Julia Potts questions the extent to which arts organisations succeed at seeking and responding to children?s opinions about the activities provided for them.
Whether we work in schools, provide entertainment or participatory activities in our venues, or devise touring product or exhibitions to engage children in our artform, most of us working for and with children in the arts believe that they are central to the work that we do. But how often do we really take the time to include children in the decision-making processes leading up to the programming of an event? And how often are we in a position to employ the most appropriate means to investigate children?s views or to analyse their (honest) reactions to the events we have created?
Children at the heart?
Unfortunately, none of us has the glorious creative freedom we would like when it comes to developing our programmes for children. Most arts organisations work either to the demands of funding bodies or, in the commercial sector, to the needs of the business. Conducting an evaluation of events may be a mandatory way of fulfilling grant conditions, but this is not the same as making children?s views central to the way in which we work.
So, a dichotomy exists; whilst children are publicly perceived as pivotal to an organisation?s place in its community and to the development of its future users and audiences, they are also often privately excluded from any position of influence because they are not considered to be important all the time. Furthermore, children are often considered to be solely the province of the Education Department (frequently a one-person department) ? that is, until they suddenly become necessary to the organisation as a whole, to maintain the Box Office income stream or to fulfil the criteria on a funding application. It is not difficult to see why a comprehensive approach to involving children in arts projects from an early stage is a tall order for many.
Children are also disempowered by the fact that they tend not to complain in the way adults do. Rather than voice disappointment if a project doesn?t live up to expectation, children are more likely to disengage from the creative processes going on around them, find other, more interesting things to do, and disrupt other children along the way. They will, conversely, often tell you how much they?ve enjoyed something; but in both instances, the onus is on the provider to find a way of eliciting this information at the right time during or after the project, and in a way that will enable diverse views to be usefully interpreted.
Redressing the balance
Action for Children?s Arts? fourth Annual Conference, which takes place in Oxford at the end of March, sets out to address these issues and to provide answers and models of good practice which could benefit a broad range of arts organisations. The conference agenda recognises that incorporating children?s views into our work can be challenging and, in practical terms, difficult; how do you demonstrate you have listened to the child who only wants you to do activities based around Harry Potter? How do you deal with the inevitable, and dreaded, statement ?but it?s boring?? How do you persuade a group of children to talk about the things you need to discuss when a project may not yet even exist? Some people have found answers to these questions and the conference will showcase examples of pioneering work to both inform and inspire.
For example, children?s advisory groups are increasingly common. DISCOVER, a community-based children?s museum in East London, developed a Children?s Forum which meets monthly to advise management on how to make DISCOVER an exciting and educational place for children. Similarly the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester has a Junior Board of 9 children aged 9-11, which was given considerable status within the organisation. The Visual Paths project (one of Tate?s National Programmes, conceived and directed by Colin Grigg) involved working with ten deprived inner city primary schools over 3 years and is a testament to the way in which children?s creative horizons and personal development can be transformed through properly targeted projects which seek and incorporate their views. The length of the project enabled children to develop their visual and verbal vocabularies, and to help shape the project. Their views speak volumes:
?You are thinking about the painting, like you are just there in the painting. You look and maybe get fed up, but when you come back home you can?t stop thinking about it?Then I can write a book or something, it?s just like that.? (pupil, aged 10)
Hearing voices
Children need us to fight for their voices to be heard all the time, as a natural part of our work, rather than as a series of exceptional ?special cases?. They should not be a matter of convenience to the arts, but as much a part of informing what we do as our adult audiences, our policy makers, our sponsors, our local authorities. Until the views, the habits, the choices and the thoughts of children are recognized as central to the world in which we all live, then we will have failed to lay the strongest foundation on which to build a future for the arts.
Julia Potts is Group Education Manager for the Ambassador Theatre Group, and a member of the ACA Board. t: 020 8290 8264
ACA?s conference takes place from March 29-30 at the Oxford Playhouse and Worcester College, Oxford University. Keynote speakers include Joanna MacGregor and Jacqueline Wilson, and there will be the opportunity to join a variety of arts activities for children and families. For further information, contact Elizabeth Greaves t: 020 8763 8066; e: admin@childrensarts.org.uk; w: http://www.childrensarts.org.uk