Saturday, July 9, 2011

Nature and scope of creative arts and PDHPE learning

The field of creative arts and careers is gaining high momentum in the recent world in nearly all corners of the globe. In regard to this, people have learnt the importance and the potentiality of arts in their economic, social, education and cultural aspects. Despite the hot debate on the inclusion or the abolishment of arts in Australia schooling system, the filed of art will always remain to be vital. Creative arts encompass many forms of artistic expressions that attempt to convey a certain message to the target audience. These forms of art are designed by the artist who attempts to use symbolism or other forms of stylistic devices to arouse particular reactions from whom there are targeted.

Creative arts include music, drama, performing arts, film, and visual arts among others. Learning of creative arts would therefore include the learning of these particular forms, their history, creation, performance, analysis, critique and appreciation, among others. In Australia's schools based on the New South Wales, NSW, syllabus, creative arts are composed of visual arts, music, drama and dance. These are taught in schools starting from kindergarten, primary and secondary schools. They are also choices in higher levels of education such as universities.

PDHPE is an acronym for personal development, health and physical education. This form of education is aimed at developing a student as a whole person (board of studies, 2007).

In Australia, the PDHPE is designed to enhance the physical, mental, social and spiritual well being of students. It aims at growing in students a sense of appreciation of the importance of a healthy life in all meaning of the word (board of studies, 2000).

The debate surrounding the inclusion of the creative arts and PDHPE learning in the school curriculum in Australia

The inclusion of national curriculum in Australian schools also received mixed reactions. The introduction of the national curriculum was beneficial to the learners as well as the economy as a whole. In this case, the learners will be fed with a wider body of knowledge thus expand their careers. The arts will help in nurturing talents thus developing the nation both socially and economically. From another perspective, the inclusion of the national curriculum will boost national unity since interactions between cultures will be facilitated.

Nevertheless, there is also an amounting pressure in opposition to the inclusion of the national curriculum. Based on this, many have the opinion that it will only drain the country's economy without any results. This is on the perception that arts unlike the sciences have little or no importance.

The debate relating to the inclusion of creative arts in the school syllabus before and after its inclusion has been a fierce one. The proponents of teaching creative arts lobbied for its inclusion in the schools syllabus and were successful. Leading those fighting for the inclusion of creative arts in schools syllabus was an organization called the National Advocates for the Arts Education, NAAE. The body and others like minded groups and individuals achieved their goal when in December 2008 the "Melbourne Declaration" said that all students should receive an education on the arts (Letts, 2009). This body, which was a coming together of various bodies representing the art forms falling under the creative arts umbrella, had also managed to defeat an earlier attempt at excluding the arts from a list of key learning areas that the government had defined .The body even after campaigning vigorously for the inclusion of arts in the national curriculum, rejected the idea of lumping together of the art forms under the creative arts umbrella, instead insisting that the respective arts be taught individually.

After consensus was reached on the inclusion of the arts in schools, the next frontier in the battle was how schools would handle the five art forms namely drama, dance, music, visual arts and media. However, the NAAE was able to agree and recommended that during the years K to 10 of schooling, the schools will have to teach all the five art forms, while during secondary education years, the five art forms be offered as electives (Letts, 2009).

The competition for supremacy within the respective art forms is also another side to the debate on inclusion of creative arts in schools. There has been debate on whether any of the art forms should be given preferential treatment and be accorded more hours in schools. Those vouching for the respective art forms would of course make the case for more time for their discipline. Another aspect of the debate has been whether the teachers in schools should be specializing in their area of expertise or whether general teachers are able to effectively teach all the art forms. Those opposed to the inclusion of creative arts in the national curriculum point out that resource in some of the schools are not sufficient for effective teaching of creative arts. They argue that the framework that is being fronted by the proponents of the inclusion of creative arts in the NSW schools curriculum "will only result in the diminishing of intellectual rigor and potential for arts learning" (Clausen, 2010). There has been raging debate on whether all students should get fully qualified PDHPE teachers or not. In government schools from classes K to 6, general teachers are responsible for teaching PDHPE to their students while private ones can decide whether to employ specialists or not. There are those who believe that the government should ensure there are enough teachers qualified in PDHPE in government schools.

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