This article has been written for the Cultural Learning Alliance, which provides Heads, teachers, cultural and youth professionals with the most up to date research, news and best practice examples, as well as building a vibrant, coherent and informed voice for cultural learning and participation.
Now more than ever as the arts, culture and learning worlds tighten their belts we need to step up the offer to our children and young people. Enriching the curriculum and having the capacity for innovative and lateral thought is vital for developing real creativity in the way a generation can think. We need to change behaviours so that our young people become the cultural 'users' and we cannot let them down by excluding them from this resource through lack of funding and rising costs of engagement. We have to find the third way, the affordable way, the way that meets both the needs of the arts and cultural sector as well as the learning sector.
Over my tenure working with arts in education programmes I have observed that the cultural sector clearly has a need to develop new audiences and future customers, but risking the investment in children and youth programmes is costly and really only possible where the organisation can afford to play the long game in the hope that ultimately they are building the audiences and consumers of the future. Not many artistic organisations can really centre their whole educational and outreach programme based on the purely altruistic premise that they are doing it for the greater good, enhancing learning and raising achievement in our young people.
The learning sector values the enrichment of the curriculum, but can often be reticent to spend resources and time on exploring the possibility that the learning they are trying to achieve can be provided by cultural professionals in non-traditional learning settings. They sometimes feel as if 'letting go' of the learning exchange marginalises their role leaving them only with the 'assessment task' to see if the targets were met.
This picture is too simplistic and within lies thousands of amazing professionals who teach, tutor and coach children and young people either as cultural professionals or learning professionals, willing it to work and working to make it successful.
I propose three key issues that need to be addressed to continue cultural learning without current levels of funding. Without money we need to:
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· Know that the opportunities that are available are widely disseminated and accessible right across the country. Information collection and distribution is key to the issue, shared through networks of key individuals and significant professionals who care enough to act as conduits to pass on knowledge quickly and with enthusiasm.
· Capitalise on the creativity of learning professionals to develop projects and work streams with and for young people to generate innovative and creative thinking, making best use of the cultural sector and using what it has to offer.
· Target specific groups of young learners where we think they would otherwise not be touched by the life-affirming, life-changing possibilities of a cultural life.
I would like to give examples of Gateshead-based projects that speak to these three issues.
The first example is the Gateshead Newcastle Cultural and Creativity Ambassadors www.cultureandcreativity.com - an ever-growing network of teachers and significant adults responsible for groups of children and young people. Two coordinators gather information from the North East region's cultural sector about their offer - from workshops and lesson support to cheap tickets for shows and sometimes even fun give-aways - then distribute this to the network through e-bulletins, the website, a Virtual Learning Environment and a paper mail-out three times a year. The Ambassadors then share the information with other staff and colleagues, families and groups. And it works because wonderful people think it is a good idea and they make it work - it is in the true sense of the word a net-work. The cost is small, but the numbers and value are large: 165 Cultural Partners offering cultural learning provision to 328 Ambassadors; 3,000 website hits per month; VLE growth from only 20 users to 160; over 400 recipients of the e-bulletin; resulting in benefit to around 60,000 children and young people.
To address the second 'need', Gateshead and Newcastle together have developed The Gateshead Newcastle Kite Mark (awarded the Inspire Mark by London Olympics 2012). Jointly promoted in schools and youth settings, the Kite Mark is given to successful projects that are inspired by a pack that provides resources and guidance, including details of regional sports and cultural venues, to create learning that is fun and uses culture, sports and the arts to enhance learning and make it an adventure. The programme relies on creative adults working with, teaching or caring for children creating their own projects and responding to the challenge and sharing their learning adventure with the rest of us through the web-site. The first awards are to 10 schools in Gateshead who are all working with Dora Frankel Dance Company to create 10 x 3 min 'Dance Bites' pieces inspired by one of the 10 Olympic Sports represented in the UK School Games 2010.
Finally, how to address the third need? Gateshead is an Arts Explorer pilot, working with foster families and the looked after children in their care to develop habits and behaviours of becoming more frequent and better informed cultural 'users'. This is helping to build cultural memories and legacies for the children and support the families in exploring the region's cultural opportunities as a means of enhancing the parental offer they provide for these young people. The project hinges around making the best use of what is already on offer. The vital ingredient is a team of 'Cultural Shoppers' who negotiate with the families, challenging them to explore the arts and cultural world and support them through the barriers that currently prevent them from choosing cultural activities as a great way to spend family time together. The foster families and the children are linked together through private, secure web-space where they input their experiences and views and leave messages for other explorers. In this way information sharing and gathering goes alongside evaluation and data gathering. We are learning about the experience of these traditionally hard to reach families and their changing attitudes and behaviours.
July 2010.
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