Culture

There are a number of educationalists, sometimes loosely and pejoratively referred to as cultural elitists, who are primarily concerned with the appreciation rather than the production of art. The cultural elitist view may be said to stem from the work of Matthew Arnold and T.S. Eliot in particular, and one of its most well-known representatives was G.H. Bantock. The view is such that it may be taken to involve hostility to much of what goes on in schools in the name of creativity, because it is feared that the disregard for standards in the work that children produce, that frequently characterizes creativity lessons, renders the work something other than genuinely creative. This partially explains Bantock’s dictum that “too much freedom is incompatible with education”. ¹ Education, for Bantock, must include some reference to the notion of appreciating excellence, and this appreciation, it is claimed, will not be promoted by a situation in which children are free from the controls and limitations provided by the standards of excellence in any sphere. To put it crudely, if a child’s writing does not have to meet any standards of coherence or quality, if her freedom is not even limited by such considerations as these, then she is not being introduced to the idea of excellence, and therefore she will be in no position to appreciate it. By definition, then, she will not be being educated. Bantock is not opposed to the aim of promoting artistic creativity, provided that it is genuine creativity, but the stress of his view lies with the notion of appreciation rather than production.