Banking facts, banking skills: how schools can change education through arts

Course material concerning the critical view of banking (a term used in last week's sessions in The Future of Education) has got me thinking about a couple of aspects of arts and culture education in schools - and in particular arts education.

The implication of poor education of low quality teaching in the arts has been well documented by Anne Bamford in her well known publication The Wow factor, where Bamford discusses how poor instruction in the arts had a detrimental effect on learning in other subjects.

This, naturally, lead to a discussion on what actually constitutes good education in the arts - a topic of course which is rife with theoretical (and non-theoretical) stances claiming one thing or another. Bamford - ultimately - doesn't come with any one approach which is a better stance than any other. The object centred versus making centred perspective is perhaps the most common one to be found in literature in the field today; however, I claim that thought should be given to the third aspect of arts education  - the mind. Not only is it important in understanding and arguing for arts in education and arts education better, it is also significant in understanding how arts education has become perhaps the most significant part or education in the knowledge economy and education for the future.

As a counterpart to the hands-on/making centred approach, emphasising the importance of the mind in the process of arts education not only offers a more holistic approach to understanding the educational benefits of arts education, it also offers a deeper understanding of what arts education is and can be, if structured in appropriate ways in the classroom. To understand this we need to take two steps back.

Counteracting Cartisian dualism through the theoretical works by Gilbert Ryle and Susanne Langer, a marriage between Philosophy of mind and arts education also gives rise to the understanding of the intellectual implications of arts education and not just the cognitive benefits of learning to manipulate form and material with ones hands and body. Such research tells us much about the development of interacting with the world, but little about the development of abstract thought through working with pliable materials. This is precisely the type of praxis-centred learning that both navigates and ultimately links a students' understanding of the world with their own body and mind.

So what does this have to do about banking - and more importantly - can schools make a difference to education and the education what they offer?

To understand the link between the two, one naturally has to include the presence of an active, and appropriately informed teacher. To move away from the idea of banking, the arts education offered in the classroom has to resist the translated form of a fundamentally narrative education in other fields of education - which is skill banking for the purpose of pure skill development. This becomes difficult in real life when skill banking is often associated with arts education in general and the preservation of cultural heritage and heritage techniques in particular. The skill is transferred from the subject teacher to the object students; the students remain passive through not engaging with the core of the technique even though they are physically interacting with the material.

By the core of the technique I mean that they are coming to terms with the main objective of the activity. It is not merely making a traditional garment, it is making a dress with signs and symbols which identify a social and cultural group using the materials, colours and designs which are most relevant, easily attainable and commonly recognisable in a given group.

Just because students are physically touching and working with a material does not automatically mean the students are not passive in the operation of interaction. Students receive, memorise and act out a physical movement which results in the making of an object. There is no magic in the meeting of hand and material alone unless the students are invited into a discussion where their preexisting knowledge is taken to the fore, integrated into their meeting with the core ideas of an object and revitalising this through their own ownership of the newly made object.

Obviously, moving away from the banking of skills is problematic in that - in the arts as in many other fields - you cannot make anything without a baseline understanding of some skills and materials. This is in effect a critique of Freire because some banking of skills is simply necessary for students to make any progression in arts education. Also, in support of Freire, being able to discuss or interact with the material presupposes an informed mind. And, in relation to arts education, an informed mind is one which has theoretical, historical and physical/skills knowledge already.

So what can schools do to change education at that school through the arts? Firstly, underemphasising the importance of object production in the early years of education would allow for more interaction and the critical investigation of materials, signs and symbols. The development of abstraction and abstract thought could be emphasised by practical tasks based on open-ended, problems-based exercises where the students's already acquired knowledge from real life is central. Skill development needs to be concept-based and grouped accordingly so that the particular skill is seen amongst a family of associated skills. And lastly, drawing as a baseline translation of thought to form must be introduced at an early age.

To do this, schools - and headmasters especially - needs to approach the arts and arts education in a more progressive, holistic manner. Investing in the arts especially in the early years will give students more skills and teach them more about learning and abstract thought than what is done today. Headmasters needs to emphasise having informed teachers in all subjects - and naturally in the arts too - but be willing to take a different stance than that which they assume national authorities and parents are expecting of them. To be brave - and to invest in the future of education.