The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

ewards and the excitement come not always from the bright child butfrom those who might have been by-passed because of their generalacademic slowness: this is one of the advantages of taking a class ofmixed-ability. I do not know the background or potential of each childand start with them therefore as equals. As writing is as much aboutfeeling as about thinking, I persuade the children that they are all capableof writing something. In this way, several children who have been presentedto me as 'slow' or 'backward' have, by the end of a session, probablyproduced the most original and imaginative piece of work.Gary, for example, was not considered bright. He was allowed to comeinto my class because he wanted to know why I was there. I was told,'Just let him sit and listen'. But I forgot and in the excitement of somediscussion we were having about life on a river, we started talking aboutthe kingfisher. I asked the children to describe the bird, with some fairlydull results. I tried again and, forgetting Gary's background, said 'Come onGary, you describe the kingfisher for me.' He said, 'I think the kingfisher'slike a living rainbow.' I said that was the sort of thing I was looking for:'That's poetry . . . that boy's using his imagination . . . Write it down,Gary, before you forget.' The poor lad blushed and confessed that hecould neither read nor write and didn't know how to spell the words. Thefear of spelling paralysed his imagination until he could see that imaginationought to come first and the spelling would eventually look after itself.Within weeks, his reading and writing had caught up with his age-groupand he became a regular contributor to the school's anthology. Whenasked to write about the sea he wrote:"The waves are roaring as if they are angryBecause the big boats keep sailing over them.I think the sea's tired of being sailed upon."Gary was ten. His imagination and his natural curiosity, when liberated,inspired him in the rest of his school lessons. Consequently the othersubjects improved as well. Children do receive something special whenthey work with an artist, a writer, or anyone who can see the importanceof education through art. I believe that through the arts people — andespecially children — become whole human beings. Art must be made toappeal to them as something living, something alive, that is about theirlives. This is what happens in our poetry classes in schools and the childrenrespond. They give it its heartbeat. They are better scholars when they arebetter people.'157