The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

as well as in the arts.The third point steins from this. It is to emphasise theinter-disciplinary nature of the primary school curriculum —work in one mode of activity stimulating, and being stimulatedby, work in another. The value in talking of modes of activityand understanding rather than of separate subjects, is partlyin underlining that the same things can be seen and understoodin a variety of ways, geographically, biologically,historically — aesthetically. Work in drama or dance is aslikely to lead to a use of reference books as to further workin other art forms: for example, to exploring topics relatedto ritual, festivals, other civilisations. This may lead in turnto poetry or music.In inter-disciplinary work, there is always a danger ofsacrificing depth for variety. We will return to this later. Wewant to emphasise here that good primary school practice isbased on teachers recognising the opportunities to fertilisework in one part of the curriculum with work in another.The unifying and integrating aspects of the arts, which wediscussed in Chapter 1, give them a particular value in thisrespect.74 Resources There is a tendency to think of resources in terms of expensiveequipment — projectors, video, hi-fi etc. Althoughthese can enhance good arts teaching, they are not essentialto it. In thinking about resources for the visual arts in theprimary school, the Art Committee of the Schools Councilmake the central point that we should be conscious both ofthe scale of the child's world and of his/her relationship to it.The child, for whom everything is new and to be explored,becomes absorbed in things that adults have come to overlookor take for granted:'Watch a young child playing in a rain-filled gutter, lookingin a pond, studying a grasshopper or dissecting a plant. . .often of most importance to the child is what is possiblefor him or her to hold in a cupped hand.'(Schools Council,1981a, p9)In schools where there is work of quality, teachers arealways sensitive to the nature of this relationship betweenthe child and the world and to the need to create an environmentwhich feeds curiosity:'. .. an environment where rocks and shells, creaturesand bones, grasses and earth are considered togetherwith the vast range of man-made things which surroundand fascinate the child as fundamental resources for53