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.