Teaching Creativity in British Schools - Essay Example

?Creative Partnerships: Teaching Creativity in British Schools The Education Reform Act of 1988 requires that schools provide a broad and balanced curriculum. This curriculum must provide for students' learning in not just academic pursuits but also promote spiritual, moral, and cultural development. Such a curriculum would by definition need to involve exposure to the arts (Princewaterhouse Coopers LLP 2010). However, according to their website, the focus of Creative Partnerships is not simply to expose students to arts and music, but to use creative learning programmes to re-inspire students in every area of learning. Creative Partnerships brings creative professionals into schools to help educators teach creative skills that those professionals believe are valuable in the workplace (Creative Partnerships 2010). In this way, Creative Partnerships hopes to produce students with a passion for learning who are also likely to be hired by companies after graduation (Princewaterhouse Coopers LLP 2010). On the surface, Creative Partnerships seems like an excellent plan. Encouraging children to meet with artists and other creative practitioners from the workplace would encourage them to study harder and explore their skills to find out in which ways they could succeed too. However, as this report shows, such surface feelings cannot and should not always be taken at face value. Deeper research has dug up a surprising number of flaws and inconsistencies within the Creative Partnerships programme that warrant further investigation. Creative Partnerships was formed in 2002 as a result of the governmental report “All our Futures”, which was published in 1999 by the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Educations (Creative Partnerships 2010). This report noted that while raising national levels of literacy and numeracy, the focus of previous reports such as the 1999 White Paper Excellence in Schools, was highly important, it was not the only key to producing students that would be prepared for the workplace. Creative and cultural education also needed to be included. In the same way that Creative Partnerships is not just about exposing students to the arts, “All our Futures” did not claim that what students need was arts education. Instead, the authors argue for education that exposes students to creative thinking, which they believe would build a capacity for original thought and translate into life skills for the students. One point of this report which is the cornerstone of the resulting Creative Partnerships project is the idea that creativity is not innate, but can in fact be taught (National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education 1999). However, despite their desire to include creativity in the workplace outside of simply exposing students to visual or performance art, this area of the programme has been found to be decidedly lacking (House of Commons Education and Skills Committee 2007). Creative Partnerships is fond of repeating that their programme will bring about economic benefit. Primarily, they cite an “independent research paper” that found an economic benefit of ?15.30 for every ?1.00 invested in the programme (Creative Partnerships 2010; Princewaterhouse Coopers LLP 2010). However, it is important to note that while Princewaterhouse Coopers is an independent business entity, the study was paid for by Creativity, Culture and Education, which is the governmental agency responsible for overseeing the Creative Partnerships programme. When statements such as “this flagship creative learning programme fosters long-term partnerships between schools and creative professionals to inspire, open minds and harness the potential of creative learning” are used to describe the supposedly separate organisation, heavy doubt is cast on the impartiality of the report (Princewaterhouse Coopers LLP 2010, p6). Creative Partnerships is not the only creativity or arts programme recently introduced to the English educational curriculum (Jones & Thomson 2008). However, these programmes all carry a similar flaw, according to one study; the flaw is the idea of bringing in “outsiders” to teach these art programmes. By building onto the existing curriculum, instead of working into it, these programmes can result in a feeling that arts and creativity are separate from the rest of a student's educational activities. That same study found that this feeling was both a result of the way the programmes are designed and a propensity among policy-makers to make these types of programmes special projects, as opposed to including them in the National Curriculum (Hall & Thomson 2007). While governmental agencies have expressed interest in expanding the role of creativity in education, it is only a part of the National Curriculum for ages 3 to 5, much lower than the proposed need for these programmes up until the end of compulsory education at the age of sixteen (Craft 2003; Creative Partnerships 2010). As the stated point of these initiatives was to make the curriculum more inclusive of the arts, and to make educators feel like creative teaching methods were within rather than in spite of policy, this is a disturbing finding with regard to the actual success of the programme (National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education 1999). Another study makes an excellent point about the cultural value of the creativity ideal. Constantly encouraging creative and independent thought inevitably ends in a corporate and governmental environment where change is standard. The difficulty lies in determining if this sort of continuous change is in fact independently valuable, or if it is only seen as valuable due to the cultural weight given to the trait of creativity. Taken to its ultimate extreme, it is possible that such change could result in economic instability (Craft 2003). Should a trait such as endless creativity be encouraged from childhood on up if it will eventually negatively impact society? Creative Partnerships does not attempt to investigate this issue, but merely takes it as a given fact that higher levels of creativity will have a positive impact on British society, and simply attempt to quantify that benefit. While it was never the intention of the National Curriculum and the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies to restrain teachers from using all their abilities, including creative ones, to teach their students, the viewpoint has been that such a constraint did in fact occur (House of Commons Education and Skills Committee 2007). However, it is difficult to find any actual studies supporting that there truly exists such a bias. Long, blazing editorials rail against the “assault on the arts” that supposedly exists, but the facts used to write these articles are few and far between (Jenkins 2010). While there are governmental dollars being spent to provide college students with degrees in engineering, science, and mathematics, this is not stopping students from studying the arts with their own money or taking additional classes outside the science curriculum even within this programme (Shepherd 2010). Any major change to the National Curriculum will have widespread repercussions throughout society, and the addition of the Creative Partnerships initiative is no different from any other change. While the Creative Partnership programme has without a doubt touched the lives of thousands of students, the actual effect of that interaction has yet to be determined (Creative Partnerships 2010). More research is necessary to first determine the true immediate benefit of such programs and their long-term effect on society, and then second to determine what methods should be used to internalize these changes to the schools rather than making such programmes feel as if they are being imparted by external forces. Another avenue of further study is needed to determine if governmental programmes such as Creative Partnerships help foster the growth of other creativity initiatives at the local level and what the impact of those programmes might have on both the schools themselves and on the future of the Creative Partnerships programme. References Jenkins, S., 2010. Scientists may gloat, but an assault is under way against the arts. The Guardian. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/25/higher-education-arts-sciences-bias [Accessed May 3, 2011]. Craft, A., 2003. The Limits To Creativity In Education: Dilemmas For The Educator. British Journal of Educational Studies, 51(2), pp.113-127. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8527.t01-1-00229/abstract [Accessed May 3, 2011]. Creative Partnerships, 2010. About Creative Partnerships. Available at: http://www.creative-partnerships.com/about/about-cp/ [Accessed May 3, 2011]. Hall, C. & Thomson, P., 2007. Creative partnerships? Cultural policy and inclusive arts practice in one primary school. British Educational Research Journal, 33(3), p.315. Available at: http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/01411920701243586 [Accessed May 3, 2011]. House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, 2007. Creative Partnerships and the Curriculum, London: The House of Commons. Available at: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmeduski/1034/1034.pdf [Accessed May 3, 2011]. Jones, K. & Thomson, P., 2008. Policy rhetoric and the renovation of English schooling: the case of Creative Partnerships. Journal of Education Policy, 23(6), p.715. Available at: http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/02680930802262692 [Accessed May 3, 2011]. National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, 1999. All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education. Available at: http://www.cypni.org.uk/downloads/alloutfutures.pdf [Accessed May 3, 2011]. Princewaterhouse Coopers LLP, 2010. The Costs and Benefits of Creative Partnerships. Available at: http://www.creativitycultureeducation.org/data/files/pwc-report-the-costs-and-benefits-of-creative-partnerships-236.pdf [Accessed May 3, 2011]. Shepherd, J., 2010. Budget 2010: Promise of 20,000 extra university places “misguided” as lecturers face cull. The Guardian. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/mar/25/20000-university-places-lecturers-cull [Accessed May 3, 2011]. Read More