The relationship between artists and schools is two-way. Pete McGuigan wonders what artists can learn from spending time in schools.
Why do schools and teachers, on the one hand, and arts organisations and artists, on the other, want to work together? And what does good practice in such work together look like? The national Creativity Action Research Awards (CARA) programme, initiated and commissioned by Creative Partnerships and led and managed by CapeUK, has highlighted some of the benefits and challenges of this sort of collaboration and offered some answers to these questions.
There are two, closely linked, significant issues that are central to artists work in schools. First, although the focus of artist and school collaboration is usually children, the centre of it should be the professional development of the adults. This is essential if there is to be a long-term, embedded impact on the school, and real learning in the partnerships. Second, there is a wide range of practice: from art for arts sake, to the arts as a means to other ends, and from one-off workshops to extended residencies and long-term partnerships.
Schools and artists need to give careful thought to the purpose, focus and funding of collaborations if they are to get the most from them. Most schools take a pragmatic view on this and will often value quantity over quality at the expense of professional development. Whilst this is understandable, it neither improves the real quality of education in schools nor develops capacity in the arts community to engage with schools, other than on the superficial level of supply and demand.
Partnership practice
Establishing a learning partnership between a teacher and a partner is complex and takes time. Genuine creative partnerships are founded on a sense of equality and joint discovery: partners need to work with, rather than for, each other. The greatest benefit emerges when partnerships experience and model the process of creative thinking, both together and with children.
All participants go from a position of not knowing and not fully understanding, to one of using their imaginations, having ideas, trying and testing them, discovering what works and what doesnt. They make mistakes, learn from them and reach temporary solutions be that a performance, an exhibition, a presentation or simply a greater understanding. And, of course, this kick-starts the creative process all over again. For both partners this is challenging and hugely rewarding, but for different reasons.
Teachers often perceive their professionalism as delivery and organisationally based targets, detailed curriculum plans, group management, evidence gathering and documenting and as supporting a neat linear model of learning that is clearly reflected in the National Curriculum, national strategies for learning and SATs. For many teachers, this can feel both persecutory and strangely comforting: although they may be struggling to keep pace with it, the framework is there for them and if only they can work harder and SMARTer they can succeed!
Great expectations
Promoting creativity in which risk, fear, joy, despair, dedication and discovery are important parts of the process moves teachers away from the current orthodox pedagogy based largely on teaching skill sets and knowledge. Teachers can discover (often rediscover) a more learner-centred method that tries to keep pace with, and extend, the unique, convoluted and sometimes contradictory learning paths that real learners take. Constructively managing the tension between these two, often opposing, ideologies is an enormously creative process in its own right and should not be underestimated.
The wide range of disciplines, backgrounds and experiences of artists and other external partners who work in schools, is to be both valued and considered carefully. For some, working in schools is a new experience, whilst others have long associations with particular settings, sometimes to the extent of being a member of staff. A number of artists have been teachers and have chosen to work outside the system to promote a particular way of working.
Some artists are intrigued by a particular project and, for them, it may be a one-off experience, whilst others are very experienced practitioners who have worked in many schools over a number of years. These are often supported by Creative Partnerships and this large Government investment has stimulated both expectation and availability. Many artists are self employed and may be linked to arts brokerage organisations these organisations can make very valuable contributions to the discussion, thinking and planning of projects, often bringing a wider view to the table.
Unfortunately, professional development for artists is still perceived as unusual. Many artists describe school experiences that range from giving a hard-pressed teacher a break by performing to a troublesome class, to running the same 40-minute workshop with every class in the school. Yet, depending on experience, artists can gain a wide range of knowledge from genuine learning partnerships for some it may be greater understanding about managing children and for others it may help develop ideas that can be used in future work. For some it is a chance to explore areas of childrens learning that have interested them from previous work and, for a few, it is an opportunity to develop and enrich their own practice.
Increased understanding
Perhaps the biggest challenge for artists partnering with schools is securing their own professional development within it: good partnership is as much about getting as giving. From a school perspective, bringing more of the arts into school has clear and obvious benefits and they want as many children as possible to experience it it is good value for money! From an arts perspective, benefits are less obvious: if the experience is to be more than simply income generation to support artists real work, they need to go into it hungry for their own learning.
The arts community is very good at seeing what it can offer education and this is gratefully received. Education is not always as good at seeing what it has to offer to the arts community. Understanding is at least as important as doing, in a great deal of contemporary arts practice, and who better to explore this with than children, young people and the countrys experts in understanding learning teachers?
Pete McGuigan is Learning Director at CapeUK. t: 0113 200 7035; w: http://www.capeuk.org
The key findings of the Creativity Action Research Awards (CARA) programme are summarised in Building Creative Futures, a free booklet available from CapeUK
(e: kelly@capeuk.org), which includes contributions from Anna Craft and Robert Fisher.