Hope for the despairing child
MALINI SARAN
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Recently experts discussed the ailing education systems of Asia and how they can be revitalised through the arts.
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ART FOR INNOCENTS: Its time to take care of kids. Photo: N. Balaji.
RECENTLY A diverse group of experts from Asia gathered at New Delhi's India International Centre to explore possible remedies for the ailing systems of education in Asia. The symposium, Transmissions and Transformations: Learning Through the Arts in Asia, focused on the concept of education through the arts, as distinct from instruction on the arts.
The approach of integrating art with education had been formulated through the joint experience and effort of the symposium's major sponsors: the IIC-Asia Project chaired by Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan; UNESCO, and the Center for International Education, New York (in collaboration with the International Society for Education Through the Arts, established by Herbert Read in 1954).
It was an important meeting for several reasons. Firstly, both theoreticians and practitioners in the field of education were talking to each other to reconfigure an education system so cumbersome and out-dated that the young were rejecting it, often in extreme ways. Secondly, the discussions taking place were pegged to exploring specific solutions, rather than merely re-defining known problems, as sometimes happens in conferences. Finally, the participants were able to provide both range and depth in their presentation of ideas and experiences, while keeping sight of the mandate to produce a concrete action plan by the end of the symposium - that is, to document the research on, and evidence of, best practice methods employed on the ground, through established `observatories'. This data will provide substantive inputs from the Asia-Pacific region to the UNESCO-convened World Summit on Arts in Education in 2006, to persuade policy makers to fund the mainstreaming of arts in national curricula.
The concept of a symposium on learning through the arts rests on the premise that the arts have been marginalised in Asian education systems due to the post-colonial internalisation of Western models. Arts education has been neglected in favour of the privileged, better-funded subjects of science, mathematics and technology, historically perceived as having greater intellectual rigour. Arts in the classroom have been dissociated from life experience and confined to a narrow sub-set of activities, like drawing and painting.
In the West, this perception of the arts saw change in the '60's, thanks to scientific research on cognitive development. For example, results showed the linkages between music instruction and spatial reasoning, between drama instruction and verbal communication skills. By 1998, it was clear the arts offered different ways of knowing that are operated by multiple intelligences. Arts instruction also contributed to emotional development by offering children the means to successfully communicate complex thoughts, emotions and ideas. Furthermore, the feeling of self-worth generated through success and achievement in the arts encouraged children to use their skills in socially approved ways. These insights firmly established the arts as a valuable tool for furthering cognitive thinking, stimulating creativity and promoting the balanced development of a child. The time had come to re-install the arts in the mainstream of formal educational systems.
In 1999, UNESCO launched an important programme of arts in education and urged member states to "take appropriate administrative, financial and legal steps to ensure that teaching of the arts be mainstreamed and made compulsory through the school cycle".
Centuries-old
In Asia, many of these ideas have been widely known and practiced for centuries. The traditional process of learning is a fluid, holistic one, integrated with life in the community in which the arts play a crucial instrumental role. As in other parts of Asia, India's rich and diverse cultural heritage is a living one. Yet this has not been integrated into modern formal education programmes. Accordingly, the main themes discussed in the symposium were Asia centred, and dealt with issues of learning through the arts in an Asian environment; the arts in Asian education today; and new initiatives and ideas on the subject.
Of a small, interactive group of 40 people from Kyrgystan, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan and Australia, many made individual presentations. They spoke of their concerns and demonstrated their experiments with change. Korea, for example, explained how its new vision for arts education in the rural areas was being implemented. Malaysia showed how a local heritage site can be incorporated into a history lesson.
Indian participants included well-known experts from both the formal and informal school systems as well as social workers, musicians, dancers, artists and critics. Representatives from the national educational institutions responsible for designing Indian school curricula also contributed to the debates, drawing attention to the importance of training teachers. The impressive initiatives demonstrated by individuals and institutions made it clear that arts education has to be culture specific. It has to involve teachers, parents, and multiple community resources in which all learning is embedded.
Beauty and globalisation
Discussions at the symposium explored how Asian concepts on creativity and innovation could be brought into contemporary Asian classrooms; how the classroom can become a place where Asian aesthetics and ethical traditions can be transmitted through the arts; how the arts can revitalise aesthetic values that go beyond individual expression; and how Asian visions of `beauty' and `joy' fit into today's globalised world. The diversity of Asia's cultural heritage had to be taken into account when giving art its rightful place in modern educational systems. Arts education has to be grounded in an Asian cultural context, yet reconciled with the needs of the 21st century.
It is clearly a monumental `work in progress' that demands the support and involvement of the entire community. The world of the handicapped should be included in this framework. Compiling adequate data in regional `observatories' that will persuade governments to reform outmoded systems of education will require enormous stamina and commitment. But for the despairing child, perhaps there is hope ahead.
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