Sir Ken Robinson is featured in this video on Do schools kill creativity? The video goes for 20 minutes and is quite entertaining to watch – it’s ideal for parents to view or to use at a staff meeting to promote the value of a balanced curriculum. In the presentation he quotes Picasso as having said “all children are born artists the trick is to stay an artist“. His argument is basically two fold:
- cannot be creative unless you are willing to make mistakes – not that making mistakes is necessarily being creative and he contends that the current view of schooling drills this capacity to make mistakes out of children
- public education systems by and large did not exist before the 19th century industrial age where the purpose of schooling is to get a job and that now given technology and the fact that many more people are getting degrees and still not getting jobs that we need a new mindset for schooling that inverts the curriculum so that some weight is given the arts and not just visual arts and music but also drama and dance so that creativity which is needed in the 21st century is alive in schools.
I think Ken Robinson has a valid point about the need to ensure a balanced curriculum is provided to students that values the creative arts. This is too hard for 1 teacher to do and I think a creative arts calendar that features workshops funded through the excursion budget might be an alternative method to ensure this balance.
I know this that maths and literacy skills or outcomes through national tests are often what schools are measured on and the pressure to provide resources to raise the bar or close the achievement gap in these areas drives budgets and staffing and to ensure at least art and music are taught is doing well in many schools including mine.