Category: creativity

The Arts in Our Hearts and the Creativity in our Science

Keith S. Taber

A(nother) point of view?

Bernardine Evaristo argues for a broad curriculum

On Sunday morning I heard Bernardine Evaristo reading her essay 'The Arts in Our Hearts' in BBC Radio 4's weekly 'A Point of View' slot. It was a heartfelt and compelling argument for the importance of investing in the arts in education (and well worth a listen).

Demoting creativity?

Evaristo complained about the lack of support for the arts in the current curriculum context.

"We have an educational provision that demotes and demeans creativity in the hierarchy of subjects"

Since the introduction of the Natural Curriculum in England, science, mathematics and English have had a specials status, and in recent years the arts have been squeezed – often treated as luxuries and foci for extra-curricular provision. Among the points Evaristo made were that it was inappropriate to pressure all children towards STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects "because [it is suggested] that's where the future lies", as education is not just about preparing for work, and (even if it were) degrees in the arts and humanities can perfectly well lead to good careers; and also arts education supports the development of creativity – "the very creativity that might one day lead them to a career in science or engineering".

I found much to agree with here.

A (personal) science bias

I was fascinated with science as a child. When I entered secondary school I was asked what I wanted to do when I left. I said I wanted to go to University to do science. (All my subsequent careers input took the form of the single annual leading question:  "Do you still want to go to University to study science?") I did a chemistry degree. I trained to teach chemistry and physics. I became a science teacher, then a science lecturer, and then a science education lecturer. I was never any good at art, failed to learn to play an instrument well, cannot dance (even my swimming is a potential danger to others, and – when I am in the lane closest to the pool wall- to my own fingers)…there was no way I was going to become an artist. So, I might be considered to have a science bias.

Why educate?

But I totally agree with the gist of what Evaristo argued. Education is not about preparing people for jobs, and it should not be primarily about helping them acquire skills for the jobs market. That cannot be totally ignored, but that sounds more like training than education. Education has multiple purposes and these need to be reflected in curriculum (Taber, 2019). Certainly we want education to allow young people to have the chance to progress to achieve their goals – which may be to become a heart surgeon, a cosmologist, or a marine biologist. Or, it may be to be a journalist, novelist, choreographer, songwriter, historian, film critic…

But education is about developing the whole person, and that will not happen when the curriculum is too narrow. Education is also about inducting learners into the culture of their society (and increasingly the 'global village' moves towards being one suprasociety). Children should be supported in engaging with a wide range of different areas, even if they decide they do not wish to later follow-up some or most of these.

And this does not just mean following-up for for employment: a person who becomes a sculptor should have their life outside the studio enhanced due to what they experienced in school science, just as someone who becomes a pharmacist should have their life outside the dispensary enhanced due to what they experienced in arts classes; and someone who becomes an office cleaner or who works in a customer service call centre has the right to have their life enhanced by the range of school experiences across the curriculum.

Culture and civil-isation

I value having gone to the theatre from school, and on a trip to hear a symphony orchestra. I never went to ballet or opera, but I would want all children to be offered these experiences. Children should not leave school without some art history – not highly theoretical, but having had a chance to become familiar with different styles of painting. And so with other areas of our common inheritance – and not limited to what might be called 'high culture'. (Consider the popularity on mainstream television channels of programmes about ballroom dancing, cooking, gardening, antiques collecting, landscape and portrait painting, interior design/decoration, making/renovating/recycling, and so forth.)

This is what it means to be civilised.

Without experiencing different aspects of culture, at least having a taster of what is out there, children are not being fully inducted into that culture. Where schools do not offer this, we have a two-tier society – where some children are able to access the breadth of culture because of home background, and others (perhaps partly because socio-economic conditions do not allow, but perhaps partly simply because the parents were themselves never offered glimpses of these options in their own education) miss out. Bernstein's notion of 'restricted code' can be understood in a wider sense than just access to forms of language.

It is not acceptable that a broad education offering access to informed choices about later engagement in the wider culture is offered to those who can afford private education or extra-curricular enrichment activities, but the rest have to settle for, hopefully, being employable.

'To live without my music, would be (near) impossible to do…'

I was never going to be an artist, but works of art have given me much pleasure. Arguably music has been as important to me as science – the constant companion since my adolescence (I feel a John Miles lyric seeking to make itself felt here). I cannot sing well, play an instrument, or even whistle in tune. I cannot tell the key a piece is in. I have somewhat eclectic tastes, and indeed some might indeed suggest little taste at all – but 'I know what I like (in your wardrobe)' and what has uplifted me, puzzled me, excited me, consoled me, calmed me, comforted me – what music can do to transcend the moment and shift the mood – surely that's what really matters?

So I'm there 100% – an education that prioritises the sciences over the humanities, and, even more so, over the arts, is as distorted as the curriculum of the original grammar schools which would not have known what to with with natural philosophy (proto-science), and found the idea of adding Greek to the curriculum something of a progressive innovation. Of course, that is an ahistorical judgement (ignoring the context at the time), whereas today there is no excuse for this kind of short-sightedness.

But I do have just a couple of reservations about Evaristo's essay, or more to the point, what could be taken away from it.

We need to encourage all young people to see STEM options as open, and welcoming, to them

My first slight reservation is that although I agree that we should not pressure all children towards science and other STEM areas, we should bear in mind that some groups have historically been underrepresented in science subjects, and some children may have been given the impression that science is not for the likes of them. We need to do all we can to make science inclusive – science (as with art) is a core part of all our culture, and a universal human activity. We should not push everyone into science, but we need to make it clear that no one is excluded because of gender or ethnicity or religious faith or other kinds of (claimed or perceived) group identity. So, science teachers should encourage everyone to believe that science could be for them, but working on a level playing field with other teachers promoting their own areas.

Science IS creative

My second, slight, query is the identification of creativity with arts education. That is not to say that arts education does not offer opportunities for creativity –  of course it does – but rather the potential inference that science education can not.

Evaristo recognises that creativity is important to the professional in STEM fields, so surely science education needs to develop this. Science has a rightly deserved reputation for logic, reasoning, and rational thought – but this can only work on the creative ideas that scientists develop: without the imaginative invention of novel ideas to test, there would be no experiments or data to do any logical analysis with ( Taber, 2011).

So when Bernardine Evaristo refers to "play, a.k.a the arts" she neglects the role of play in science. When this play takes place in the lab', it needs to be play subject to a careful risk assessment, certainly, but it is still a form of play. A period of familiarisation with a phenomenon is often essential background for developing an investigative strategy.

Creativity is part of an authentic science education

That is not to say I am claiming that this creativity is always obvious in science education. Over-packed curriculum specifications that make science courses seem like an endless barrage of unconnected topics, and mark schemes designed as if for automatons examining work produced by automatons having been instructed by automatons, seem designed to squeeze out any opportunities for teaching and learning that can offer an authentic feel for what science is actually like. All work, no play, makes Jacqueline a dull scientist, and so unlikely to discover anything substantially new. So yes, perhaps "We have an educational provision that demotes and demeans creativity in the hierarchy of subjects" through, first, locating STEM subjects at the pinnacle, but, then, also by misrepresenting them as not being creative.

Of course, there are enrichment activities that allow learners to be creative in science activities, and to engage with projects or topics over extended periods of time – and so give more of an authentic feel for scientific enquiry. The CREST awards scheme from 'the British Ass' (The British Science Association) is just one example (Taber & Cole, 2010). But then, like extra-curricular arts, this is not available in all schools, and, moreover, students should not need to go outside the curriculum to get authentic and creative science education.

Curriculum breadth is not a luxury

So, yes, I totally agree that:

"it's vital for the country's future that we reject, once and for all, the notion that the arts are a luxury"

But I would also argue that it is vital for humanity's future that we reject, once and for all, the notion that science is only about logic, and that only the arts offer creativity.

Everyone should be introduced in their schooling to all the key aspects of our culture. And just as art education has to involve creating, not only being taught art history or appreciation, science education has to offer a feel for science as a practice, not just a never-ending parade of theories, models, laws, and so forth, previously created by someone else (and most often a dead, 'white', male someone). Creativity in science is clearly different in its expression to creativity in the arts – and so both should be experienced in everyone's schooling.

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