhood experience of the arts that adult appreciation and participation stems, so children without access to the arts are being denied their potential capacity to enjoy them at a later stage in their lives. Furthermore, cultural exclusion, as the 2005 Education: Arts in Schools Policyfound, is linked to social exclusion. Arts in education can be used as an intervention, not only to "enrich the quality of life of participants", but also because it "makes good economic sense in helping to forestall at least some social ills". As pupils spend 70 per cent of their week in school, it is thus through the educational system that their arts needs can and should be met.
However, as new approaches to the status and use of the arts in education are being pioneered at primary and secondary level, developments are really only in a nascent state in Ireland, as the findings in this article attest. Measures such as the inclusion of the arts in the National Strategy for Children - "access to and participation in the arts are necessary for child development" - and the commitment of the Primary Curriculum Support Programme to providing extra in-service training for the delivery of the curriculum, are being positively welcomed. However, there is a need for active advocacy and hard policy, as well as gestures, to ensure that a fully integrated approach to the arts in education is developed.
MAPPING THE TERRITORY: a Round Table for the Museums, Arts and Formal Education Sectors, was convened by the Ark cultural centre for children, the Heritage Council and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2006. The published findings of their first meeting outlined the central limitation of cross-sectoral work: the lack of centralised policy for arts and education. Commitment to arts in education, the report found, was linked to individual teachers' interests and innovation, rather than any coherent policy of implementation. The "insufficient status of the arts, particularly in post-primary education" was the second major issue, with the widespread "undervaluing" of the arts, where "arts activity is seen to be cutting across the real work", seen as inhibiting any widespread commitment to the arts beyond the curriculum.
Coinciding with Mapping the Territory's discussions was the establishment of a special committee on arts and education issues, organised by the Arts Council and bringing together the Department of Education and the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism for the first time with a commitment to addressing these issues.
Simply beginning that dialogue was seen as a major positive step, as Eina McHugh, director of the Ark, insists - despite the fact that the committee's report has still not been released some seven months after it was submitted to the relevant government departments (see panel above).
"This is a first-time initiative for the two departments," McHugh says. "It is very important that it happened, that the committee was formed, and I'm happy to go with the energy that it has created, hoping that something positive can emerge."
Mapping the Territory, meanwhile, has since met for a second time, with the focus on developing formal networks between arts and education providers through the proposed establishment of a national representative body, a resourced network organisation, as well as continued advocacy and lobbying for national research, policy and funding. However, the real commitment appears to lie in the development of the relationship between the arts and education sectors, rather than in curricular shifts. This should enable professional artists to bring their "specialist skills, knowledge and expertise" to schools, "in order to ensure in-depth and quality arts experiences" in line with the 2006 Artists/Schools Guidelines published by the Arts Council.
It is artists themselves, Mapping the Territory found, that are the key to harnessing arts experiences for educational development: by encouraging relationships and learning that go beyond the curriculum; by providing the tools for developing new relationships; and by facilitating new modes of learning and new ways of thinking about a familiar world.
