ABSTRACT
The new millennium began with teachers and a UK government passionate about raising standards in education. This was nothing new for dedicated teachers, but a diet of target-setting in basic subjects frequently pushed the arts into the background. The curriculum and its implementation sometimes became dreary and dull as teachers struggled to deal with assessment data and strategies in literacy and numeracy. As Michael Fielding (2001), quoting John Macmurray, put it, ‘we worship efficiency and success: and we don’t know how to live finely’. If living finely is equated with learning to shop until we drop, and teach only what we can test, then education has lost its intellectual way. Living finely is a journey of connoisseurship rather than one of prodding pupils to perform. No child can absorb a fine culture of art without seeing a great deal of it and doing enough of it to realize some of the processes involved. Art is one of the antidotes to a life which becomes increasingly busy and exhausting, yet far less humanly productive or satisfying (Fielding, 2001).
