SOME years ago, I organised a training day for teachers. To get things going, a juggler was to come in and pass on his skills to staff. It was soon pretty obvious that few would be running away to join the circus.
Most spent the time visiting far-flung corners to retrieve spilled balls. Luckily, we hadn’t started with flaming torches and running chainsaws. The instructor was in on the act and treated each failure with disdain. One unfortunate chap (OK it was me), was told publicly: “You do well to walk and talk at the same time”. News that each of us would be graded for hand/eye co-ordination was met with collective muttering.
Within 10 minutes resentment and rebellion were in the air. The less well co-ordinated became disruptive, nudging and distracting their higher achieving neighbours. Others staged a sit-down strike. Eventually one spoke up: “This is stupid, what’s the point?”
That was exactly the point. Teachers have generally been successful learners throughout their school and university careers. Few have tasted failure. In the worst cases, they can be unsympathetic to the plight of low-achieving youngsters. I worked with a colleague who routinely described mathematically-challenged pupils as “thickos”. I recall a survey in which some staff disagreed that “all children can learn”.
The juggling exercise offered a taste of what it feels like to struggle and fail. It possibly provided insight into the experience of many of our less successful youngsters. Sure, coping with failure is part of life and everyone can learn from their mistakes. The problem is, far too many youngsters experience failure in class after class, day after day, year after year. They can usually be found standing on the wrong side of the attainment gap.
Their reactions are often similar to those of the less than successful jugglers. Some simply opt out while others try to maintain their “street cred” by misbehaving. Repeated failure corrodes self-esteem, ambition and inevitably, achievement.
Irrespective of age and status, we work best when we taste success. Who can blame youngsters for saying “this is stupid, what’s the point?” if repeatedly told, explicitly or implicitly, they are failures? Often their parents will have had similar experiences, reinforcing the sense of pointlessness. This repeated sense of failure handed down across the generations is one of the principal causes of underachievement and of the attainment gap between children from poorer families and their better-off counterparts.
To address that gap, we need to find ways to motivate our lower-achieving youngsters by providing them with the pleasure of success. Success can create more positive attitudes towards school and learning in general. Yes, we need an unwavering focus on numeracy and literacy; after all they are the key to the wider curriculum. But we also need to be more imaginative and creative in developing motivation and enthusiasm, without which there can be no learning.
The arts rest on imagination and creativity and hold the key to motivating and enthusing our most demoralised youngsters. Generally, there are fewer behaviour problems in art, music and drama classes than in other subjects, largely because of the success and pleasure most youngsters experience there. In most schools, there is a positive buzz when the annual show or concert is in the offing.
Success in the arts rubs off on other areas such as attendance, behaviour and achievement. The most striking example is the successful Sistema Big Noise music projects in some of Scotland’s most deprived communities. The recent positive evaluation of the Aberdeen project confirms similar results in Stirling and Glasgow.
The Sistema project focuses largely on primary school children. There is however, evidence of the influence of the arts on older children. Nearly 30 years ago I was involved in establishing a concert band programme in a secondary school serving areas of multiple deprivation. The programme impacted positively on the school and its wider community. A cadre of unlikely role models quickly emerged and for the first time many parents had a cause for pride. I recall a mum saying: “The only thing I thought my son could play was the fool.”
Despite the growing body of research and anecdotal evidence, the place of the arts is at more risk than ever. Councils blame meaner government financial settlements for poorer arts provision. In Aberdeenshire, visiting specialists are progressively redeployed to fill gaps in core staffing in primary schools.
Education Secretary John Swinney’s intention to direct more funding to headteachers could have a further significant impact on the vital contribution of the arts. Much will depend on how far heads accept that contribution to an ethos of success; fundamentally important for learning, achievement and closing the attainment gap. Heads will face many conflicting budgetary demands and pressures. Hopefully they will “think smart, think art”.
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