Merian - School Portrait

Arts certainly took a peripheral place in the curriculum when I was at school from 1969 to 1980. There was a focus on the arts in kindergarten but a radical reduction in time spent on creative activities from grade one onwards. Our exposure to music was through the weekly ABC radio program “Lets Have Music” designed for grade three and four level students.  We did folk dancing as a PE activity and drama was limited to the end of year concert where we created short scripted dramas and dressed up to play characters from songs. There was little room for individual expression or creativity in any of these activities.

I certainly experienced the impact of the hierarchy of curriculum areas described by Sir Ken Robinson (2006). Students at our school who were intelligent were influenced to focus on maths and science subjects. By year 12, my only creative subject was English. My only arts outlet was playing the guitar. This seems like a long outdated paradigm ignoring students strengths or the value of the arts as part of the learning experience.