The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

135 Respon- If education involves teaching children particular skills andsive information, it also involves helping them to investigate andevaluation understand ideas and values. It means meeting commonneeds as well as developing unique abilities. Eliot Eisner(1969) distinguishes between two main types of educationalobjectives — instructional and expressive — both having animportant place in schools. An instructional objective is onewhich specifies skills and information to be learnt. Anexpressive objective does not specify what children are tolearn. It defines a task in which they are to engage, or asituation in which they are to work. An expressive objective'provides both the teacher and the student with an invitationto explore, defer or focus on issues that are of peculiarinterest or import.' All curriculum activities, including thearts, involve both types of objective. Learning to master thegrammar and syntax of a language, for example, and usingthe language to explore and express ideas are both importantactivities for the child. They may be closely related in practice,each growing naturally from and into the other. But theyimply different types of objective and different approachesto, and criteria for, evaluation. Methods of evaluation shouldbe sensitive to different types of work and to the variety ofeducational outcomes which result.136 Pervasive Michael Scriven (1967) makes a distinction between formativeassessment and summative evaluations. Formative evaluations are thosewhich teachers make during the course of their work andwhich influence the direction the work takes. They arediagnostic. Summative evaluations reflect upon the effectsof what has been done. This is not a difference based onwhen the evaluation takes place but on the reason for doingit. Similarly, assessments of pupils may be used to decideon the course their work is to take, or to summarise theirachievements. Feedback and encouragement are key elementsin education. Providing these should be a function of assessment.This should pervade the process of their education andbe as familiar to pupils as their lessons. This implies somethingmuch broader and more integral to the work thanperiodic testing and grading.137 Inform- Assessment should provide as much information as possible.ative There is a tendency to give assessments in the form of grades,assessment marks or percentages. One reason for this is to make themseem objective. Another is to facilitate comparisons betweenpupils. We have four reasons for doubting the value of suchprocedures, particularly in the arts.84a Only very limited aspects of educational attainment