Scotland has a history of having some of the world’s most creative people; from Charles Rennie Mackintosh to Peter Howson, we have an incredible range of architecture, paintings, designers and inventors. Living in Glasgow, I have been brought up surrounded by amazing art galleries and museums. As a child, Kelvingrove and The Burrell were always my favourite, and even today these buildings are some of my favourite in the world.
I feel that having a cultural upbringing has resulted in me being an open-minded and creative person who went on to do Advanced Higher art at school. Yes, I may not be able to get every child to fall in love with art like I do, but I do strongly believe that experiencing and understanding the expressive arts in our culture leads to being a more rounded person and learner. It is this that I hope to bring to the classroom.
Children develop their ‘knowledge and understanding’, ‘skills’, ‘attitudes and values’, ‘enjoyment, inspiration and creativity’, ‘activity, behaviour and progression’ and ‘attitudes and values’ (Hooper-Greenhill, 2004). It is known that school trips are sometimes difficult in disadvantaged areas due to expenses, however many museums and galleries now do free bus links between the school and the building, therefore every school gets equal opportunity. Going to art galleries and museums are also not just educational, for a lot of people they are an escape and a type of therapy.
I strongly feel that children need to understand not only about our culture and history, but about the world. Museums are the perfect place to do this and with the creative partnership between the school and the education staff at the museums, young people can learn far more about the world than simply in the classroom.
Hooper-Greenhill, E. (2004). Inspiration, identity, learning. 1st ed. Leicester: University of Leicester.
