ABSTRACT
An educational ideology such as liberal romanticism is not a tightly argued creed codified in words and ritualized in practice. It admits of a variety of interpretations. English primary education has witnessed a number of variants of liberal romanticism, in some cases associated with geographical regions such as Oxfordshire or Leicestershire or the former West Riding of Yorkshire, and in some cases associated with individuals such as Robin Tanner or Sybil Marshall. This fifth extract is from the latter’s aptly named ‘experiment1 in education and describes an approach through art, a theme underlying other variants, but idiosyncratically and powerfully rendered by Marshall in her village school in the fifties. The extract is in two parts. Part I describes her ‘symphonic method’ around which she based so much of her work and from which her children produced such ‘vital, vigorous, felt English’ and superb art work. Though concerned with art teaching in particular, Part II addresses a more general and perplexing question for the liberal romantic: What is the role of the teacher? How, in Plowden’s words, is the teacher ‘to select an environment which will encourage curiosity, to focus attention on inquiries which will lead to useful discovery, to collaborate with children, to lead from behind’ (para. 875). How, in particular, is the teacher to assess children’s work? [The extract begins with Marshall considering how her approach to education through art evolved, that is:]
