Food for thought!
I was fortunate to attend the Westminster Education Forum conference on cultural education recently. There were fascinating speakers giving examples of inspirational work taking place up and down the country by schools and other arts organisations.
This is why we all keep fighting for the arts. They can do so much for individuals and communities, transforming lives.
Where we seem to struggle is sharing this excellent practice between ourselves and learning from each other. It is a complex question with complex solutions. But if we don’t try to resolve some of the issues we can be certain that nothing will change – or if it does, it might be for the worse!
Part of the challenge is that the arts affect our lives in a multitude of ways. It may be a leisure activity or a profession. Arguments were presented for the benefits of participation through hard work and application leading to excellence at the same time as encouraging engagement with the arts for fun without any pressure. We want the arts to be a basic entitlement whilst also seeing them as enrichment. We want opportunity for everyone whilst also demanding the practical need to target and focus, ensuring value for money and measurable outcomes. There were advocates for bottom up approaches and equally impassioned calls for some leadership and top down – somebody should do something about it! Some argued that young people should determine their own culture and creativity, saying it is not for us to define what they should experience, whilst others argued that young people don’t know what they don’t know and part of our responsibility as educators is to bring new experiences to them.
I was reminded of a series of blogs I wrote a year ago entitled ‘the arts in education; education in the arts’. See www.dickhallam.co.uk/blogs
There was much food for thought, and I hope that, by sharing some of this it may assist as colleagues grapple with these issues locally.
What did I take from it musically?
- We have a national plan (not perfect but better than no plan);
- We have national funding (not enough but better than no funding);
- Things could be better, but they could most certainly be a lot worse.
Conclusion: If we want and deserve national funding in future, we must take the responsibility for doing the best we can with what we have and justifying our decisions to those to whom we are accountable.
All of this was reinforced last week when I was fortunate enough to see some brilliant work as a member of the judging panel for Classic fm music teacher of the year, and then going on to the Continuing Professional Development weekend run by the SMA. There is much excellent work going on. Let’s celebrate the best, learn from each other, and do what we can to secure steady and lasting improvement.