Benefits to be gained by aligning the roll out of the Arts, Music and Maths curricula for optimum educational outcomes.
9 August 2024
Whangaparāoa College students taking part in a Squiggla workshop. Photo courtesy of David St George and misterwolf creative services.
A proposal expressed in the New Zealand media in August 2024 that sought to defer the implementation of fully developed, updated arts and music curricula in Aotearoa New Zealand schools, in favour of prioritising the roll out of a new maths curriculum, is a mistake.
This proposal does not take into account the benefits and impact for ākonga of partnering and aligning the arts and music curricula roll out at the same time as the proposed new maths curriculum.
Any proposed deferral of the arts and music curricula roll out also comes at a critical time for New Zealand schools when attendance and student motivation is a growing concern. It has never been more important that schools provide access to the arts which is evidenced to mediate these issues. We need students to want to go to school. Despite arts and music education often being peripheral in most schools, access to the newly updated curricula will best allow tamariki and rangatahi to explore modes of expression, regulate emotions, exercise creativity, take risks, innovate, hone critical thinking skills, build resilience and connect with culture.
It would be a mistake to delay the implementation of the work that has already been done by subject specialist teams around Aotearoa New Zealand. Instead, placing arts at the centre of the curriculum roll out could well be the answer for best outcomes for maths standards but also for a failing education system. We know that the arts, embedded across the curriculum, upskill students to better interpret subjects like science and maths and apply the transferable skills of creativity across subject areas.
A multitude of international studies have found correlational impact of arts-based learning on academic achievement, and while establishing a causal relationship is complex and challenging, the evidence shows that the arts have far-reaching positive impacts on student wellbeing and learning culture.
When decision makers disregard the evidence of the impact that art education can have when presented in conjunction with other curriculum developments, such as the proposed revised maths curriculum, they present a more impoverished educational context for our tamariki and one that does not meet the needs of future generations.
So, in 2024, as the Chartwell Charitable Trust celebrates 50 years of work to ensure access to and education about the visual arts in particular, we articulate the benefits of visual art education not only for individuals but for us all as a community and as human beings – seeing the value of activating multiple modes of thinking skills to achieve greater educational and societal outcomes.
The Trust established a visual art educational outreach programme in 2017 called Squiggla, that enables teachers to introduce the benefits of creative and critical thinking in any subject setting with ease. We know that exercising both visual art and maths skills in the same classroom context, for example, cultivates the ability to approach problems from multiple angles and find innovative solutions while understanding the value of abstract thought.
“Squiggla has designed some exciting and fun resources which integrate art and maths for easy and flexible adaptation at any curriculum level” - Year 7 Teacher.
What does the research say?
Preserving the arts in education is a cultural and economic imperative.
The Arts Education Partnership’s three-year research study examining the impact of an arts-centred curriculum on school improvement, found that ‘learning in the arts helped students develop the sense that they can be agents of their own learning and that they can make a positive change in their own lives and in their surroundings… arts learning directly contributes to the development of (students’) intellectual and personal capacities’. Arts learning increased self-esteem and self-efficacy in learners, contributing to a greater student engagement and positive attitude towards learning. Standardised tests also revealed improvement in reading and mathematics.
We must consider the impact of an arts deficient education for future generations. The US President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities voiced a widespread concern over school graduates who are “increasingly the products of narrowed curricula, lacking the creative and critical thinking skills needed for success in post-secondary education and the workforce”. Deferring the arts would only exacerbate existing gaps in the education of our young people. The outcomes associated with arts education have never been more crucial.
According to Peter O’Connor, Professor of Curriculum and Pedagogy and Director of the Centre for the Arts and Social Transformation (CAST) at the University of Auckland, “The arts build the key skills that employers value most highly: risk taking, collaboration, curiosity and an ability to think across rather than in disciplinary silos.”
Fiona Jack, Head of School, Te Waka Tūhura Elam School of Fine Arts and Design, University of Auckland, agrees - “arts education creates critically strong thinkers, people who can readily understand context and situation and who can critique an aspect of something from many different perspectives, and that is a skill that is very transferable.” World leaders and CEOs are looking for people who can leverage transferrable skills, who can think creatively and critically and innovate.
These claims are backed up time and again by world leaders who cite creativity as the skill for the future. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2023 report found that businesses ranked creative thinking among the most important core-skills for workers and predicted it to be the fastest growing in-demand skill over the next five years. Likewise, the IBM 2010 Global CEO Study which surveyed more than 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries and 33 industries worldwide, identified creativity as the most crucial leadership competency for future success. In a time of education inflation, creative thinking skills and the ability to innovate and think divergently, will be of greatest value, both economically and culturally.
An arts-rich education that encourages creativity is essential to nurturing the kinds of skills that future generations will need to face the challenges of our evolving world.
In an evaluation of the UK Creative Partnerships programme, Creativity, Culture and Education found that “creativity brings with it the ability to question, make connections, innovate, problem solve… to reflect critically… These skills enable young people to adapt, to manage change…. Above all, creative learning empowers young people to imagine how the world could be different”.
Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson says, ‘The challenges we currently face are without precedent.’ Citing population explosion, environmental crises and advances in technology which are transforming the way we live and work, he argues that “we're going to need every ounce of ingenuity, imagination, and creativity to confront these problems…Nobody has a clue what the world's going to look like in five years, or even next year actually, and yet it's the job of education to help kids make sense of the world they're going to live in’. We have to educate for an unknown future and equip the next generation with the creative thinking skills to meet this challenge.
The 2022 PISA Creative Thinking report, which scored Aotearoa New Zealand in the top 5 of the countries assessed, highlights a strong relationship between creative thinking skills and socioeconomic advantage. So, it appears that creative thinking is being nurtured outside of formal education, leading to a socioeconomic creative divide. Our education system needs to do more to provide access to the arts and make these essential skills equitable. All tamariki and rangatahi deserve the chance to pursue their creative potential and develop these key skills for their future.
Creativity also has an economic advantage. In a longitudinal study of the link between childhood creativity and lifelong outcomes, the 2022 working paper, The Creativity Premium, conducted by The University of Warwick CAGE research centre, found that fostering “creative thinking in education settings could have substantial positive economic impact. A focus on problem solving, developing ideas, and challenging assumptions could prepare children better for working life and play a vital role in raising productivity and increasing economic growth”. They found that childhood creativity correlates with stronger academic performance in high school and at university level. They also found that creative people reach higher levels of educational attainment, are more likely to find employment and earn more during their careers. The authors conclude that “by reshaping how we value creativity in both school and work, we could see significant improvements in economic outcomes for society. Successfully harnessing creativity could therefore induce real economic gains”.
The Chartwell and Squiggla Team.
To find out more about the Squiggla Programme:
Visit our website: squiggla.org
Contact us: play@squiggla.org
