Nick Fisher
Head Master, Sherfield School
Sherfield School has a relentless drive to change, innovate and improve. Our new school strategy includes a focus on creative thinking, deep learning and the connections between subjects, particularly the arts and sciences. This will be launched through our STEAM initiative: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics.
Creativity is not the sole domain of the arts. Science is itself a highly creative discipline that is reflective, constantly challenges its own ideas and pushing its boundaries.
Good scientists never blindly accept the status quo.
The connections and blurring of boundaries between arts, humanities and sciences helps to foster creative thought and transferrable skills in pupils. The positive impact of breaking down walls between subjects also serves as an important metaphor for society.
STEAM promotes divergent thinking. It encourages 21st Century Skills of Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, Creativity and Innovation. STEAM helps take a multi-disciplinary approach to a problem. Innovative companies around the world like Google, Apple, and Intel rely on employees with a mind for science, but an eye for design. STEAM promotes a holistic approach to learning which supports the whole child, stimulates all the senses for deeper, more meaningful learning, helps develop Multiple Intelligences and addresses varied learning styles. Design is increasingly becoming a key differentiator for technology start-ups and products.
Activities related to the arts are crucial in developing a better brain. A large part of the brain is devoted to processing visual information. The same systems are used in the brain to process visual information and to create fantasy. This is why virtual reality, television, and books can be so compelling.
The anterior parts of the brain are devoted to language skills. Cognitive Psychologist, Steven Pinker, and linguist, Noam Chomsky, have both pointed out how the human brain is born with networks that help in rapid acquisition of language in childhood. Studies of children raised in isolation have shown that if language skills aren’t developed in childhood then it is not always easy to rectify in adulthood.
Studies also show that children learn better through movement. It is no longer acceptable to insist that pupils sit passively in classrooms day after day, month after month, year after year. Parts of the cerebrum and the cerebellum are devoted to coordinating movement. We need to learn to think about our movements before we move so that we control them better. So every time we decide to move, or take action, this decision is preceded by neural activity that sets goals and analyses outcomes. It is only then that a neural decision is taken to execute movements. Teaching dance and drama in school can clearly help develop a learning brain.
And from drama we can then sound out music: there are parts of the brain that respond only to music. If we want children with active brains, we would be well advised to incorporate music in our lessons and also include activities that develop musical abilities. Playing a guitar, for instance, is an incredibly complex action. It involves the visual part of the brain processing the notes, it involves the psychomotor parts of both hemispheres of the brain – with the right hand strumming the strings and the left hand changing chords, and finally it involves the parts of the brain responsible for vocalizing the tune – and all the while the brain needs to be aware of what’s happening in the room and gauge the response of the listening audience. I now understand why I have found it so hard to progress!
An interest in performing arts leads to a high state of motivation that produces the sustained attention needed to improve performance in other subjects. Specific links exist between high levels of music training and the ability to manipulate information in both working and long-term memory; these links extend beyond the domain of musical training.
And finally, the idea that History, Mathematics and Sciences are academic subjects and Art, Music and Drama and Dance are not is staggeringly wrong. In Bloom’s Taxonomy, the pyramid of learning climbs from factual recall through understanding, application, analysis and evaluation to creativity. The creative synthesis that can develop early in drama through devised pieces, and music through composing, is accessible to pupils in school well before they are in a position to do a PhD in Physics. The creative and performing arts are challenging intellectually and provide opportunities for pupils to engage with high level creative thinking that can help their studies in all subjects.
In short, pupils engaging with the creative and performing arts will develop sophisticated thinking skills that can help with life-long learning.
Nick Fisher
Head Master
Sherfield School