What are te values of expressive arts in Primary Education?


“The expressive arts provide opportunities to explore thinking, refine, and communicate ideas, engaging thinking, imagination and senses creatively. They also promote exploration of issues of personal and cultural identity. Engagement with the expressive arts requires application, perseverance and close attention to detail, capacities that have benefits across learning more widely.” (Donaldson,2015). The value of expressive art activities within Primary Education is vastly increasing as the years go on. Over the last couple of years, it is becoming far more important for children to do mindfulness activities, do colour-therapy activities and also just to do any sort of activity that might increase well-being (such as being outdoors) as it can release a lot of stress and anxiety that children may have and will have a positive effect on their overall well-being.

One of the main factors to expressive arts is creativity, and how creative we are being within and outside of the classroom. A brief history of creativity includes: ‘until the 50’s, the study of creativity was, thus far, essentially related to the study of gifted or talented individuals, and therefore mainly interpreted as an exceptional process. Consequently, assessment of creativity was not a primary concern at the time because creativity was recognizable by the extraordinary creative outcomes / achievements of individuals.’ (B. Barbot, M. Besancon, T. Lubart, 2011). Creativity was seen to be something that was held by the more able or talented children of the class, and was therefore listed as almost a special talent that did not come to all. However, as the years have progressed from the 50’s it is evident that creativity is becoming a major part of our curriculum. Jumping straight into today’s curriculum, Linking this directly to Wales; Donaldson (2015) states that: “All our children and young people will be… enterprising, creative contributors who:
› CONNECT AND APPLY THEIR KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS TO CREATE IDEAS AND PRODUCTS
› THINK CREATIVELY TO REFRAME AND SOLVE PROBLEMS.” This tells us that all children now have to be thinking creatively, and coming up with creative ideas to make them the creative contributors that our social system needs. Creativity is spread widely across the curriculum and across personal development, the more creative you are, the more you can explore different ideas and come up with solutions to problems. Creativity is vastly enhanced by nature.

“The outdoors offers tactile elements and flexible resources with which to experiment and discover real life hands-on learning. These qualities particularly endorse values such as authenticity, love of rich sensory environments and physicality.” (S. Waite,2011). Waite explains to us that the outdoors can offer us much richer resources to enhance creativity and hands-on learning, and can encourage a love for the outdoors and for sensory-learning. The hard part for us as teachers and practitioners is how do we make it engaging.
“Effective environmental education programmes need to be personally relevant to the everyday lives of children and youth, and what is in their ‘own backyard’. It is important that programmes are directly related to the local context and give learners a chance to ‘explore and experience what’s around them” (C. Wilson, 2011).
For us as teachers and practitioners it is hard for us to always make certain topics fun and engaging, alongside this we have to make them a valuable lesson to learn. However, with the right strategies and the right pedagogical principles we can accumulate all of these aspects and make our teaching fun. A good example of this, is colour-therapy. Now colour-therapy can be done in a number of ways, but one example is the Mandala. “The circular geometric shape of the mandala is recognized as a universal symbol for spiritual growth. This symbol has a variety of meanings and can be used as a visual form of meditation. Mandala rituals evolve from the early Buddhist practice believing that the world exists on two disconnected planes. To reach enlightenment, one must see beyond the illusion of difference to see the absolute truth. Mandala practices allow the individuals to see beyond the division of all things to attain integration of the ego.” (Chaudhary, 2012, p.147). By colouring in the mandala when we have stress or anxiety, allows us to spiritually heal and become calm and stress-free. This is a great example for children to have that openness of the environment and being outdoors, but also to have that healing and encounter that expressive art form in a variety of ways.





References

B. Barbot, M. Besancon, T. Lubart (2011) Assessing Creativity in the Classroom: (Online Document) Yale University, USA. Accessed at: https://learn.cardiffmet.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/904736/mod_resource/content/1/Assessing%20Creativity%20in%20the%20Classroom%20.pdf

Carla Wilson (2011) Effective approaches to connect children to nature (Online) Accessed at: https://www.doc.govt.nz/documents/getting-involved/students-and-teachers/effective-approaches-to-connect-children-with-nature.pdf

Chaudhary, N. (2012). Mandala: A Powerful Tool for Self Discovery. The Scientific Ravi: GC University Lahore, 146-164.

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