Arts Education's Place In A Knowledge-Based Global Economy

by Dr. Ken Robinson, University of Warwick (England)

Summary by Dennis Tupman of an Address to a conference called "Learning and the Arts: Crossing Boundaries" held January 12-14, 2000 in Los Angeles

Introduction

I was interested in hearing again from Ken Robinson since I last heard him in the late 1980s in Vancouver when he was speaking at a workshop at the Vancouver Children's Festival. He is a highly stimulating and entertaining speaker.

The points below are summarized from his speech which was recently reported (Week 190) on WhyMusicEd, a web-based resource on the value of music education, research, supportive material, etc.

Dr. Robinson introduces his article telling of a meeting he had with Paul McCartney for whom he has great admiration. Both Robinson and McCartney were raised in Liverpool. McCartney stated that he could not attend the prestigious school that Robinson attended in that city because he was deemed not "good enough." Through this example of marginalizing one of the great figures of the 20th C. he then goes on to say that the arts in most countries of the developed world are stuck in a view of education that grew out of the industrial world. Now that we are in the post-industrial, knowledge - based world, education must undergo radical transformation.

This transformation will have the following characteristics:

• The arts at the centre of the new forms that will emerge. The arts are a mode of understanding without which much in human experience will not be understood.
  

• The arts being both creative and also rigourously and systematically taught. He points out the fine balance needed here between discipline and spontaneity.
  

• The arts defined, their function in an emerging knowledge – based economy understood, and provision for experiences where children feel the positive benefits from them.
  

• A synergistic, holistic collaboration between arts and science, between heritage and innovation, between speculation and tradition, between schools and other community agencies and business. Common processes should be found among all the disciplines, and where all disciplines and modes of human experience are employed to unlock a student's potential. In his view there would be no hierarchy placing one subject as more important than another, e.g. mathematics over the arts.
  

• Partnerships formed among all agencies interested in education, e.g. private foundations, cultural organizations, businesses, and any other organization that has a stake in the outcome.
  

• A balance between teaching the curriculum and teaching children to unlock their potential.
  

• A wider emphasis than just raising numeracy and literacy standards.
  

• An emphasis on educating differently rather than just "doing better what we used to do."
  

• Doing of the arts and fostering the creative potential and understanding of the student would be essential. The academic pursuit of talking about would be secondary to undergoing the particularly unique mode involved in doing the respective art.
  

He goes on to say that education "is the key to the future." He indicates that the key can "turn two ways." It can "unleash" the human resources" or it may "lock" them in.

He states that teachers have to understand what the natural capacities of children are in order to deliver a full measure education. To merely teach the curriculum may overlook the innovative, creative potential of students.

It is interesting that in BC and elsewhere "standards" of education are usually assessed in so-called "academic," verbal means of testing. The arts in their integrity are never tested this way exclusively. If such a testing programme is underway then it will become what some have called "the gatekeeper." This gatekeeper will therefore exclude all those valuable experiences that Robinson states are so important in a complete and creative education fostering transformation and change.

Robinson says also that we do not need to consolidate the old system, we need to renew and reconstruct it. The arts can and should be at the centre of this process.

He calls upon private sectors, business and institutions, to provide experimental models for this new education. He urges that the curriculum has greater balance among all the aspects of human endeavour. And he stresses the importance of improving the training of teachers in the arts to enable that balance between discipline and expression/creativity in the arts.