FROM THE HEAD OF SENIOR SCHOOL
The art in everything
“Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and
expressing the world. There are some truths about life
that can be expressed only as stories, songs, or images. Art
delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions”
– Dana Gionia 2007 Commencement Address, Stanford University
The beautiful introductory comment
provided above comes from Dana Giona,
Poet, Professor of Poetry and Public Culture
at USC and former Chair of the National
Endowment for the Arts. This quote
provides both a succinct and eloquent call
to action, which should inspire all educators
to be custodians of the arts, and to aspirant
artists to continue to foster and cultivate
their artistic pursuits and talents.
We are very fortunate that the Arts have
held an integral place in our educational
philosophies at Guildford Grammar
School throughout the school’s history,
where participation in the arts is not only
encouraged but also treasured, valued
and celebrated. This is not the case in
all educational systems and institutions,
where schools can become consumed
with meeting national testing standards.
Fortunately, science is now revealing the
true benefits that an educational focus on
the arts can provide.
Lois Hetland and Ellen Winner from the
Harvard Graduate School of Education
have been researchers advocating for the
arts in the American education space, and
have produced a number of important
publications highlighting the essential skills
an involvement in the Arts can develop.
They found that “arts programs teach a
specific set of thinking skills rarely addressed
elsewhere in the school curriculum – what
they call ‘studio habits of mind’, one of
which is focussing on learning to engage
and persist” . This stems from the nature of
longer-term arts projects; think producing
your own script, painting an art piece, or
performing a musical composition, which
require students to learn from mistakes
and press ahead, to commit and to follow
through.