Background
Since time immemorial, people the
world over have dedicated themselves to artistic expression, in all its
myriad forms – visual expression, music, dance and drama – and to its
development. It has been, and will continue to be, vital in helping us to
rise above the mundane, to see the big picture and to understand our place
in the scheme of things.
Its place in society has, during recent centuries, been a sometimes
marginalised one, sometimes elitist. It’s separated from our everyday lives.
We live in a world dominated by technology and science, in desperate need of
the counterweight of humanistic and cultural values in order to ensure our
very survival.
This is mirrored in the world of the school, in that theoretical knowledge
is valued more than practical know-how. Interplay between the different
areas of the brain remains unstimulated and children are denied access to
what neurophysiologist Matti Bergström calls ”a cloud of opportunity.” Put
concisely, the concept refers to the advantages which can be drawn from the
meeting between the streams of consciousness originating in the stem of the
brain, and the knowledge-seeking, organising structures in the cerebral
cortex, in stimulating a creative flow, problem-solving ability, innovative
thinking, etc.
Many children find the step between
concrete and abstract thought processes to be a difficult one. With that,
they lose the ability to keep up in the abstraction that is part and parcel
of their studies. This is specially noticeable within the mathematics
curriculum. The series of national mathematics tests which are part of the
Swedish public education system show that teaching needs to deliver much
more than it presently offers. According to Professor Brian Butterworth in
Cambridge, human mathematical ability is a very complex affair which
involves very many different areas of the human brain. If one area is
lagging behind, this deficit can be balanced up by others. It’s here that
artistic forms of expression could contribute in a significant way.
As an example, we can take the apparently simple addition problem ”Linda has
two apples och Martin has three apples. How many do they have together?”
This contains a whole chain of abstractions, and the childrens’ task is to
interpret this concrete problem in the symbolic form ” 2 + 3 = 5.”
If the children don’t understand the leap from the persons in question, and
their apples, to the abstractions ”2,” ”+” and ”=,” then they have no basis
on which to build their mathematical thinking. These sorts of mathematical
concepts multiply at breakneck speed, both in number and depth, during the
school years; at worst, these poorly understood abstractions gradually pile
up into something resembling an uattainable summit, and mathematics becomes
a torment.
Taking knowledge onboard is not necessarily the same as ”making it your own.”
Through the arts, on the other hand, the child is able to utilise the whole
of his or her bank of experience, emotions and knowledge in order to express
something uniquely personal which can never be right or wrong, but is valid
in itself, and serves to build up a sense of self-esteem i the individual in
a very tangible way.
By limiting oneself to working within a particular structure, a potentially
enormous freedom of action can be attained within that framework. This
provides a balance between security and creativity which can have a positive
effect on most aspects of life.
Schools’ traditional mathematics teaching has lacked the ability to enthuse
children who haven’t mastered the ability to quickly grasp abstractions. The
project’s aim is to develop forms by which as many children as possible can
be given the ability to make the most impostant of these connections and
develop a solid understanding in the core subjects. The various artistic
disciplines, together with a practical attitude, expand our understanding.
”Eureka!”
