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Memorandum submitted by Chris Beschi I am a Primary trained teacher-artist working in an EBD Primary school in Brent. I have been a participant on the TAP programme (www.liftfest.org.uk/learning/tap/tap_teacher_artist_forum/) and facilitators cpd for 2 years investigating the changing role of arts and creativity in teaching and learning. I offer this evidence as reflection of my own personal views based on my experience working in the field that this Inquiry aims to investigate. I have formatted my submission with respect to specific questions raised in the press notice for easy access and discussion. · 1.How should we define creativity in the context of education and child care? This can be any learning experience where a participant researches/articulates/represents or makes through a process of personal involvement something that is inspired or shaped by their inner self or life experience. It can also relate to approaches to teaching and learning that are not traditional and repetitive or that only target particular styles of learning or intelligences. Creative learning by definition must allow participants the opportunity to create something over which they have ownership, something that is new and not prescribed. Simply regurgitating facts or repeating exercises that have a pre-defined outcome or success criteria cannot be deemed creative. · 2.What effect have existing creative initiatives had on teachers' skills and ability to work with creative professional in the classroom? The TAP program run by LIFT is a creative initiative partly funded by the DfES that brings together teachers and artists to explore ways of working creatively in partnership across all sectors of education in a pan-curricular way. As a participant it radically progressed my work as a facilitator in an EBD primary setting and has introduced me to a network of creative practitioners whom I am able to work with regularly and to great effect as well as developing my approaches to teaching and learning that has led to a dramatic improvement in my arsenal of strategies for teaching across the curriculum in a creative, inclusive and responsive manner. The effect on the children I teach is greater engagement, raised esteem, and higher academic attainment.
· 3.What are the implications of a curriculum shift in favour of creativity for the training of heads, teachers and cultural animators? The implications for training may be that trainees will need to develop their own creative abilities as well as becoming far more critically reflective of their impact on young people and the practices they employ in the name of education. Headteachers will need to be trained to do more than run a financially successful business and promote government-led teach-in-a-box initiatives that are designed and disseminated by bureaucrats with little contemporary experience in the fields they 'develop'. · 4.What special contribution do the arts have to make to creative education?
The success of artists working in education is well documented. Also there are many hybrid professionals within education who bring a vast experience of the arts to educational institutions. Commonly known as teacher-artists these professionals are at the cutting-edge of many of the most relevant, dynamic and progressive approaches to teaching learning that are currently enriching the lives of thousands of young people despite the constant battle for recognition, time and finance that these professionals require to carry on this most important work. · 5.What is the impact of a creative curriculum
on As a primary trained teacher working as an arts facilitator I can testify that through collaborative, multi-disciplinary arts practice in an EBD setting all the above issues have been greatly improved. By an informed and sensitive, pupil-centered approach to creative learning I have been able to see academic and social progression in the students I teach. This has led to higher levels of reintegration and attainment in SATs as well as better peer and student teacher relationships. This has had a positive impact on behaviour and group morale and understanding in this most challenging and complex of settings.
· 6.How can creative achievement among young people be acknowledged and assessed? Currently there is a preoccupation in the education system with assessment that is based on the grading of an outcome against a scale of worth. This cannot continue if education is to be creative. Participation, engagement with tasks, enjoyment and understanding a participant's intention in creating something in response to a stimulus through a process of reflection are more valid ways of acknowledging and assessing creative achievement but require greater sensitivity and consideration from assessors as well as an active reflection on the construction and delivery of learning experiences by those facilitating. Working to pre-ordained targets and success criterion will not aid the construction of creative learning environments nor will the standardising of educational expectations or the competitive practice of comparing institutions by exam results and league tables. · 7.How can creativity be embedded across the curriculum and within the philosophy of schools? The easy answer to this is through greater negotiation with the those people already working in the field of creative education in roles as diverse as curriculum development, cpd, teacher-artists, teachers, artists, fundraisers, project leaders, community artists, integration, behaviour management, pastoral support, subject leaders and many more. Until a voice is given to these people and groups currently working at the cutting edge margins of education there can be little hope for a more creative approach to teaching and learning that does more than pay lip service to an identified need for a dramatic shake up of outdated modes of teaching and learning that pervade many of our institutions following modernist models of learning in a society that is changing and developing in an altogether more fragmented and diverse way.
June 2007 |