"Mummy ...
I think when I grow up I want to be an engineer.
Because I love art and I love fixing things.
... and if I could just use electricity ..."
It staggers me to see the impact of an evolving culture on a
creative mind. 30
(alright, 40) years ago, I loved art and fixing things and it
wouldn't, in a thousand years, have occurred to me to be an engineer.
That was an option for my super-intelligent, super-scientific brother.
Now the climate has changed, our nation is desperate for engineers and we are
seeing how creativity is intrinsic to science and innovation. And by the
age of 5, my creative daughter knows a completely different application of her
creative skills than I did at the same age.
Since the day she could pick up a toy, I have loved watching the
way her young mind draws the whole world into each project. Her two
favourite activities are junk modelling and making mixtures. When she
makes a guitar from cereal boxes, is she building or sculpting? When she
makes a mixture from soap, lentils and muesli, is she doing art or chemistry?
For me by the age of 12, art and science were polar
opposites. Still I identify fundamentally as an artist, and I loathe
science with my entire being. It brings back the dreary impossibility of
naming the parts of a plant, learning the formula for calculating forces, or
the properties of the periodic table. It had no real world relevance or
application for me.
Feets teaches me otherwise on a daily basis.
How long can we keep hold of this intrinsic understanding that
everything is connected? Everything I read, and everything I see, tells
met that in the Early Years, children don't see the lines between
disciplines. Learning is play-based, child led, exploratory - every
activity is an experiment with a sensory and a scientific outcome.
Through Feets, I have first-hand experience of brilliant reception
year teaching, in which learning was planned and guided in response to her and
other children's interests.
But the National Curriculum of our current government feels at
odds with the harmony that can be found between creativity and STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering and
Maths) subjects. As far as I understand, from an early age, the
curriculum is so driven towards filling our children with knowledge - the dates
of history, an understanding of verbs and adjectives and ... Subjects are more
separated in schools than ever. It feels as though there is a severe
contradiction between the National Curriculum and contemporary understanding of
how children learn.
I am wondering how long Feets will be able to see the art that
lies within engineering ... will the current influence of the engineering
sector win out, or will the school curriculum gradually erase the harmony of
these disparate subject areas?*
*She will probably change her mind next week and decide to be a
tree surgeon.
