September 2016 – BA2 Education

Expressive Arts: Experiences and Outcomes

Expressive arts

Experiences and outcomes

Experiences in the expressive arts involve creating and presenting and are practical and experiential. Evaluating and appreciating are used to enhance enjoyment and develop knowledge and understanding.

My learning in, through and about the expressive arts:

enables me to experience the inspiration and power of the arts
recognises and nurtures my creative and aesthetic talents
allows me to develop skills and techniques that are relevant to specific art forms and across the four capacities
provides opportunities for me to deepen my understanding of culture in Scotland and the wider world

is enhanced and enriched through partnerships with professional arts companies, creative adults and cultural organisations.

(Education Scotland, 2009)

Creativity and utilizing expressive arts is beneficial to a child as it is relevant across a range of learning, be it in imaginative play and mark-making in the early years to solving disputes in later life (Duffy, 2006).

Expressive arts in the curriculum is used to help enhance, accompany and enhance the child’s learning. Some topics and concepts can be hard to learn from a teacher explaining it theoretically and not experienced which is where drama, art, music and dance can step in and take the lead. Creativity and the arts has been associated with benefits in subjects such as Maths and English (Smith, 2009) as well as being a central role in cognitive development; it is through symbolic representation that children require the facility for abstract thought (Duffy, 2006). As well as this, children learn in all different ways: kinetically, visually and auditory and exercising their understanding in the arts can compliment their preferred way of learning. Experimenting with different forms of art in traditional and unorthodox ways allows for the learner to practice and discover any talents they may have and further their understanding of the world around them as art can be found everywhere and is no longer reserved to the upper classes of society to appreciate. Having the opportunity to exercise creativity from the early years allows for the learner to develop and nurture their creative talents and acknowledge where their talents can take them.

Directed Study Task

My Local Urban Area

I moved to Ayr last year for university and am now living in one of the three blocks of flats that is Churchill Tower. At the bottom of one of the flats there is a small convenience store and in the middle of the courtyard out front is a small decorative statue which, I think, is reference to the harbour which is across the river from me. There is only one road that passes the front of the blocks which s a relatively quiet one and there is one behind the flats and over a small bridge which runs the shorefront. There isn’t a lot of green space in my direct area, but the beach is pretty much a stone throw away.

I, personally, either use my bicycle or walk for modes of transport, but there is an underground parking facility and parking bays to the sides of the flat. Thankfully there are cycle lanes on the roads and even up to and on the main road at the end of the street which makes cycling less dangerous and a lot easier. There are bus services which mainly connects the smaller surrounding villages to Ayr but there is a double-decker bus which runs to Glasgow and Edinburgh. As well as this, there’s a train station in town which can get pretty busy at peak times with people coming to go to the college and university on top of people commuting to Glasgow for work. The roads as well can get rather congested at peak times also. In town there are parking metres to try and reduce the number of cars in town and there is a one way system as well to accommodate for the narrow roads.

Community spaces wise, there are a number of private gyms as well as the council leisure centre. There’s a big library in town and numerous churches all over Ayr. To my knowledge I haven’t seen any allotments but they may be some outwith the town centre. There are also a couple parks on the riverside for children and more in the outer districts. Next to the beach there is a large square with a lot of green space and benches for people to walk through and sit at. The beach front has a large play park and activities for young children and adolescents. As well as an Odeon cinema, there is a theatre which is linked to the university for the performance and theatre technology students. Although not in Ayr itself there is an all-weather pitch in Prestwick that people can go to to play football and other sports.

Since I’m relatively new to Ayr I’m not entirely sure about the industry and work places, but there is a large shopping centre and plenty of pubs and clubs to provide employment. There’s also a lot of work when the races come around in the racecourse itself, hotels, restaurants and surrounding pubs.

In the peri-urban spaces surrounding Ayr there are a number of supermarkets and hotels, especially next to the racecourse that connect the houses and flats to the town. Industrial estates have been swallowed up by the surrounding housing estates as they have grown and become part of the town.

In South Ayrshire there are 92 people per square kilometre which is quite high in comparison to Scotland as a whole which has 68 people per person per square kilometre. This is because it is one of the bigger towns in Scotland and is a popular place to live by commuters to Glasgow. (http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc134_c/index.html)

Ayr has the lowest ranking for air pollution, this is probably due to it not being a major industrial town that isn’t overly congested or busy. (http://www.scottishairquality.co.uk/latest/site-info.php?site_id=AYR&view=photos&photo=west)

The Environment

Theme:

The Environment

Key Learning:

Interconnections and dependency on the environment

Food provisions, raw materials (wood, fossil fuels, etc)

Human’s relationship with the environment

Human intervention, industrial farming, urbanisation, effect on lifestyle and physiology.

First step in Learning for Sustainability/Education for Sustainable Development

Green energy, awareness of industrial farming

Impact on my views/lifestyle/practice:

Previous to the workshop and lecture I was aware of the different types of environments (urban, country etc) but this workshop was great in experiencing the different styles of teaching kids about the environment. Even though we were adults and doing the activities seemed easy did think it was great for realising the good of getting the kids outdoors. Sending them off to search for different bugs, leaves and birds will prompt them to ask questions and stimulate their senses which will make for a memorable lesson and knowledge that will stay with them as they discovered it as opposed to being told. It makes them more observant and provides a change to the classroom getting them active and moving.

It also emphasised the knock on effects of changing smaller environments, like building a farm, housing estate, supermarket on country land, has on a bigger scale; cities are mainly responsible for putting pressure on the wider environment due to carbon emissions and finite amount of resources and the loss of natural surroundings disrupts and changes the biodiversity and food chain in the area. I could demonstrate a small replica of this in the classroom by creating a small natural environment either on the school grounds or in an area of the class and then change it to more ‘industrial’ and show how there will be a big change in the bugs that would be there.

Areas of interest to explore further/develop:

How human intervention has changed the environment and the domino effects its had on wildlife and even human evolution. Showing how people who live in more rural areas have evolved to adapt to that environment e.g. rural Africans have thick soles on the bottom of their feet to deal with the uneven, rocky ground, those who live in colder weather tend to be hairier to keep warm and even discussing skin colour varies to protect against the sun.