The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

and provide for the arts. In making this provision we canpoint to three special difficulties:a the problem of identifying an artistic gift may becomplicated by the nature of the disability, this requiresspecial attention in the guidance to teachers given by aneducation authorityb there is a shortage of teachers with adequate training inthis field and of artists with the ability and commitmentto give time to help the disabled. The former can beresolved within an authority only through appropriatein-service training. The latter is being tackled throughfor example the work of Shape, 5 an organisation linkingprofessional artists with a variety of social needs fromwhich authorities can derive support in roughly thesame measure as they give ite there is the problem of segregation. Specialists are asdivided on this issue as others are over the best way todevelop artistic gifts. Generally we think the weight ofevidence, particularly in the United States, is againstsegregation, especially where this might be proposedfor the mentally retarded, maladjusted or disabled. Itis wiser we think, to provide substantial supplementaryhelp in ordinary schools along the lines that we havealready described172 Less able In any school there are children who, for a variety of reasons,and disturbed require some form of remedial activities or therapy. Forchildren example, children who are educationally sub-normal needspecial care and attention in the development of skills oflearning and communication; there are children with emotionaldisorders of various sorts, and, for the reasons we havesuggested, this may include very gifted children. All mayneed the attention of specialist teachers and/or therapists.We approach our comments here with caution because ofthe emphatic differences between general education andtherapy. We want only to note the growing body of experienceand opinion which points to the particular value of thearts — especially music, art, dance and drama — in these twoareas of remedial education and therapy. These provide notonly accessible channels of expression and communicationin both of these areas, but also, in the case of therapy, ameans of exploring and expressing emotion which can be animportant release in itself while providing the therapist withsignificant diagnostic information. In drawing attention tothese specialised uses of the arts in education, we emphasisethat they are the province of trained and qualified specialistsin art, drama and music therapy and not of the general105