Back to School for the Arts
Mary Gladstone compares arts education in schools in Scotland and in Spain, welcoming the film curriculum introduced in Scotland
AFTER LIVING for 25 years in Catalunya in N E Spain, my sister has strong views on the Spanish school system, particularly when it comes to the arts. On entering primary school, her daughter got little encouragement in painting, music, drama and design. Each alternative year, she had to choose between studying music or art. If she settled for the latter, neatness had to be her goal rather than aiming for self-expression or experimentation. My sister ended up likening art in Spanish primary schools to 'drawing by numbers'. Their belief was that as paint made too much mess, kids were given pictures to colour-in with instructions not to let their pencil 'stray over the lines'.
While recent developments in Spain's primary schools' curriculum, particularly the expressive arts, are outside the scope of this ArtWork piece, it's worth noting that close to the town where my niece went to school, is Figueres where, in 1974, the surrealist artist, Salvador Dali established a museum where his work is displayed.
The Bookshop Band Martin Tomkins
It's become one of the most popular attractions in Spain, competing with the Prado in Madrid and the Alhambra; since opening, the museum has drawn 35,000,000 visitors.
Catalunya prides itself in its famous artists and architects, like Dali, Joan Miró and Antoni Gaudi. There is, however, a discrepancy between Spain's distinguished artistic heritage and its art tuition in its schools. It may boast and monetise its cultural assets but it overlooks the need to foster its future by nourishing its children artistically.
Does Scotland do better? In many ways, it's had to try harder with Calvinism, for several centuries, putting the kibosh on theatre, music and art. Historically, no Scottish artist, not even Henry Raeburn or Allan Ramsay, could steal a march on Spain's Diego Velazquez or Francisco Goya. Neither, in architecture, could the mansions of Robert Adam, compare with Barcelona's Gothic quarter and the Sagrada Familia cathedral of Antoni Gaudi.
Access to the expressive arts, at an early age, is crucial for a child's development. Professional musicians, with a widespread following, in and outside the UK, Beth Porter and Ben Please of the Bookshop Band have, naturally, an interest in how music is tackled in the classroom at Wigtown primary school, where their daughter attends.
Beth feels the arts aren't introduced early enough. "The younger they start, the better. Even at nursery school age when they could do more moving about, banging and shaking."
Although the school has no ukeleles or recorders to play, some children get the chance to blow the penny-whistle in sessions run by a visiting group. In art, they have 'fun time' when they make decorations for events like Halloween and put on art shows. They learn about artists like Andy Scott, the Scottish figurative sculptor in steel, who portrays large-scale animals, particularly horses.
There isn't as much music played in her daughter's school as there was when Beth was young. She sang daily in assembly but, fortunately, one teacher at Wigtown plays the piano so that kids can sing to live accompaniment instead of a backing-track. "Nowadays, children often listen to music through a speaker instead of hearing it live."
Music, drama and art are essential to the way a child learns who he or she is and how they relate to others. Although committed to the expressive arts in primary schools, the Scottish Government has problems in realising its ambition. A lack of cash and geographical disparity are two reasons. There's also the challenge of teacher confidence, often a result of insufficient training and the lack of a structured approach to teaching it. Children's access to the arts is dependent on the teacher's level of interest in the subject.
Another challenge is the squeeze on the arts, leading to music, art and drama being ousted by other areas of education, like literacy and numeracy. The expressive arts are increasingly used as an inter-disciplinary approach towards learning. In this way, drama techniques help a pupil towards numeracy and images can improve literacy. This is all very well but, in making the arts take back seat to 'hard-core' subjects, is to misunderstand their meaning and purpose. They are not an embellishment. They exist intrinsically for themselves.
Where the arts in Scotland are growing in reputation, is in the film industry. It may not be on a par with the US or London, but it's fast-growing and an emerging international production centre, while Dundee is a hub for animation. Building on these strengths, is the recently launched Film and screen Curriculum, developed by Screen Scotland, which brings film-making in schools to 6,000 children from 3 – 18 years across 30 local authority areas. It remains to be seen how successful the promise will be that 'Scottish children will be the most cine-literate in the world'.
Film-maker and cinema historian, Mark Cousins, who shot the 15 hour documentary series, 'The Story of Film' (2011), has worked in Scottish schools and believes that making films, starting with very young children, is just as important as studying and analysing them.
It's encouraging, then, to learn that creativity, the process of making, rather than theoretical study, is being increasingly respected and that the early years of a child's life are crucial. Here's hoping they're filled with nourishment in the arts.
