The Nature of the Arts

We have to realise that if we are trying to release children to become what they are not yet, to be free, to discover, by releasing children to move into the unknown, we can't tell them where to go - we just have to rejoice that they are alive...(if) a kind of wide-awakeness can develop through the partnership, the better chance that we have that children will wake up and rebel against the dullness and boredom and repetitiveness and the mechanical life. (Maxine Greene in Taylor, 2000. 'The Drama Classroom', Falmer: New York.)

The Key Areas

• Dance
• Drama
• Music
• Visual Arts
• Media

A Part of Everyday Life

• We interact with them both individually and as community members
• They influence our decisions and choices made every day
• They entertain, record events, promote ideas. Provoke responses and stimulate discussion
• They provide opportunities for us to create, reflect, challenge, ritualise, critique and celebrate
• They play important roles in expressing and sharing the vitality of cultures and communities
• They construct personal and culural identities and transmit values and ideas

Ways of Thinking and Learning

• Enables students to identify, value and extend academic, personal and social capabilities by offering multiple pathways to learning
• By engaging in and reflecting on the arts, students develop skills that contribute to their physical, cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, cultural, social, moral and spiritual development/
• Students acquire and extend insights and understandings
• They learn to value unexpected and desirable discoveries

Contribution to Lifelong Learning

Enables students to become:

• A knowledgeable person with deep understanding
• A complex thinker
• A responsive creator
• An active investigator
• An effective communicator
• A participant in an interdependent world
• A reflective and self-directed learner

Cross Curricula Priorities

• Literacy
• Numeracy
• Lifeskills (personal/social/self-management/citzenship)

Learning in the Arts

Learning is most effective when:

• Students actively participate in arts activities where the process may be as important as the end product
• Students are supported in acquiring requisite skills so that they experience success whilst engaging in, and responding to, arts practices
• Communities work in partnership with the teacher and the school
• The community and the learning environment value arts learning and its importance in the education of all students

Key Learning Area Outcomes

By participating in the key learning area The Arts, students should be able to:

• Create, present and reflect on arts works with confidence, skill, enjoyment and aesthetic awareness
• Express ideas, feelings and experiences through the symbol systems, techniques, technologies and processes appropriate to each of the arts
• Communicate with an intended audience through the forms and processes of the arts
• Understand, critically evaluate and appreciate the impact of the cultural, social, spiritual, historical, political and economic contexts of arts works in the construction of meaning
• Respect and value cultural diversity, address equity issues and establish supportive environments to promote their own and others' involvement in the arts as discerning consumers and practitioners
• Understand the unique contribution of each of the arts as well as the collaborative nature of many arts practices
• Understand that learning in the arts is transferable to their personal and working lives

(Reference: 'The Arts. Years 1-10 Syllabus' (2001). Queensland School Curriculum Council: Brisbane)