Book challenges the treatment of art in schools

Two women who believe art is treated in an isolated manner in schools have set out to challenge this isolation with a new publication.

A is for Art is a collection of essays published as a supplement with the long-established Circa magazine. As co-editors, Niamh O'Sullivan, a lecturer in art history at the National College of Art and Design, and Stephanie McBride, a lecturer in film and media at Dublin City University, have set out to provide a forum for a discussion of the educational value of art.

"It think what is unusual is that art education is dealt with separately. It's very isolated in schools. This publication brings people who are practitioners, art historians and theorists together and allows them all to discuss those issues in the same forum," says O'Sullivan.

"This range of subjects would not have been examined in this way before," she says. A is for Art was launched in Dublin recently by Sile deValera, the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands.

With an up-coming review of the arts syllabus in second-level, the two were also hoping to initiate some informed interventions.

Art is "integral and central" to the curriculum, says O'Sullivan, but it is treated in an "isolated" fashion in schools. Also she hopes that publication will illustrate the "completely circular" relationship between second level and third level. "The connection between second and third-level is very rarely recognised," she says. "They are always dealt with separately."

Essays in A is for Art include: hopes for the second-level art, craft, design curriculum; views from Belfast, Dublin and Cork on what makes a good portfolio when applying to third-level courses; art education in the next century; drama on the curriculum as a visual art form and force for social understanding; and ideals for the second-level art syllabus. The magazine "focuses on the educational value of art", says Mo Mowlam, the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in a commendatory note on the inside cover. Art "gives us the confidence and the flexibility to question assumptions about the way we lead our lives; and it helps us to define and express our sense of identity", she writes. "Most importantly, the creative process in art, and in its appreciation, helps to promote greater understanding and tolerance of the cultural diversity which is such a salient feature of life in these islands."

Teaching news is compiled by Catherine Foley