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| Stalin, FDR and Churchill at the Tehran Conference, 1943. Image courtesy of Politico. |
Yesterday was the anniversary of D-Day – the great strike
back against fascism in Europe in 1944 and huge coordinated effort from, amongst
others, Britain and the United States. During these war years, there’s the
popular story that FDR’s British counterpart, Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
was once asked to cut funding for the art in order to support the war
effort. Churchill refused, according to the story, and said: Then what are we
fighting for?
Sadly, the quotation isn’t Churchill, or anyone else for
that matter – as confirmed by the International Churchill Society, but Churchill did express a
similar sentiment about the importance of the arts in 1938:
“The arts are essential to any complete national life. The State owes it to itself to sustain and encourage them… Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the reverence and delight which are their due.”
I struggle to disagree with Churchill’s rhetoric,
although this was before the war and a battle for Britain’s survival against
tyranny. Sadly, we see the same thing happening today and there is a real
threat to the continuing of arts subjects and teaching in schools in both the
US and the UK. President Trump Donald Trump has proposed eliminating both the
National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities -
funding that was introduced to legislation in 1965 (again by LBJ for previous
blog readers) because 'any advanced civilisation' was expected to value the
arts and humanities. In the UK, specifically looking at education, arts subjects are on the retreat in classrooms. The Cultural Learning Alliance have shown that since 2010 there has been a decline of 20% in
arts GCSE entries (using provisional Ofqual 2016 figures) and 2% in the number
of pupils taking at least one Arts GCSE 2010 to 2015. Whilst Department
for Education figures show there has been a decline of 10% in the
hours arts are taught in schools and 11% in arts teachers in schools.
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| Children at Welbeck Primary in Nottingham dancing. Image courtesy of Welbeck. |
Arts Participation (defined as defined as involvement in
artistic and creative activities, such as dance, drama, music, painting, or
sculpture) has a small impact on improving cross-curricular academic attainment
(roughly two-months’ worth) but is also relatively low cost, according to the
EEF. Improved outcomes have been identified in English, mathematics and science
learning. Benefits have also been found in both primary and secondary schools,
though on average greater effects have been identified for younger learners. In
some cases, specific arts activities have been linked with benefits on
particular outcomes. For example, there is some evidence of a positive link between
music and spatial awareness. Wider benefits on attitudes to learning and well-being have also consistently been reported. This again hints at the social aspect of the arts in learning and I’ll quote Dr Catherine Burke, who is, reader in history of education and childhood, Faculty of education, University of Cambridge:
“Fifty years after the publication of the Plowden report, it is timely to take a respectful look back to when the arts were recognised as fundamental not only to education but to building a healthy, socially just and democratic society… the arts, [were] recognised as a civilising influence and fundamental to human development. A child’s capacity for expression through movement, drawing or music was a means to strengthen identity and therefore social cohesion. Education through the arts, it was believed, was at the heart of the regeneration of democracy. Today the rationale for the place of the arts in public education is primarily economic.”
Perhaps the market, rather than the fascist demagogues, is what we ought to be fighting now when it comes to saving the arts from the swingeing cuts axe?
“Fifty years after the publication of the Plowden report, it is timely to take a respectful look back to when the arts were recognised as fundamental not only to education but to building a healthy, socially just and democratic society… the arts, [were] recognised as a civilising influence and fundamental to human development. A child’s capacity for expression through movement, drawing or music was a means to strengthen identity and therefore social cohesion. Education through the arts, it was believed, was at the heart of the regeneration of democracy. Today the rationale for the place of the arts in public education is primarily economic.”
Perhaps the market, rather than the fascist demagogues, is what we ought to be fighting now when it comes to saving the arts from the swingeing cuts axe?