The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

school curriculum fall into this second class of value. Theyhave an instrumental value in acquiring things that arevalued in themselves. The activities of the arts fall into thefirst class. They are absolutely worthwhile spending time onfor the sake of satisfactions that are intrinsic to them. Themore far-sighted industrialists and politicians realised thislong ago. 6 The successes of the Workers' Education Association,of Miners' and Mechanics' Institutes, of Adult Educationand of such places as Ruskin College further illustratethis view: that in abandoning the arts, we should be abandoningboth our heritage and our future and putting even furtherat risk the whole quality of community life. A recent editorialin the Times Educational Supplement was even moreemphatic:'Art in all its forms has been since time immemorial themeans by which humans keep up their collective spiritsand make sense of each other and of their world. A humanand intelligently conceived arts education, shading off ina medley of other directions while retaining its own inalienablecharacter, is something whose value only thebigoted or the very stupid could deny.' (TES, 6th February,1981)31 Summary In this chapter, we have argued that the arts are importantways of knowing the world and of interpreting our experiencesin it. Their inclusion in the school curriculum is anobligation of general education. We have also argued thatthis is morally desirable. Moreover, the arts are part of thefabric of our culture and civilisation and a knowledge andunderstanding of them is essential on these grounds too. Wehave emphasised that 'doing' the arts is as important asappreciating the work of others and we have challenged theidea that 'excellence' is exclusively related to any particulartype of art. We have discounted the tendency to dichotomisearts and sciences and emphasised the complementary relationshipsbetween different ways of knowing. The arts arecrucial elements in a balanced curriculum: not more norless, but certainly as important as other forms of knowledge.We have concluded by arguing that the arts also enrichthe life of individuals and the social culture and this isimportant as an end in itself. Throughout this chapter wehave referred to the idea of creativity in the arts and inother areas of activity. In the next chapter we look at this inmore detail and draw out its implications for the wholecurriculum.28