ABSTRACT
The arts represent a fundamental way of knowing to do with the aesthetic and creating fields. They are experienced through the direct use of the senses and engage both feelings and mind. The case for the arts occupying a more central place in the primary curriculum is overwhelming, and there is much that any staff can collectively do, notwithstanding the adverse pressures upon them. Arts education offers the young unique opportunities for exploring and sharing their experiences and adapting to the human implications of societal change. Any attempt to inculcate academic disciplines or social and life skills without reference to feelings, to the moral values which feelings imply and reveal, or to peer-group attitudes, cultural norms and individual aspirations, dooms the young to an education which continues to ignore their real world and must inevitably fail to bring about the results called for by government.
