The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

universally valued archive of stable treasures. The arts teacheris seen as a kind of guide around this archive. If one entersthe archive, however, and applies the idea of evolution notonly to the present but also to the past, the question becomesnot only whether or not children should be encouraged tounderstand the work of great artists — we have no doubtthat they should — but also which artists should be selectedand by whose criteria do we call them great? Those whotalk of the cultural heritage usually have in mind a comparativelynarrow range of work favoured by particularsections of one culture — their own. This view of culturemisrepresents the real meaning and significance of culturaleducation.52 Whoseculture?Schools have no monopoly on education. From the momentthey are born children live under constant pressure to see theworld according to this set of values rather than that, and tobehave in these ways rather than those. Consciously andunconsciously they absorb and reflect their culture throughthe people they meet, the clothes they wear, the music theylisten to and the stories they tell. There is no question ofchildren turning up for school without a culture and beingthere to acquire one: nor of teachers granting or withholdingculture. As Levitas puts It:'What is transmitted to children, deliberately and unconsciously,by people, by their surroundings, by events,and what is acquired by them is their culture. Having allbecome carriers of the culture of their society, theyconsolidate for each other in their play and other forms ofpeer group interaction, that culture. Thus it follows thatteaching, to be effective, must have regard for culturealready acquired.' (Levitas, 1974, p7)Often children live within one culture, while school, forthe most part, represents another. We are thinking here notonly of the many ethnic cultures which British schools nowserve, but also of positive counter-cultures, instanced forexample by Paul Willis (1978) in his account of attitudes tcschool among working-class boys. This culture is not justdifferent from the predominantly white middle-class valuesof formal education, but often directly at odds with them.In talking about the cultural heritage then, whose culturedo we have in mind?53 Whichheritage?In re-examining the concept of the cultural heritage we arenot denying the need to understand the past nor the powerof historic works of art to communicate to people today, nor38