Artists and Schools

1. I am a Painter, however over the last twenty years I have taught in schools allowing me to interact with my local community.

2. During 2003, 2004, 2005 there was the BIG ARTS WEEK Julian Lloyd Webber was the Patron. It was funded by THe Arts Council, BBC, Forward Arts, Awards for All, RPS and Time Bank enabling national financial support and media coverage.

3. Planning and good communications for success. BIG ARTS WEEK gave teachers 'time out' from the routine, a time to be creative time to bond with their pupils less formally. Time for pupils to spend time with an Artist from outside school.

4.  Teachers rarely meet artists these projects gives them that opportunity, the experience for artist, teacher and pupils works. 

My artist statement is clear:

"Art is an important part of a childs development, it touches the heart and soul of each and everyone of us. Art brings us closer together and bridges the gaps so evident in modern day living. I work towards building those bridges working with Parents and Teachers to make it happen"

Whatever our age or ability Art gives us a platform to express ourselves creatively. I work to inspire and draw out the best in people....

I am a painter who has been working in schools since the early eighties and have seen the decline of of motor skills and use of paint in schools. This I believe I think is related to the sanatiseation of the school space by the introduction of carpets and the rise of computers.The space for creative practice  has been physicaly squeesed out.

Teaching it self has changed from the process of learning to an emphasis on an end product.

So many schools I go into seem to be trying hard to impress other adults with art displays and it is quite obviouse  the teachers have worked up the children work,

to produce what they think art work should look like. We need to retrian our teachers

In the fundamental art practices. art is messy takes time and helps open every aspect of a childs mind and is the most impotant thing to teach.

 The three Rs call  it what you will, will all follow naturaly.

I am a painter currently working with the British Council in Azerbaijan, leading workshops at the Baku State Art Academy with students from a range of disciplines. As an ex-soviet state, the art education here is very different to anything in the UK. 90% of the academy students come from specialised secondary schools which they attend from the ages of 15-18yrs, where techniques of drawing and painting are drummed into them, continuing through post-graduate studies, where studies are largely based on a European model from the 1920’s. They are not encouraged to develop any sense of criticality in their work, and there is no written content. Teachers routinely draw over students work to ‘correct’ it, even erasing work in progress, through secondary school to the under & post-graduate. Although this is a ‘democracy,’ freedom of expression is not part of daily reality, in the arts or anywhere else in schools and colleges. Artworks produced are on the whole highly conformist, few dare to question state dogma.
The aim of the British Council workshops is to introduce the students to alternative art practices, and help them develop individual practices. The students I have are enthusiastic and open minded, though they may be strongly discouraged from putting what they learn into practice whilst still attending the Academy, and even after graduation.
As I come from a UK educational system, I find myself trying to reconcile extremes of approach. 'Art should be messy, take time and help open every aspect of a child’s mind that being the most important thing to teach' and one fundamental principle currently lacking in a post-communist country like Azerbaijan, but which I was sure to be still prevalent in UK schools, though it seems from previous postings that this may not be the case?

I am a practicing artist, not a teacher, I can bring my experience and enthusiasm directly to children without any of the other concerns of teaching. I can create a safe place for creativity to happen without the need for judgement and passes or fails. Children often arrive for the first time in my class with the phrase ‘I’m no good at art’ , something which really saddens me but they quickly abandon this tag when they feel free to make, build and explore positively.

As far as the environment which encourages this, staff support goes a long way. I had to work very hard at winning that battle as, initially staff were very sceptical. After time they realised that it could be so much more than just a way to tick the ofsted box and now fiercely ringfence the inclusion of an artist when cuts are being made all around the rest of the school. I could give you many examples of the benefits we have seen including one young girl who came, listened, joined in and created some wonderful work with the other children. It was only a couple of months later that I found out she was borderline autistic and should have had her one to one support with her as she was so disruptive in class normally.

Is creativity innate? I believe that at primary level especially, the need to create, to make, is part and parcel of a childs make up. If we remove or downscale it in education we are on dangerous ground. Good artist led projects, but even moreso, ongoing involvement with artists can bring something to education which teachers are not in a position to do. When I look at websites to buy subject stickers to celebrate children’s work (and I give them out for many different reasons), you rarely see music mentioned but I have categorically never found a sticker which celebrates children’s effort in art. I think that goes a long way to demonstrating how our society values art in education.

Just a quick line to thank all the above for contributing their views and to encourage other people to join in. I've also been getting some interesting emails about artists' experiences of working in schools. Please keep your comments coming!

I have taught part-time in schools for the past twenty years. Although much good practice is evident in primary and Key stage 3 (if only delivered in short sharp bursts),the prevailing feeling is that teaching art has become more and more prescriptive to fit the ever narrowing demands of the exam syllabus. The gap between actual contemporary art practice and the school art room is widening especially now the fear of plagarism has spread across all curriculum areas. Now that all coursework has to be completed in controlled conditions in the classroom, the possibity of working at home and outside the classroom and in private has been undermined.  In my own practice I absolutely need the quiet focus of solitary work and the spontaneous encounters outside in the real world.

I find myself becoming more and more hypocritical in my teaching, stressing on one hand the need to work from first hand sources, while on the other making consistent use of secondary sources in my own work.

I justify this to my pupils by saying they need to jump through hoops like circus dogs to pass their exams, but if they pursue art as a career, some of these hoops become irrelevant or anachronistic.

Most of the valuable experiences they have are therefore pre KS4 or through workshops and trips.

I'm a part-time teacher, part time practitioner so have the chance to make direct comparisons between the two positions. As a practitioner, most of my work has been through Creative Partnerships - mainly process-led work (rather than medium-led) with a focus on using creativity across the curriculum. Pupils respond to this well, just enjoying the 'doing'; some teachers enjoy it, some worry a lot about not having an 'end product'.

The most meaningful projects I've taken part in as an outside practitioner have been ones where I've had the chance to develop a working relationship with the class teacher involved. If the agenda has come from school management rather than classroom teachers, there has been little 'buy-in' and the project has become a fun, stand-alone experience without any opportunuity for pupils to reflect on it or to revisit the ideas or techniques later on. 

In my experience, teachers tend to want (a) simple techniques that they can use themselves immediately or (b) specialised work that will 'look good'. I'm generalising of course but the feeling I get is that the rcurriculum has become so full with little time for experimentation that the easiest way to meet the art requirements is to do small scale, non-messy pieces. I once heard a primary school teacher telling a pupil off for mixing the paint colours on a pallette and I said, 'don't worry, they need to do that to learn how to make new colours', so she relaxed. I think artists have different priorities when they go into schools and this is why it works. There is sometimes tension if the two parties don't recognise this but once it's understood by both sides that they both offer the pupils very valuable skills then I think the working relationship is a much more trusting one.

(Couldn't fit this in last post)

Yes, I think that creativity is innate, anyone doubting it just needs to go into any Early Years/ KS1 class to see it! It can easily be blocked though and this is one of the strongest arguments for continuing to employ artists in schools - the whole focus of an artist educator is to open up each individual pupil's creative processes and is highly sensitive to that, as they are constantly practicing that themselves. They are highly sensitive to the fact that having a very fixed idea of an outcome is more than likely going to stem any chance of creative discovery.

I am a Sculptor, mostly stone carving, and, since 1995 I have been teaching children from 4 years and up to A-level how to sculpt in stone. Everyone is given paints and crayons from early childhood, but not often chisels and mallets!

I have NEVER found a child who was unable to do it, and very few who were unwilling to try and 'release a head from a lump of stone'!! The staff have been incredibly supportive and usually SO enthusiastic that I have often ended up running a Staff and Parent Workshop!

I have taught over 20,000 children to sculpt in stone, and have worked with children with learning difficulties, and ones with behavioural problems. Even blind children at the RNIB school in Worcester discovered they could do it! I have worked on the West Bank in Jerusalem with Iseaeli and Palestinian children, teaching them that carving stone together is more fun than throwing stones at one another! Same in Omagh, Northern Ireland where Catholic and Protestant youth came together through Art.

Art in schools is a wonderful thing, it should never be allowed to be lost because of funding cuts, BUT NOR should Artists sell their valuable talent short! It is all too easy, because we love what we do, and want to share it, to allow ourselves to be taken advantage of. JUST REMEMBER the plumber won't repair the school's boiler for less than he normally charges, because he feels sorry for them, and the IT expert CERTAINLY won't! Isn't it funny they always find money when they really need to?

The Big Art Week sounded GREAT till I learnt that Artists were expected to go into schools for NO FEE.....just for the honour of being asked! I said I would as long as they could convince Waitrose to give me my shopping for free!

Mo Gardner, Sculptor