Art Education: Cultivating Creativity in Classrooms and Communities

Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity today to address this House.

I would like to speak today on arts education and its value in our society. Arts education, as we know, takes place both in schools, as well as in the public domain and I will be covering both in my speech today.

Many of us may not be very inclined to see a career in the arts as something that is lucrative, or the doing of "creative things" as "useful" or "prestigious". There are other "more pressing" national priorities, more "bread-and-butter" issues, which deserve our attention. Certainly, whenever I speak in this House about the arts, the online commentators seem to agree and I often get comments to say: "Why does this Member always want to speak about the arts? Can she not talk about more bread-and-butter issues?"

Mr Speaker, I would go so far as to say that developing a creative citizenry is a bread-and-butter issue. Outdated societal views that the arts and creativity are "less important" are changing. In a recent press release, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has noted that our students believed that it was possible to be creative in different disciplines. About three quarters or 73% recognised that creativity was not limited just to the arts. There are also potentially positive effects on Singapore's economy.

According to Singapore's 2023/2024 Skills Demand for the Future Economy Report, creative thinking and the ability to generate new and innovative ideas ranks as one of the skills that has consistently been in the top 10 list in 2012, 2017 and 2022 . It is one of the top five critical core skills that has been identified as "essential for the Singapore workforce to be competitive globally."

Countries all over the world are also struggling to deal with developments in artificial intelligence and with societal polarisation across racial, religious and socio-economic fault lines. Solutions to these problems as well, will have to be devised not just book-smarts, but with creativity and empathy too.

So, how do we go about "developing" this creativity? That is where a robust arts education comes into play. The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Framework for Culture and Arts Education recognises that culture and arts play a vital role in the flourishing of human imagination, creativity and self-expression.

A large component of arts education is, of course, the education that we receive through our schools. My first suggestion for MOE is to add more exposure to theatre and drama education, in our present primary school curriculum. In many developed countries, drama is an integral part of the national school curriculum.

In engaging with drama educators and the Singapore Drama Educators Association, I have learnt that there are many positive social effects that come out of using drama as a medium of education. Role-play and other process-driven drama techniques can help pupils to identify with and explore characters and issues. They help students to become more confident with language and communication. They also provide opportunities for students to develop and order their ideas, through acting and improvisation of scenes in various settings. These are certainly all skills which are worth developing.

In learning how to articulate their own emotions, students become better communicators and more confident with their use of language to develop and organise their ideas and thoughts. Self-direction, confidence and communication are, of course, all part of the 21st century core competencies which have been identified by MOE itself.

In response to a Parliamentary Question (PQ) that I filed earlier this year, MOE clarified that drama is not part of the primary school curriculum beyond lower primary levels. I am heartened, however, that MOE has acknowledged that drama is an important pedagogical tool that can be adopted to enhance learning.

In the press release by MOE that I referred to earlier, I noted that less than half of our students believe that they can produce good stories or invent new things! A solid drama education may therefore help build on their intrinsic creative abilities, giving them the medium to express themselves well. Hopefully, someday soon, a similar survey will show that our students have faith in their abilities as storytellers and would-be entrepreneurs.

The second suggestion I would like to surface came out of a conversation that I had with Mr Ang Song Ming. Song Ming was the Singapore's representative at the 58th Venice Biennale and he now lives in Berlin in Germany. Song Ming asked why can we not think more of arts education as something to be integrated with the core education syllabus, instead of being thought of primarily as a standalone subject.

We can see this "interdisciplinary" nature of the arts in the works of artists like Robert Zhao. Robert is coincidentally Singapore's Venice Biennale representative for this year. In his Venice Biennale work, titled "Seeing Forest", Robert looks at "secondary forests" in Singapore. So, if you did not know, these are forests which have regrown from land that had previously been cleared due to human intervention. Robert then examines the new ecosystems that have developed within these forests.

Important lessons can be learned from his work on how the island of Singapore has evolved and the ways in which human urban design can shape the natural world. Lessons such as these are universal. They have roots in science, geography and environmental issues and when conveyed in the context of artworks, allow students to imagine and dream of possibilities beyond the confines of academic book-learning. Perhaps, one day we could see Robert's work and research being taught alongside the academic content of a Science or Geography lesson?

To be fair, arts educators tell me this kind of interdisciplinary learning already happens in schools. But I understand that this is largely on an ad hoc basis, for example, when teachers of other academic subjects proactively decide to engage in "cross-over" projects with their art-trained colleagues. Today, I would like to advocate for it to take place on a more concerted and systematic basis and this would be in line with the recommendation in the UNESCO framework that I referred to earlier and that framework says that the planning and implementation of culture and arts education should not be something that is siloed.

But more fundamentally – and this brings me to my next point – arts education in schools cannot thrive, if arts educators themselves are feeling unsupported or disillusioned. In the course of speaking to arts educators, members of my research team and I encountered some troubling sentiments. Some of the teachers we spoke to seemed to sense that they were viewed as "less important", or somehow lower in the "pecking order" of teachers.

Arts teachers have also told us things like how they are sometimes expected, as a matter of course and with very little respect, to execute anything and everything that is "aesthetic" in schools. This can range from stage and plant pot arrangements in prize-giving ceremonies, to general embellishments and decorations around the campus. As one teacher told me rather sadly, "We do not go to art school [just] to get a degree in how to make decorations."

All of this put together can result in low morale on the part of arts teachers. Students pick up on this too. If schools and other subject teachers perpetuate the notion that arts subjects are not as important as other subjects, students and parents will get the same impression. Students therefore become less focused and less interested during their classes and this creates a self-fulfilling and damaging cycle where arts lessons are de-prioritised.

One fallacy that arts teachers face is the thinking that because their work somehow involves less marking in the traditional sense, it therefore requires much less effort to convey. What people may not realise is that arts subjects, just like all subjects, involve a large body of technical skills and subject matter expertise. On a day-to-day basis, arts teachers are also often responsible for studio space and equipment. Significant amounts of time may need to be spent accounting for, maintaining and enhancing those spaces.

Of course, this is not a competition as to what kind of teacher has a more difficult time. Let me be clear about this. All teachers, whether arts teachers or non-arts teachers, face heavy teaching responsibilities from grading, lesson planning and pastoral care duties. I am an educator myself and I understand full well the difficulties that all teachers face today. I simply want to point out today that arts teachers face their own unique set of challenges that are sometimes overlooked.

In replying to my PQ filed earlier this year, MOE has clarified that "the resignation rate of art and music teachers has been comparable to that of the overall teaching workforce, at around 2% to 3% per year over the past five years." Nonetheless, I am informed by arts teachers on the ground, that many still feel overworked and feel as though there is a shortage of support in the delivery of arts education.

I have also heard feedback that there can be inconsistency in whether arts teachers are allowed by schools to continue on with their own public-facing arts practices. It can be demoralising for teachers to be told that they cannot continue with developing their own practices, especially if they view their own arts practices as important for their roles as educators. It would be good if consistent, clear and transparent policies are rolled out across the board. It should be clear as to whether, when and to what extent teachers in primary schools, secondary schools and junior colleges can continue to maintain their own creative practices.

Teachers I have spoken to have cited the National Arts Council's (NAC's) Artist-In-School Scheme, or AISS, as something which has helped them tremendously. Here, actual working artists come into schools, to help with teaching and curriculum planning. This not only eases some of the burdens on art teachers but also gives students important practical insights into what the interesting and varied life of a working artist can look like.

Many arts educators who have left full-time teaching to pursue other ambitions and dreams continue to have an interest in education. I would like to advocate for an expansion of programmes, such as the AISS, together with better administrative support for teachers seeking to utilise this scheme. At the moment, I understand that it can be quite paperwork-heavy.

I would also like to urge MOE to consider whether more former arts teachers can be engaged to return to teaching on a part-time or ad hoc basis. There is both inspirational value in this for students, as well as potential respite for the overworked and full-time educators in the field.

Finally, I would also like to thank MOE and the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) for the introduction of schemes, such as the Performing Arts-Based Learning Scheme (PABL).This scheme gives students the opportunity to experience a bespoke live music performance in a professional arts and cultural venue. Just over the past weekend, I attended a performance by the Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra which performed original classical pieces composed in response to different neighbourhoods in Singapore. It was a lovely performance in the lead-up to National Day. There was a piece composed for Geylang Serai, one for Toa Payoh, one for Tiong Bahru and so on. This was accompanied with images of the neighbourhood as the musicians performed. It was a great example of how classical music can be contextualised and made relevant to the public at large, without being over-simplified.

I hope that the PABL will continue and eventually be expanded to include more of such diverse local groups. Presently, I understand the scheme includes a curated list of arts groups but I hope that eventually, it will be opened to more applicants who wish to join the scheme.

Sir, the next part of my speech deals with art in public domain. Outside of the academic school syllabus, our museums, private institutions and arts groups also do important work in arts education in the public domain. In particular, our public artworks are often the first significant points of contact that members of the public have with art.

In this area, there are some low-hanging fruit in terms of additional steps that we can take in improving the educational value of our public art. The primary one I want to focus on is this: better policies on the labelling of our public artworks.

In response to a PQ I filed last year, MCCY informed us that objects from the national collection on loan to non-museum entities. such as the Istana and Ministries, are only "minimally" required to "display a label text showing the title of the object, its artist, if applicable, its donor, if applicable, and a credit line to acknowledge the museum which manages the object on behalf of the National Heritage Board."

To this end, I would like to suggest that it be mandatory for more detailed wall text explaining the artworks and objects on display, to be put up together with the works. At the very least, this should be the case when such works are displayed in Government buildings. Ideally, this should be enforced whenever art is displayed publicly. Singaporeans have also recently spoken up on this point. Art historian and academic, Jeffrey Say, for example, has opined in a letter to The Straits Times on 15 July that: "Proper attribution shows we value the work of the artist and the role of the artwork in the community and in placemaking."

Government institutions are places visited by legislators, civil servants and members of the public. If the art and historical objects displayed there are explained to these visitors, these buildings then turn into mini-museums. This has the potential to educate people as they go about their everyday business.

Parliament House itself is an illustrative case in point. How many of us in this Chamber know that the large painting by the late Dr Lai Kui Fang outside the Parliament library, depicts the swearing-in of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his first cabinet in 1959? If we squint very hard, we may see the name of the artist on the bottom of the frame. But do we know that the work was painted entirely based on oral and archival history, because there were no photographic records of the event? The attention to detail in the painting is exquisite. The lines are finely-rendered and the interplay of shadows makes the work look alive. The painting is infused with the sense of energy that one can only imagine would have been in the air, in the founding years of our nation.

How many of us know that some of the busts that line the corridor outside this very Chamber were made by sculptor Dora Gordine, a female artist who has also sculpted local war heroine Elizabeth Choy? Gordine was herself lauded as a "genius" in a Straits Times article of 5 August 1932, when her works were acquired for the Singapore Municipal Building. This article, back in 1932, mind you, observed that the acquisition made Singapore an "art centre of Asia".

So, we might ask, why is information like this even important? Why do we care about it? Why should we care about it? Well, it offers us another unique and imaginative lens through which we can view our shared history. It helps us to build connections with one another. Visual and emotional stimulation such as this, allows us to develop a shared affective bond about our country. This is something that is not quantifiable in dollars and cents, but it is also something which is absolutely priceless.

Here, I would like to pause to convey my particular thanks to Mr Speaker who, when I raised some of these issues with him, has been very open to receiving feedback about better labelling of the art in this House.

Coming back to other examples of public art: we have Sean Dunston's Samsui Woman mural at South Bridge Road and the Raffles and Wallich statues at Fort Canning Park by Andrew Lacey. These have both recently attracted a good deal of public attention; and I do think they would both benefit from insightful and comprehensive labelling.

When contextualised, the Samsui Woman mural struck a chord with Singaporeans, who felt that the work honestly depicted these women at rest. Singer Inch Chua, herself a descendant of a Samsui woman, commented in a Straits Times article by journalist Shawn Hoo on 20 July, that she loved the mural of the young lady, observing that it was like, seeing her great-grandmother's rebellious teenage photos. To her, this was something that was both eye-opening and delightful.

With the Raffles and Wallich colonial statues at Fort Canning, while I am quite aware that decolonisation as a political movement took place many decades ago, the term "decolonisation" is also used today to describe a push to re-examining colonial legacies, particularly, where these colonial legacies tend to gloss over the stories of the indigenous people of those places.

Many museums and institutions all over the world, including the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in Britain itself, are re-examining their colonial legacies. This does not equate to an erasure of historical facts, nor is it an example of extreme "woke-ness" which is blindly imported from the West. It is simply a contextualisation of what was happening in colonial times from different perspectives.

As Straits Times Correspondent Clement Yong observed in his article of 3 July 2024, the legacy of Stamford Raffles is complicated. It includes, amongst others, Raffles' ostensible involvement in the Massacre Of Palembang in 1811. The point of "decolonisation", used in this modern sense, is not to gloss over these complications. But to acknowledge them, observe them objectively and critically, and learn from them.

For both Dunston's and Lacey's works, comprehensive wall text, like what we might find in our National Gallery Singapore or Singapore Art Museum's excellent collections, would go a very long way towards educating the public on the complex and varied issues raised by these artworks.

For example, to me, the statues in Fort Canning are not necessarily blindly laudatory of colonial legacies. If Members look at the statues and I encourage everyone to do so if Members have not done so, Members will see that the colonial figures here, are blending into and almost dissolving into the foliage around them. This is an image that any student of art history will be able to tell Members, is open to multiple interpretations. But without labels to guide understanding, the audience is lost. To my mind, better labelling of artworks is a worthwhile endeavour in the quest to achieve better education and awareness of the art in our public spaces.

Mr Speaker, the growth of our creative economy and our economy, in general, is premised on the existence of an inspired, vibrant, educated and creative population. I hope the Government will continue its efforts to prioritise arts education in all forms, whether it is inside the classroom or outside of it.