PEDAGOGY
The need for
THE ART OF IT consultancy
How can UK primary schools (KS1&KS2) future proof learning in new technologies: augmented, virtual and mixed realities?
This question has developed from the UNDEREARTH project report. The 12 week project to deliver creative thinking and new technology into two Andover schools prompted me to question the art education provision in school. How are the creative thinking and the humanities subjects sidelined in favour of the three ‘r’s reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic, The phrase appears to have been coined at the beginning of the 19th century. (Obsolete skill set, Papert, S. 1993) What skills will employers look for in the next 20 years? The three R’s will only take a learner so far, other skills will be at play and those need to be nurtured. Chloe Finlay-Black teacher from School A fed back to me regarding this point:
“So much value is disproportionately placed on ‘core subjects’, namely English and maths, leaving little room in school timetables for the arts...”
The question posed by IOE (UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society.) What if... we placed greater value on arts education in our schools system? 27th May 2021 The panel discussed artistic provision and how to get education reform.
Emily Gopaul author, educator and arts activist “the current curriculum doesn’t consider the changing landscape of the future world of work” … “arts are not protected in our schools - poor resourcing and no space.” This quote by Gopaul describes my own experience with the UNDEREARTH project (Grover & Scahill 2022) School B had no space to allow creativity to happen.
The webinar panel discussed CPD opportunities for teachers, and their expectations to deliver a Arts curriculum if that is not their speciality will leave the arts in a school at a disadvantage. The panel advocated for artist professionals to come into the curriculum to deliver specialist skills and intern empower the abilities of staff. Chloe Finlay- Black also supported this notion “There is also a lack of expertise (in art) generally across staff (though this varies from school to school) - adults can feel quite vulnerable trying to teach something they feel unskilled in.”
This directly is reflected in the choice School A made on the UNDEREARTH project, the headteacher selected a class teacher who enjoys the arts to be present in the session for the whole 6 weeks. The metacognitive approach to this empowered the teacher in School A to use the knowledge acquired for students who would enjoy presenting work in a different way because of their own processing issues.
Ed Dorrell from the panel 27th May 2021 – an expert in education policy stated “accountability and teaching to the test - drive arts education to the periphery” “the general public do like the arts, but literacy and numeracy are political winners.” Ed pointed out that advocates for the arts need to tailor their message in real terms, not leading with their heart but with the financial gains the political gains and the gains to the ballot box.
It is clear in the UNDEREARTH project that leadership and management played a huge part in prioritising what was important to the school ethos.
School A placed the knowledge and opportunity high on their agenda, School B could not place it highly as they seemed to be over stretched and had to prioritise SEN educational plans over a project.
These key attributes as taken from the 2016, 21st Century competencies for Ontario by Melanie J. Maas and Janette M. Hughes Pg9:
“A skill is seen as the ability to perform tasks and solve problems, while a competency is seen as the ability to apply learning outcomes adequately in a defined context (education, work, personal or professional development).“
So if we relate this quote to the arts, we can see how the arts in it many forms (creativity, music, dance etc.) can be both skill serving and a competency. Art is a practice – a development of the self and looking outside to others, this performing of tasks bring expertise and a skill to the methods of work. Overcoming problems is the domain of creativity a piece of music that wont work, or a flow of a choreography dance that requires ‘something else’. Being competent in applying your skill to a problem within the defined context then brings the power of the creative industries into the same arena as science, maths and English.
I would suggest that even more powerfully the arts push boundaries, Dominic Wyse – IOE the panel 27th May 2021 said “The intention to create something new is the purpose of art. In other subjects it is the search for a solution to a problem.” Making something new rather than solving an existing problem is the missing link of why arts education is so important. Original thoughts, new ideas, pushing boundaries in skill and competency are on a par with a science investigation process.
Howard Gardener and his pedagogy description of Five minds of the future, lists the thinking minds required for future culture as: disciplined mind, synthesising mind, creating mind, respectful mind, ethical mind. He hypothesis links these directly to an artistic education pathway, where these five minds can be born.
Looking back to the words of philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) who stated
“That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For how is it possible that the faculty of cognation should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare, to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience? In respect of time therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins with it.” (Hongmin Kim, H. 2018 Graphic design Discourse pg50).
The approach of the learning that took place in UNDEREARTH provided a new experience based on some knowledge of the earth, of woods and life in the mud. The project thus enabled the children to investigate, learn new skills to master new technologies in creative dialogue of making something new. One child’s creation called Applebug, was unique and had such life imbued into it the character became the mascot of the show.
In the USA Blooms Taxonomy is used as a central pillar to ensure that student learning reflected the multi-tiered model of classifying thinking according to six cognitive levels of complexity. The taxonomy is hierarchical and was re-evaluated in the 1990s by a former student of Bloom’s Lorin Anderson. Who added relevance to the 21st century. The terms can be seen here from the old to the new version.
The original Blooms taxonomy had Evaluation as the up most tier, interestingly Creating was selected for the 21st century revision. (Cite. Forehand, M, 2011 online)
Whilst I am encouraged to see that creating is on the topmost layer of the pyramid, the lowest level of thinking skills cites remembering as the base level. This I feel is not accurate and discriminates against those who are neurodivergent and do not have cognitive process in the same way. ‘Remembering’ I would argue is not the right terminology. We use the activities or highlighting searching and bookmarking in order to have a visual reference, whether we remember those highlighted texts are not necessary when we can look back and review the pages.
In the UNDEREARTH project the children were their own creative masters. Here are Blooms revised titles in relation to the project:
-
Remember: the feeling of the harmony woods field trip and the things found
-
Understand: how ecosystems exist and what creatures are dependant upon it.
-
Apply: built a character story for their own creation
-
Analyse: decided on attributes that the character would have, scared, fun etc.
-
Evaluate: their existence in the UNDEREARTH world followed a story they determined.
-
Create: stop motion animations – scratch coding – and model building.
They produced films from their stop motion, they provided their own words in the form of interviews podcasting, they directed the characters and each other to creative narratives with the theme. They recorded their progress each week in their UNDEREARTH workbooks – offline blogging.
So if the learning can occur on this level of creativity, then stats like the ones we see in the Coursera report 2022 (pg26) state that tech skills in the UK lag behind most of Europe. The UK is the third largest market for technology behind the US and China. The report says that the industry requires high levels of talent that are just not coming through and will make the UK fall behind even more.
The stats from the report must be treated cautiously as the information from the 2022 report presents data from the more than 100 million people who have used Coursera to learn new skills.
Providing evidence that the UK is slipping in digital technologies is a report from the UK government regarding the Skills gap created in 2021. The Rt Hon. John Whittingdale OBE MP Minister of State for Media and Data Said:
“The government is already taking action to address the data skills gap. In Autumn 2020 DCMS and the Office for AI launched a degree conversion course programme in data science and AI. The programme will create at least 2,500 graduates over 3 years.” “To understand the UK’s data skills gap, we spoke to 1,045 businesses, 5,000 workers and 1,000 students in higher education or training across the UK.” (The skills gap report of 2018-2021).
The importance you can see for critical thinking and storytelling and creativity aspects of skills employer’s need can be solved by a creative arts education.
I might define this term differently as a perception change has to occur around what arts education is. This term is stuck in a non-progressive mindset. And this could be the starting point for my PhD.
The content of this webpage is for my MA course in Digital Media Practice. All references can be found in the buttons at the bottom of the page. All design work is my own unless otherwise stated. June 2022.If you have any questions please contact me scahilldesigner@gmail.com