Why We Teach the Arts
A classical education considers the arts as playing a very important role in its goal to cultivate wisdom and virtue.
It goes far beyond a simple case of identifying and encouraging the students who demonstrate some natural flair or talent… The arts are a gift to
all
students, and when we neglect them, we neglect an extremely important discipline that teaches us so much about beauty, our humanity, and reality itself.
The Act of Creation
When a student draws, sculpts or sings, we see children using their hands and their voices to respond to reality - to work with what is in front of them or within them, to adapt and attune to the physical object in their hands or to the sound of their voice. With time and practice, as their understanding of reality develops, so too can their ability to create something harmonious, balanced and beautiful. Simply, the arts help students learn to respond to and work with reality, to create something beautiful.
Learning to Recognise Beauty
Beauty, alongside Goodness and Truth, sits at the foundation and summit of a classical education. The late English philosopher Roger Scruton describes how:
"Nobody who is alert to beauty, therefore, is without the concept of redemption—of a final transcendence of mortal disorder... In an age of declining faith art bears enduring witness to the spiritual hunger and immortal longings of our species. Hence aesthetic education matters more today than at any previous period in history.”
From the breathtaking panorama of the Sistine Chapel or the haunting sounds of Faure's Pie Jesu, to the simple beauty of Beatrix Potter's illustrations, our eyes and ears are the lens by which we experience so much of the beauty that can be found in our world. When we teach students to rightly recognise what is beautiful through an ordered education in the arts, we hone and focus this lens, a lens which will help to shape and rightly order their loves throughout life.
At Newman College, we hope to give children the invaluable gift of a keen ear, the ability to hold a melody and join in a choir singing in harmony. In the early years we will cultivate this in large part through choral music, through singing songs and chants together and learning to read music.
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