The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

207 The role The rple of the teacher is crucial here, partly because of theof the detailed knowledge he or she has of the pupils and partlyteacher because it is more sustained. It is to prepare children, throughbackground work, for the visit, and to mediate between theartist and the groups, as necessary, during the course of it —helping them to adjust to each other's interests and levelsof attainment. There are two common difficulties here.First, there may be resentment among the staff at the ideaof 'artists' being brought into the school in the first place.Most schools have understood the purpose of the Artistsin Schools scheme, although, for example,'. . . a few teachers have remarked that if they themselvesdid their own work in the art room, that ought to amountto the same thing.' 13Second, given the recent emergence of these schemes,some schools and teachers may find it difficult to know howto make the best use of them and may be forgiven for fallingback on habit and convention. We will come back to thislater.208 Problems Although their aims and patterns of work may be quitefaced by arts different, arts education companies — Theatre in Education,education Dance in Education — face as many problems in workingcompanies with schools as the Artists in Education schemes we havebeen considering.In secondary schools especially, the congestion of thecurriculum can make it difficult for companies to get in atall. Once in, schools often fail to use the opportunitiespresented by companies for sustained work — seeing thevisit as a treat for for the children and a break for the teacher.Some companies are also under pressure from the funders tovisit as many schools as possible — sometimes two or three aday — so as to be 'cost-effective.' This can severely limit theactual value of the work by denying sufficient time forproductive relationships to develop between companies andschools. Consequently, visiting companies can be affected bythe same 'cycle of constraint" which hampers arts teachers inthe school (see Chapter 4). Equally, of course, companiesthemselves may sometimes misjudge the appropriateness ofmaterial for schools, or the levels of attainment and interestof groups they are to work with.209 Courses Given these various considerations, we can identify a numberof action: of courses of action to be pursued in developing these imporfourneeds tant relationships between children, teachers and artists.These are related to four areas of need. These are for new122