The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

composition — Western and non-Western — and toappreciate their use and appropriateness in differentsituationsf develop individual interests and abilities in makingand appreciating music71 Other Similar lists could be drawn up for each of the arts in thearts primary school. Among them all, as between these two,there will be considerable overlap. There are two commonemphases: to give children a broad introduction to the richvariety of media, techniques and forms of expressive andcreative activity, and to aim continually to raise their levelsof competence and attainment in using and understandingthem.72 What In primary schools, children work for most of the day withprovision the same teacher. Unlike work in secondary schools —is needed? except where certain spaces, such as the hall, are needed —there is no organisational need to establish fixed periods oftime for the arts. Certainly, there is no educational need todo so. Indeed, separate timetabling can place artificial boundariesaround activities which, with young children especially,should be seen as an integrated part of day-to-day experience.The most important need is for teachers themselves torecognise and respond to the opportunities for expressive andcreative work which continually arise in the primary school.There are two central questions here: those of integrationand of resources.73 Integral- The arts in the primary school need to be conceived of, andion organised, as an integral part of every school day. The factthat one teacher is concerned with almost the whole of thechild's daily curriculum makes this a real possibility. Thereare three aspects to this.First, the arts have to be defined very generally at thisstage to embrace a wide range of expressive activity inmovement, painting, music, dramatic playing and so on. Amajor value of these activities, from the earliest days ofeducation, is in promoting the use of imagination, originality,curiosity and a sheer pleasure in doing and learning.Second, in talking about the aesthetic and creative modeof discourse in Chapter 1, we noted that this embraces morethan the arts. Looking through a microscope at an insect'swing; examining shells and fossils, plants and the localenvironment can be rich sources of aesthetic experience. Thearts are the characteristic ways in which we record andreflect upon these experiences. Aesthetic experience, likecreativity, should be fostered throughout the curriculum,52