The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

d education is something that only happens to childrene this is best done behind closed doors — or gatesEducation must enable children to make sense of and actin the world which they are living in now. This is a lifelongprocess which only begins at school. This suggests a broaderrole for schools than is commonly given to them at present.Just as our arguments lead us to question the rigid demarcationsof conventional curricula into separate specialisms,so they suggest a need to dissolve the barriers between theschool itself and the community which surrounds it. In someschools throughout the country there are attempts to do justthis. We have described aspects of one of them in the Appendix.This is not intended as a model. Different schools mustand will devise different approaches according to their differentcircumstances. The example illustrates how one schoolhas evolved an approach.219 Practical The idea and practice of community education is not new.difficulties A number of schools and colleges are pursuing such principlesthroughout the country, notably in Cambridgeshire and Leicestershire.1 There are considerable variations in the ways inwhich these are organised, funded and administered. Thereare also considerable difficulties involved in putting the principlesof community education into practice, specifically theprevailing attitudes within the community itself to educationand to educators. Attempts to change the style of existingprovision may indeed be actively resisted. The school wedescribe in the Appendix occupies the premises of a formerall-girls school with an established reputation in the areafor high academic standards. The changeover to comprehensiveand community principles met with some firm resistancefrom the first and this put an onus on the school to convinceparents and employers locally, through demonstration, thatacademic standards could be maintained and improved underthe new system.The size of the school and the siting of the campus itselfalso has a bearing on the extent to which local people arelikely to make use of it. This school is fortunate in thisrespect in being centrally placed in the town and in occupyingwell-established and familiar buildings. Structures ofgovernment also vary and necessarily so. In all cases, however,the attitudes and patterns of relationships among those involvedin organisational matters is the key factor in determiningthe success or otherwise of such ventures. Co-operationand co-ordination are central principles. For all of thesereasons we do not seek to idealise the practice of communityschools nor to put a gloss on the workings of this one. 2 We128