Room 13 is a project that was created in Scotland by a group of young artists in 1994 in order to develop creativity that no school or college can give you. The project is run by the young artists alongside professional adult artists which give students and practitioners of all ages a different perspective to what they have learned in the past. The project has become so popular that it has been expanded to schools in London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, South Africa, India and Nepal.

In my opinion, this is a fantastic project for changing the way art is taught and perceived. I believe that the creativity of a child’s mind can aid the adult artist in making art education more imaginative. The child and adult artist working together can allow each other to not only teach students, but learn from each other as well. Also, I think that other children being aware of this project can allow them to raise their aspirations as they can see that this project proves you can be an artist at any age.

As we can most likely recall from school, the visual arts can lack creativity within the curriculum. Fleming (2012) believes that the reasons to teach Art in education are always vague and sometimes untrue. One example can be to ‘develop imagination and creativity’. This can be disproved by Souness (2005), where it is said that teaching visual arts in the curriculum is often standardised. The specific set of outcomes can force learning to be instrumental and make the child become less creative, which makes it a lot more difficult for a child to excel academically in art. I believe that art is a subject that most teachers struggle to teach because they believe that they do not excel in the visual arts themselves. What has to be taken into consideration is that if a teacher does not ‘excel’ in a mandatory subject, such as numeracy, they cannot simply dismiss the subject.

To conclude, I believe that the Room 13 project is a fantastic way of exchanging ideas and experiences between the child and adult artist. This particular project could be what the educational system needs to make are a more valuable and creative experience for children in Curriculum for Excellence. In reflection, educators need to be aware of the importance of teaching the arts creatively to ensure every child is getting the richest educational experience possible.

References:

Fleming, M. (2012) The Arts in Education: An introduction to aesthetics, theory and pedagogy. London: Routledge.

Gibb, C. (2012) Room 13: The Movement and International Network. International Journal of Art & Design Education, Vol 31(3), pp.237-244.

Souness, D. (2005) Room 13, in D. Atkinson & P. Dash (eds.) Social and Critical Practices in Art Education. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.

This week has been a very interesting experience in Integrated Arts. The lecture has taught me that literacy can be expressed through drawing as well as writing. Using the extract from Fleming (2012), we used an illustration to symbolise the key points from the extract. For me, the chapters main point was for people to have insight into the value of art and explain that art is more about ‘showing’ rather than ‘telling’. This has inspired me to teach differently and change the tedious way of teaching literacy in the future. In my opinion, blending image and text together would benefit children because I believe that using art in a literacy context could relieve a child of ‘normal’ literacy teachings. This is essential in making school an enjoyable environment for children.

The workshop has allowed us to look at the stages of children’s drawings throughout primary years. We specifically looked at 3 stages from McAuliffe, (2007): The scribbling stage (2-4 years), the pre-schematic stage (4-7 years) and the gang stage (9-12 years). From analysing each stage, it could be seen that there was a drastic difference in each.

From the scribbling stage, we could determine that the drawings were not as refined. The drawings were messier and you could tell that the children were not afraid to scribble. It could be said that this stage may have more imagination. For example, one child from the scribbling stage drew a fire truck with a ladder that had squiggly lines rather that straight, which showed this particular boy had used his imagination to create this picture rather than copying another.

As the children move the pre-schematic stage, it can be seen that the drawings are becoming neater and more refined. Details that have been added would not have been seen in the scribbling stage. The drawings tend to be that of realism, such as landscapes. It should be pointed out that the pre-schematic stage is when the child makes a transition from early level to primary school. It could be argued that change in the drawings could be caused by primary school teachers, where children’s art work could be more ‘controlled’. In this case, ‘nurture’ could take over ‘nature’.

In the gang stage, the drawings become even more detailed but most still remain in realism. In my opinion, there is a lot more plagiarism happening in this particular stage which makes work less imaginative for children, which can be referred to an instrumental learning. In the gang stage, it is possible that the children study pop culture and famous artists such as Picasso and Andy Warhol. Instead of creating their own drawings, they are influenced by these artists which can result in lack of creativity.

In conclusion, I have learned that allowing children to create their own drawings is essential in keeping creativity alive and making art more enjoyable. I have also learned that art is not about ‘accuracy’ and drawings should have imagination rather than plagiarism. Reflecting as an aspiring teacher, I know that my attitudes towards teaching arts have changed forever and I would love to teach art in a more creative way in the future.

References:

Fleming, M. (2012) The Arts in Education: An introduction to aesthetics, theory and pedagogy. London: Routledge.

McAuliffe, D. (2007) Foundation and Primary Settings. In Teaching Art and Design 3-11. (Edited by Sue Cox, Robert Watts, Judy Grahame, Steve Herne and Diarmuid McAuliffe) London: Continuum.

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