JAMAICA Teachers Association President Clayton Hall says the value of the arts in education should not be overlooked, and that the country should recognise that the performing arts, in particular, are very potent educational tools.

Responding to questions ahead of this year’s staging of the CARIMAC/Aggrey Brown Distinguished Lecture, which will be held under the theme ‘Media and the Arts: Tools for Communication, Education and Development’, Hall said that teachers are not trained in this particular regard.

“In terms of drama and music; those are highly utilised in the classrooms, but it is a bit less for the visual arts, like scuptures and paintings,” he said.

“There is room for improvement in that if the teachers’ training institutions were to focus on the creative arts as a part of their programmes then you would see more teachers gaining the competence to utilise the arts as a teaching tool. Currently, it is not a part of the teachers’ training protocol,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

Hall explained that teachers of certain subjects, particularly primary level English language, are exposed to certain courses in the arts, however many others are not.

The JTA president also noted that in addition to including the arts as a teaching tool in classrooms, students would also benefit if art was a part of their matriculation assessment.

“One of the things we would want to look at is what I call ‘differentiated assessment’ whereby the assessment of a child’s performance is not solely tied to a written test,” he said.

“It would allow a child who is expressive to choreograph a dance to express the concepts he or she learnt over a programme of study. We may get much more out of the population this way in terms of education,” Hall argued.

Meanwhile, the potential for the arts to improve Jamaica’s education system continues to go unrecognised, with many failing to understand its cultural value, says veteran media personality and university lecturer Fae Ellington.

“A lot of persons see the arts as divorced from education; they think we just do it for a likkle joke and a likkle laugh. We treat it lightly.” Ellington said.

“They see somebody doing a poem, a Miss Louise Bennett dialect, as a way of making persons laugh, but they don’t understand that it is part of the bigger picture called culture, and that it is a very important part of identifying and interpreting one’s reality,” she added.

“The various art forms help people to understand their circumstances better. Integrating them into the regular school curriculum will help people to better express themselves, their views,” she said, adding that Jamaicans are naturally creative and expressive people.

Ellington — an award-winning actress and one of Jamaica’s renowned television news anchors — noted that the media plays an important part in fostering the partnership between art and education.

According to her, such partnerships are vital if Jamaicans are to understand their identity.

“The link between the media and arts is a very natural link for education. They are tools in and of themselves, but they are a powerhouse combined,” she said.

“For example, if you look at a skit on HIV and AIDS, or if you want persons to give blood, etcetera, you are using the arts to spread the message. And when you look at people in the media, particularly the electronic media, they are using the arts to inform and educate people,” she said.

Ellington declined to speak on the extent to which art is being used as a teaching tool in today’s classrooms, but noted that it can only be effective if teachers are properly educated on its usage.

These issues and more will take centre stage at the upcoming lecture which is being mounted by students of the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication at the Undercroft of the University of the West Indies, Mona, at 6:00 pm on April 11.

Veteran journalist Barbara Gloudon will speak on the theme ‘Media and the Arts: Tools for Communication, Education and Development’.