We are more! The overlooked potential of learning through cultural engagement - Henrik Zipsane

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PASCAL International Observatory
We are more! The overlooked potential of learning through cultural engagement
Henrik Zipsane - 17 January 2011
Abstract Learning through cultural activities is a strategic area which ought to receive broader attention from the European Union, national governments and regional leadership. In earlier studies and policy recommendations representatives of national governments have been chasing synergy effects between education and culture. Unfortunately the scope has been narrowed down to almost only focusing on the possibilities of strengthening the role of cultural activities – preferably art – in formal education, and has had a tendency to regard culture as something which should be learnt. The only competence which has been addressed in this thinking has therefore been cultural awareness and creativity. The potential of cultural activities for other competences such as social and civic competences and learning to learn has not been explored. This is not satisfactory to the cultural sector and should not be so to society at large as the potential of synergy between education and culture is much larger and broader and may effectively be a central and normal part of capacity building through both development of competences and social cohesion. In this paper the empirical material has been collected by the cultural sector in Europe itself. This is important as the sector has the unique competence to look beyond the trivial images of cultural engagement. The task is to find examples which, in an illustrative way, could show the extraordinary potential of learning through cultural engagement. The result of the analysis of the examples collected is that: 1. The cultural sector is capable of producing effective pedagogical programmes which are original as they are based on the engagement with culture; 2. The cultural sector creates learning activities which reach people in a true and real lifelong and life wide meaning; and 3. The cultural sector offers learning of several key competences and cultural awareness is just the tip of the competence iceberg.
  
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Background The political tradition of regarding culture and education as entities which may live in harmony together in executive departments is known not only from nation states but is also seen on a European level. The European Commission has for many years organised the two themes as neighbours within the same directorate – The General Directorate for Education and Culture. This tradition of having education and culture coexisting in a more or less integrated way goes far back in time and can actually trace its roots back to the pre-democratic age in Europe. At the turn of the 20th Century the policy area of education slowly developed and liberated itself from religion and later the ministries and departments of culture grew out of that. Both education and culture have as executive branches their roots in the management of knowledge, thoughts and common values. Especially in the second half of the 20th Century however the two themes – education and culture – seem clearly to have grown apart. This may probably best be understood as a result of professionalization of each of the areas but there is more to it. The ideological belief in the independence of culture grew rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s and within education the dominance of formal education at the same time made it necessary for other educational forms to strengthen its their own identity. The political move from adult education through continued education and lifelong education to lifelong learning in the last 40 years has been a result of that. In this development the potential of culture in learning has been systematically overlooked, to some extend even by the wish of cultural institutions and organisations themselves as they strove for autonomy. Providing lifelong learning is of course also a market and in such a market the economic mechanisms of supply and demand rule and set the price. In the lifelong learning market however, issues such as politics, research-based convictions and the right to acknowledge learning needs and learning effects play important roles. This paper is about the potential of culture in learning which often is as unique as it is overlooked. The potential of culture in learning is however of such magnitude that it is by any standards and calculations poor policy and counterproductive economics to not let it take its natural place in the lifelong learning market. In the following the breadth and specific possibilities of learning through cultural engagement in a lifelong learning context will be illustrated.
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The material On the initiative of the European Union, in 2007, the cultural life in Europe was invited to participate in a dialogue on cultural policy (Commission 10.05.2007 & 01.03.2008 and Council 16.11.2007). The dialogue was organized in three different platforms and one of these had the theme of access to culture as its overall area. This Access to Culture Platform (ACP) began its work in June 2008 with 48 representatives from 36 different cultural organisations in Europe covering almost everything from performing arts, heritage, cultural schools, architecture, cultural centres, minority languages, publishers, libraries and the information sector and cultural management. The ACP decided from the very beginning to organize its efforts in three parallel work groups which each had their own subtheme. One of the work groups was called “Education & Learning” which focused on the issues of possible synergy effects between the world of education and the world of culture. The issue taken up by this work group attracted no less than 19 of the delegates. The popularity of this group may well be seen as a symbol of how important the issues of education and learning through cultural engagement and of the communication of this, are for the cultural sector as a whole. The Work Group on Education and Culture decided to collect good examples of what can be seen as extraordinary meetings between education and culture. The group did not explicitly define what was meant by extraordinary, which is understandable as the participants had no need for that in the situation as they naturally know the ordinary and publically well known activities of their different cultural branches. In this instance we have to accept that by extraordinary meetings were meant exactly that. The extraordinary was in the focus rather than an idea about best practice, as the participants were well aware of the need to further develop the extraordinary programmes which almost all had come about through short lived projects and needed stimulation and introduction of special mechanisms to become sustainable in a lifelong learning market. Through the participating European cultural organisations all sorts of organisations were asked to send material which demonstrate such extraordinary meetings: 39 examples were collected in September-December 2008 and discussed at a seminar. By collaboration between the organisations Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO), European Association of Conservatoires (AEC) and Association of European Open Air Museums (AEOM) the collected material was organised in a simple template with the main focus being on the key competence to which the described cultural activity was especially related. The whole material was then presented to the ACP platform as a whole at a plenary meeting in June 2009
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and shortly after, together with policy recommendations from the platform, handed to the Commission in July 2009 (Civil Society Platform on Access to Culture 2009). During the year from the presentation of this to the Commission in July 2009 to summer 2010 a parallel work group under the European Council on developing synergies between education and culture finalised their work. This work group has been set up as an Open Method of Coordination work group (OMC) and had delegates from each of the EU member statesexcept Bulgaria. The delegates were appointed by the departments of education and culture in the member states. Even though representatives of the ACP work group on education and culture had reported to the OMC group on the findings in the collected extraordinary meetings between education and culture, this is not reflected in the final report from the OMC group. That report focuses almost exclusively on formal education – primarily the school sector – and the thinking is mostly about education in and about culture, and especially, art. The main perception in the report from the OMC group is therefore about seeing non-formal cultural education as a complement to formal education – primarily schools, and recommending the creation of special relations between schools and cultural institutions or artists (Lauret & Marie 2010). Whilst there are many good insights on details in the report, but the overall impression is that the lifelong learning perspective is missing, and that problems arise in exclusively regarding cultural activities from the perspective of formal education. As a reaction to this, the ACP realised that its message about the possibilities in learning through culture which was given in the report with the collected examples of extraordinary meetings between education and culture, were simply not clear enough. The ACP work group on education and culture therefore decided to make a deeper analyis of the material and to support the analysis with some additional material. With help from the participating organisations the ACP collected another 21 examples during the autumn 2010, thereby bringing the total up to 60 examples of extraordinary meetings between education and culture in Europe. The examples were collected through a process whereby all participating organisations asked their members to look for and report on activities which they themselves saw as interesting examples of learning through cultural engagement beyond the usual. Overall, the material represents the sectors of heritage (especially museums) with 23 examples, music with 10 examples, theatre (especially drama) with 7 examples and adult education with 13 examples. The collected material also includes 5 examples from building conservation and architecture and one example from a library and one from modern art.
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This may reflect that these organisations were most active in the process of collecting examples but there seems to be no particular indications of that. The composition may also be the result of a tendency that member institutions of the dominating cultural sectors here have a relatively active engagement in developing extraordinary meetings between education and culture.
Lifelong learning and the key competences How can we understand “engagement with culture” from the perspective of lifelong learning policy? To understand the full potential of learning through cultural engagement it is imperative to perceive lifelong learning literally stretching from cradle to grave and for all regardless of gender, cultural or social background and even education. It is, so to speak, life wide as well as lifelong learning (Ekholm & Härd 2000 and Bengtsson 2009). In the European context the issue of key competences for lifelong learning means that there are competences which each and every individual in Europe should acquire and persist in, in order to take care of ones own life as well as contributing to society as a whole. The competences are not of a kind which can be understood statically. The competences are to be acquired and nurtured and developed throughout life as the context of both the individual and the society in which the competence is meant to be effective changes over time (European Commission 2000). This makes the issue of an ever changing curriculum for lifelong learning important (Schuller & Watson 2009). The key competences for lifelong learning in Europe are the following: Communication in the mother tongue Communication in foreign languages Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology Digital competence Learning to learn Social and civic competences Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship Cultural awareness and expression
The key competences are well defined by the EU in a classical manner which here means that all eight key competences are described with their characteristics in the
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form of knowledge, skills and attitudes (European Commission 2004 & 2005). If we are to fully understand the possibilities and the capacity of learning through cultural engagement in a lifelong learning perspective we therefore have to address the issue in the same classical manner and look at the different cultural activities from three different angles and raise the traditional questions: Can we define the learners – the target group? What key competence is addressed? What does the composition of knowledge, skills and attitudes in the learning look like?
Who is learning through cultural engagement? The focus on children and young people is evident in the collected examples. The only or main target group in the examples is divided in the following way: Children and youth Adults Seniors Family learning For both youth and adults 39 15 2 2 2
This characteristic is probably no surprise as most European countries and the European Union have children and young people as a special priority group in cultural policy and development programmes. As the majority of the examples are based on development projects we therefore see this priority reflected so clearly. If we look at the examples addressed to children and young people more closely, 5 are focusing on the youngest children and 11 clearly on teenagers and young people. No less than 23 of the examples which focus on children and youth are supposed to be designed for a relatively broad age group. This circumstance may in a critical perspective on learning through cultural engagement also be an area where the cultural sector must become better in being clear about its target group. The belief in culture being for everybody unfortunately creates confusion between the political aim and the need for being specific.
Of the 39 examples addressed to children and youth, 13 are related to formal education and 26 are not. This underlines the fact mentioned earlier that the cultural
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sector see differently on the possibilities of synergy between education and culture from national governments who almost exclusively through the OMC report advocated strengthening relations between formal education and cultural institutions or artists. There are indeed examples of interesting and original collaboration between formal education and the cultural sector where it is evident that the synergy effect is a learning situation where something extraordinary is created. Good examples of that are those from »Classes d’éveil au Patrimoine et à ses metiers – au centre La PaixDieu » created by Institut du Patrimoine Wallon in Wallonia, Belgium and the programme « Refugee » at the Jamtli Museum in Jämtland, Sweden.
Classes d'éveil au Patrimoine et à ses metiers at the La Paix‐Dieu centre in Amay, Belgium.  This initiative of the Walloon Institute for Cultural Heritage aims to raise awareness among  youths  aged  12  to  15  of  the  architectural  heritage  and  related  professions,  by  organising  four  day  courses  at  a  Cistercian  abbey  founded  in  1244  that  is  undergoing  restoration.  In  the past 10 years, over 5000 students and more than 350 teachers have been involved in  these  courses.  Because  of  its  success,  the  project  now  also  includes  3  or  5  day  summer  schools for children and their parents.  The project is highly appreciated for the impact it has on its participants, both cultural and  social.  Living  and  working  for  a  number  of  days  on  a  prestigious  site,  accompanied  by  conservation  and  restoration  experts  and  professionals,  instils  a  passion  for  cultural  heritage and its values, and opens a door to a future professional life in the field.  www.paixdieu.be 
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 Refugees  at  the  Jamtli  Open  Air  Museum  in  Sweden.  The  complete  event  at  Jamtli  was  almost  four  hours  long.  The  participants  were  allocated  their  roles  and  given  time  to  acquaint  themselves  with  their  character.  The  participants  sit  in  a  room  that  suddenly  becomes dark. The people smugglers enter the room carrying pocket torches and call their  respective groups of refugees together. The flight has begun and to begin with it involves  coping  with  the  relatively  harsh  relations  with  the  smugglers  and  other  refugees  whilst  coming  to  and  crossing  the  border.  Following  a  number  of  harsh  experiences  the  participants  cross  the  border  into  “Svezia”  where  the  police  take  hand  of  the  first  part  of  the process. The arrival at Transit is characterised by routine treatment. The asylum seekers  undergo  short  interviews  requiring  basic  information,  their  photos  are  taken,  as  are  their  hand‐  and  fingerprints.  Waiting  and  idleness  are  alternated  with  interviews  with  the  authorities and the attempts by special socio‐pedagogical secretaries from the Immigration  Board to help pass the time. After what some of the participants think is a long, long time,  they are finally called to a meeting where they are informed in writing and orally whether  or not they have been granted a residence permit   The target group for Jamtli’s project “Refugee” consisted of 16 year‐old pupils at secondary  schools in the county of Jämtland. The overall reaction of those responsible for the project,  the  actors,  pedagogues,  school  children  who  participated,  teachers  and  adult  participants  has been highly positive. Learners are active both physically and mentally and the learner is  affected emotionally and new attitudes are formed.  www.jamtli.com 
The examples are interesting in the way they show how the participating cultural institutions use their special competences to create a surplus effect in the learning situation for the formal education learners. The cultural heritage institute in Wallonia uses its special competence in building history and craftsmanship and the Open Air Museum in Jämtland uses its special competence in role play and living history reenactment. From the perspective of the cultural sector – as they have themselves collected such examples – the meeting of the formal education system and the cultural sector becomes extraordinary and interesting exactly when the cultural institution uses its special competences. Put another way, the cultural sector wants to be used when it can contribute to the learning situation with special competences. The broader issue is however the overwhelming tendency by the cultural sector to create extraordinary meetings between education and culture for children and young people outside the formal education sector. From a critical perspective maybe this is a symptom: this way the cultural sector can take the initiative, control the programme and whilst not having to meet (formal) education standards. If so, this is however not
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at all to say that the educational aim or value becomes smaller. Vivid examples of that effect are many: the programme “Towards an active democracy with Theatre in Education” produced by The Hungarian Drama in Education Association, the programme “Ein Hof für Jung und Alt. Ausbau des Dreiseithofes aus Leutershausen zum Museumspädagogischen Zentrum” produced by Fränkisches Freilandmuseum Fladungen, Germany are very illustrative.
Towards  an  active  democracy  with  Theatre  in  Education  project  aims  to  create  participatory  Theatre  in  Education  (TIE)  programmes  that  give  an  empowering  felt‐ understanding of basic concepts at the heart of democracy and take them to young people  from different minorities and marginalized backgrounds. This gives them a chance to relate  their  own  social  and  personal  values  to  the  ground  concepts  of  democracy  and  express  them artistically. The project aimed to cross borders, not only between arts and education,  but  also  national,  social,  ethnic  and  individual  ones.  The  project  also  offers  young  people  and their teachers new models of democratic dialogue, and stimulus for active involvement  in  democratic  institutions.  The  project  activities  will  take  three  different  TIE  programs,  created  for  children  of  varying  age‐groups,  to  different  communities  in  Hungary  and  also  neighbouring  Slovakia  and  Serbia.  Teachers  will  receive  support  to  follow  up  the  work.  Finally  an  exhibition  and  publication  will  give  voice  to  the  young  people's  artistic  input  to  the programs.  Objectives of the project are to bring a change in the democratic attitude of young people  living  in  marginalized  communities  –  an  open  debate  about  key  democratic  concepts  –  to  give new models of discourse and expression and finally to create a forum for marginalized  young people.  www.drama.hu 
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Ein Hof für Jung und Alt. Ausbau des Dreiseithofes aus Leutershausen zum Museumspäda‐ gogischen  Zentrum.  Due  to  protective  measures,  touching  or  moving  objects  or  getting  active by oneself is prohibited in open‐air museums!  After the dislocation of a three‐sided farmstead of a hamlet of Leutershausen nearby Bad  Neustadt  (administrative  district:  Rhön  Grabfeld)  to  the  open‐air  museum’s  area,  a  non‐ recurring  opportunity  occurs:  To  “gain  access”  to  an  old,  peasant  property  including  its  appointments.  This  implies  touching  and  using  everything,  starting  from  the  furniture  to  working  equipment  and  home  appliances.  To  impart  knowledge,  the  sensuous  experience  by touching, smelling, tasting and hearing is the key approach.   Within the museum complex, a modern museum‐educational centre comes into existence  inside  this  19th  century  peasant  farmstead  including  the  main  house  (including  living  accommodation  and  stables)  and  its  adjoining  buildings  like  a  pigisty,  sheep  pen,  a  large  barn  as  well  as  a  fountain.  The  farm  complex  is  rebuilt  at  a  hillside  just  as  at  the  original  location.  The  interior  decoration  being  of  the  year  1900  is  still  in  good  condition  for  the  most part and gets again to its original place.   The superordinate slogan for everybody is “Learning By Experiencing”!   www.freilandmuseum‐fladungen.de 
The obvious reason why such programmes work and are popular with the cultural sector is of course that the drama theatre uses its fundamental special competence of high quality dialogue and the museum in the same way its qualitative sense of authenticity as the primary tools for the learning processes. The special conditions which the participants may meet in the cultural institutions can open the senses to a new learning world. This goes for children, young people, adult and seniors alike. As individuals we have different preconditions for learning within us which are formed as they are in course of our individual biology and personal history (Jarvis 2006 & Hooper-Greenhill 2007). The cultural sector has answers to the need for different learning styles (Gardner 1983). Now consider the programmes “The Barclays Special Educational Needs Project” produced by The Weald & Downland Open Air Museum in Singleton, West Sussex, United Kingdom . and the programme “Cultures getting to know each other, together we are strong” by the adult education organisation Turkish Society Switzerland (TGS/ITT).
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The Barclays Special Educational Needs Project to develop focussed days designed to suit  children  with  special  educational  needs  (SEN’s).  These  themed  focus  days  were:  Shakespeare, Working Animals, Fire and Light and Harvest.  The  aims  were  two‐fold:  to  develop  a  sustainable  programme  of  activities  for  this  educational  group,  which  included  children  with  physical,  intellectual  and  behavioural  problems, and to encourage staff from Barclays Bank to attend the Museum on those days  as assistants in a voluntary capacity.  The corresponding outcomes were to increase social  participation and interaction for the children involved, and develop in the participating bank  employees  an  interest  in  community  and  voluntary  activities.  For  instance  when  studying  Shakespeare in a mainstream school setting, to bring the plays to life students can easily be  taken to the theatre for a full performance.  For the SEN children this presents difficulties.   By bringing the children to the Museum for the Shakespeare day, plays could be presented  in short excerpts, accompanied by appropriate workshops such as 16th century cookery and  apothecary sessions.  Bringing the children to the Museum site offered its own benefits.  For example, during the  Working  Animals  days  we  were  able  to  bring  the  children  into  close  contact  with  the  animals at the Museum.  In the Fire and Light day, the children were able to have the often  new  experience  of  feeling  the  heat  of  an  open  fire.    During  the  Harvest  day  they  experienced the sights, sounds and smells of autumn.   www.wealddown.co.uk/ 
Turkish Society Switzerland (TGS/ITT) The Cultures (Turkish and Swiss, as well as Christian  and Islamic) shall move closer to each other for facilitating a harmonic living together. The  event  takes  place  in  the  month  of  Ramadan.  Therefore  there  will  be  special  focus  on  common aspects of these two religions..  Content:  Opening  speech,  panel  discussions  on  the  relevance  of  learning  and  parental  education for integration and what do the two religions have in common? Both discussions  with  both  Turkish  and  Swiss  speakers  and  the  possibility  for  the  participants  to  pose  questions..  Then  dancing  Derwishes  accompanied  by  Sufi‐Music,  collecitve  fast  breaking  (Iftar), Turkish and Swiss traditional music and folklore.  The  venue  allows  the  presentation  of  several  booths  providing  appropriate  information  material: brochures, books, arts and crafts.  www.lernfestival.ch/ 
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Turkish Society Switzerland (TGS/ITT) The Cultures (Turkish and Swiss, as well as Christian and Islamic) shall move closer to each other for facilitating a harmonic living together. The event takes place in the month of Ramadan. Therefore there will be special focus on common aspects of these two religions. The event will also provide information about learning and its role according to integration.
Content: Opening speech, panel discussions on the relevance of learning and parental education for integration and what do the two religions have in common? Both discussions with both, Turkish and Swiss speakers and the possibility for the participants to pose questions.. Then presentation from the Semazen: Dancing Derwishes accompanied by SufiMusic, collecitve fast breaking (Iftar), Turkish and Swiss traditional music and folklore. The venue allows the presentation of several booths providing appropriate information material: brochures, books, arts and crafts.
www.lernfestival.ch/ 
The programmes illustrate how the museum site or a meeting house as environments different from the image of schools offer conditions which make it possible for the participants to engage with their senses and their own preconditions for learning capacity. Even though the cultural sector has been stimulated for a very long time in Europe to develop activities for children and youth there are also examples of cultural institutions who have gone almost the opposite way in recognition of the growing number of people in the 3rd and 4th age groups. An extraordinary example of how to use cultural engagement as a learning asset for senior citizens in the 4th age group is the programme called the “Memory House” at Den Gamle By Open Air Museum in Århus, Denmark, which shows a way forward.
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”The House of Memory” Since 2004 a small group of people in Den Gamle By Open Air  Museum has worked with and developed memory retrieval programmes for elderly people  with senile dementia. A key person from the municipal social and healthcare administration  is a part of this group, and the participating members of staff from the museum have been  through a basic course about senile dementia.  In small groups these people are invited into a home with an interior of past time. The hosts  are members of the Living History staff in period costumes acting as the habitants of the  house. The “guests” are invited to help in the kitchen with the iron cast stove and other  typical objects from the period or sit in the living room with a lot of things they can see and  touch, things they remember from their childhood and youth. Later they all have coffee  with pancakes freshly made in the kitchen, very often with experienced help from some of  the guests. The atmosphere is warm and homely, memories are exchanged and the spirits  are high. In this context the “guests” who suffers from more or less severe senile dementia  recollect memories, they are able to communicate with the others, they participate actively  in a social event. The whole visit is an aesthetic experience with high impact on the  “guest”s’ senses and emotions. Thus there is a way in behind the consciousness and the  intellect, memories are retrieved, and with careful attention and conversation from the  staff the “guests” can tell parts of their own personal history.  Senile dementia affects parts of the brain that controls a lot of basic skills such as  communicating, remembering, concentrating and consequently the ability to understand  and interact with other people on social occasions is strongly affected. When the memory  consists only of scattered fragments of facts and memories and the ability to express  thoughts and needs is diminished, people with senile dementia tend to become more and  more isolated and introvert.  www.dengamleby.dk 
All sorts of specific defined target groups among adults are represented in the collected material, for example integration of immigrants, basic skills for unemployed, cultural experiences for physically or mentally disabled and so on. There seem to be all reasons to realize and respect the out-reach capabilities in learning of the cultural sector. When the cultural sector creates learning activities with no relation to formal education it is often difficult for both participants and cultural sector professionals to draw a line between learning and leisure activities. This is probably the key to understanding the attractiveness of the activities for all possible target groups. This is of course not to neglect the need for continuous
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quality improvements in the programmes in terms of pedagogical clarity for which the sector needs support. Finally we can see a specific dimension in the pedagogical programmes in the cultural sector which may be seen as close to the underlying ideological thinking about access to culture as such. If we allow ourselves to focus on culture as a well defined high quality product there is also a democratic need for making this product accessible. This way of thinking is most clearly visible in the cultural sub-sectors where craftsmanship is evident. We find this aspect dominant in, for example, areas such as art, dance and music and these are also the areas where we find the cultural schools who create programmes for facilitating access to their specific craft and art. The “Guildhall Connect” programme in United Kingdom illustrates how the facilitation of access to high quality music engagement in a cultural school system is made into a strategy with several offers of engagement:
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Guildhall Connect ‐ Over the past twenty years, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama has  been dedicated to widening access to music making without compromising on its  commitment to nurturing musical excellence. Through using the creative music workshop  environment, people of all ages and experiences have been able to engage with inclusive  live music making processes led by tutors and students from the Guildhall School.   Guildhall Connect is about making connections, putting people, organisations and cultures  in touch with each other and enabling them to do better together what they would do less  well  alone.  Through  its  local,  national  and  international  collaborations  with  schools,  colleges,  communities  and  arts  organisations,  Guildhall  Connect  has  developed  an  artistic  and  educational  identity  that  resonates  with  people  from  a  wide  range  of  backgrounds,  ages and experience.   There are four key areas of developmental activity underpinning Guildhall Connect:    Youth  Music/Creative  Partnerships  with  young  people,  teachers  and  parents  in  East  London, as well as across the UK and overseas. This includes researching and evaluating  inclusive  creative  music  education  practice  and  models  of  instrumental  teaching  and  learning which encourage widespread access and participation.    Arts  and  Community  Development  Project  for  Healthcare  and  Disability  Centres,  hospital  patients,  prisoners  and  young  offenders,  ‘third  age’,  parents  and  toddlers.  These  projects  are  also  run  in  association  with  orchestral  and  opera  education  programmes and regional instrumental teaching services.   MAP/making:  Exploring  New  Landscapes  in  Music,  Art  and  Performance  in  collaboration  with  the  Royal  College  of  Art  and  the  London  Contemporary  Dance  School.  This  project  has  been  established  to  enable  musicians,  actors,  dancers  and  visual artists to meet with confidence the opportunities offered by the growing market  of  cross‐arts  multi‐media  presentation.  The  processes  undertaken  aim  to  foster  the  development of cross‐arts initiatives which are innovative and responsive to changes in  arts practice.   Trans‐cultural  Collaboration  and  Research  is  facilitating  an  international  network  of  creative  and  performing  artists  who  can  meet,  exchange  skills  and  ideas,  share  resources  as  well  as  explore  respective  education  methodologies.  Regular  collaborations  take  place  between  staff  and  students  at  the  Guildhall  and  performing  artists from Africa, Central/South‐East Asia and South America.   Whilst its primary role and principle area of expertise are in relation to Music, this Centre is  also  helping  to  establish  much  stronger  School‐wide  connections  with  the  Drama  department  through  joint  productions,  courses  in  circus  skills  and  storytelling,  and  music‐ drama improvisation initiatives.   http://www.gsmd.ac.uk/connect/ 
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What is learnt through cultural engagement? A learning situation will often stimulate acquisition of more that one competence even though one may be more tangible than others. When the cultural sector themselves put a key competence reference on the collected examples of meetings between education and culture the following picture emerged:
- Communication in the mother tongue - Communication in foreign languages - Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology - Digital competence - Learning to learn - Social and civic competences - Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship - Cultural awareness and expression
17 11
9 8 25 51 7 40
Clearly the social and civic competences appear to be front runners among the competences addressed through the engagement with culture in the collected examples, even ahead of the competence of cultural awareness and expression. That is indeed very interesting. It points to what may be a central part of learning through culture which is that engagement in cultural activities generally always includes confrontation and challenge of attitudes. This element in the learning process can be seen both as a facilitator for acquiring other competences or as a side effect when acquiring other competences, or both. Of the 60 collected examples five out of six addresses more than one key competence:
 
Number of programmes addressing 1 key competence Number of programmes addressing 2 key competences Number of programmes addressing 3 key competences Number of programmes addressing 4 key competences Number of programmes addressing 5 key competences Number of programmes addressing 6 key competences Number of programmes addressing 7 key competences Number of programmes addressing 8 key competences
10 20 18 2 6 2 1 1
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Jugenbauhütten  der  Deutschen  Striftung  Denkmalschutz  The  basic  idea  of  the  Jugendbauhütten  project  of  the  Deutsche  Stiftung  Denkmalschutz  e.V.,  the  German  Foundation  for  Monument  Protection  is  to  introduce  young  people  to  Europe's  cultural  heritage through practical conservation work, thus making them aware of the importance  of preserving this inheritance. The volunteers work on actual restoration sites, where they  undergo a year of practical and theoretical training, encompassing all disciplines related to  monument  conservation.  In  addition  to  acquiring  the  requisite  skills  and  expertise  in  the  métier  of  historic  conservation,  the  youngsters  witness  firsthand  the  tangible  success  of  their  work,  thus  strengthening  their  identification  with  the  task.  Their  experience  of  working as part of a group fosters sense of community.   [email protected] 
Examples of this are the programmes “Jugenbauhütten der Deutschen Striftung Denkmalschutz” produced by Stiftung Denkmalschutz e.V. in Germany and the programme “Changing Horizons – Secrets of the New City” produced by L’Alpha du Miroir Vagabond in Bourbon Marenne-Hutton, Belgium.
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Changing  Horizons  –  Secrets  of  the  New  City  is  an  Intercultural  and  Interdisciplinary  art  project,  dealing  with  the  theme  of  ‘(Im)migration’.  Migration  is  not  a  contemporary  phenomenon, but one that has been taking place over the whole world since the existence  of mankind.  With this art project  (with theatre as  its basis), we want to  contribute to  the  awareness of the history and the recent developments of migration.   By enabling theatre groups from different countries and cultures to share recent migration  history  and  to  cooperate  in  making  and  performing  theatre  about  it,  we  purposely  try  to  deepen the dialogue between residents and migrants. One could say this whole project is  about  crossing  borders.  This  is  obviously  –  and  literaly  ‐  the  case  for  ‘migration’.  It  is  an  open door to state that bringing different cultures and countries together, will fit within this  principal. Each partner uses two different art disciplines: e.g. dance/movement & theatre;  e.g. visual art & theatre. In the final performance video fragments will be an integral part of  the performance.  In  this  way  of  working  the  borders  between  the  different  elements  of  theatre,  such  as  lighting,  music,  text,  movement  and  space  are  supposed  to  be  crossed.  The  mutual  influence and collaboration will produce a “democratisation” of the dramaturgy. This is in  contrast to the traditional theatre, where the text is at the top of a strict hierarchy in the  dramaturgy. The intercultural way of theatre making tries to establish a theatrical dialogue  between different cultures that usually aim for the ‘living apart‐together relationship’. This  project focuses on the process of making interdisciplinary and intercultural art forms, and  on  the  creation  of  accompanying  art  materials  (including  pedagogical  and  educational  material).  www.fabrevieux.nl 
The examples can illustrate how the open and seemingly parallel pursuit of two or more key competences at the same time actually strengthens the potential of each to be a success in the learning engagement with cultural activities. The collected programmes for extraordinary learning through cultural engagement shows that especially the combination of social and civic competences, cultural awareness and expression competence and learning to learn competence is popular. This is no surprise as the three competences all appear to have development of attitudes as a dominant feature. The most frequent combinations of key competences in pairs in the programmes are.
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- Social and civic competences + cultural expression - Social and civic competences + learning to learn - Social and civic competences + mother tongue - Social and civic competences + foreign language - Social and civic competences + entrepreneurship - Cultural expression + entrepreneurship - Cultural expression + learning to learn - Cultural expression + mathematic
33 21 12 10 7 4 19 7
The combinations are many and the possibility to do many different activities which is typical for the collected programmes encourages many different competences. Outstanding examples of programmes which put the variety of activities in the front as a key factor in the programme are the “Art Nouveau project” produced by the Réseau Art Nouveau Network, Brussels, Belgium and “Xpress on tracks” produced for The Nordic Centre of Heritage Learning, Jämtland region, Sweden:
Art Nouveau Project at the Réseau Art Nouveau Network developing tools for the youth  public to present Art Nouveau as artistic concept in all partner cities. The network created  various tools to reach different targets:  All tools were made by partners specialized in education:   Here is a short list of tools:      - Activity books for pupils from primary schools: Activity book, Flora book and Night  Book in 11 languages  - Newspapers for students in high schools: 2 versions for children and teenagers in 11  languages    - Activity sheets for teachers: in 7 languages  - Activities on line for pupils from primary schools and children at home  - Multilateral exchanges on ‘Art Nouveau and education’     All educational tools were made in a long term perspective to be used as long as possible  with no use‐by date. The promotion of the educational tools is done on the home page of  the website, through the Réseau Art Nouveau Network Newsletter and during our colloquia  where we briefly present our actions.    www.artnouveau‐net.eu/ 
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Xpress on Tracks ‐ The NCK (The Nordic Centre of Heritage Learning) has, through Jamtli  Museum and the State Regional Archives, who are its parent bodies, initiated a project of  cooperation with Birka Folk High School, which lies app.10 kilometres west of Östersund  and the archive and museum.  A maximum of 12 young people in the age range 20‐25 participate in the project at any one  time.  They  are  young  people  who,  in  addition  to  lacking  a  basic  education,  are  also  unemployed.  The  project  has  three  members  of  staff  with  pedagogical  and  curator  qualifications  and  experience,  each  one  of  whom  works  part‐time.  The  participants  get  stimulated through a great variety of activities related to heritage which includes research,  archaeology, exhibitions, genealogy, and restoration etcetera.  The aim of the project is to  stimulate the participants into re‐starting their education, possibly, but not necessarily, at  Birka Folk High School, or to work  more intensively  at applying for jobs and finding work,  hopefully permanent, not for a limited time, and not subject to government subsidies. The  results  show  that  a  third  of  them  have  begun  basic  education,  another  third  have  found  employment  –  unfortunately  mostly  short‐term  and  with  one  or  another  form  of  government subsidy—and the final third are either still with the project or have left it for  various reasons. On condition that the third who have begun courses to supplement their  basic  education  actually  complete  their  courses,  which  we  will  only  know  in  one  or  two  years’  time,  one  can  ask  whether  the  transition  of  1/3  of  the  participants  from  passive  recipients  of  welfare  with  a  poor  basic  education  to  being  individuals  in  a  position  to  partake of life‐long learning is a satisfactory result. As far as we know, this figure is probably  something  of  a  breakthrough!    Financially  it  is  a  question  of  major  savings  for  the  municipality and the employment service in the short term, but even more so in the long  run.  
www.nckultur.org/
The two examples illustrate the importance of the diversity in the cultural activities and also that the responsibility for a successful learning process is shared between the participant and the cultural institution as a learning environment.
What is learnt through cultural engagement? In the two examples “Art Nouveau” and “Xpress on tracks” there are many opportunities for the participants to feel and to realize a sense of responsibility. In the “Art Nouveau” we include the activities which imply production of artistic works and in the “Xpress on tracks” the participants are invited to participate in specific parts of
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heritage and museum or archive management. The composition of competences in the learning process of engaging with culture may be dependent on what the structure of knowledge, skills and attitudes in a specific programme looks like. To understand this we can look at a relatively simple programme called “Bilingual Benefit – summer-work at the local library” which was produced by the Regional Library in Västmanland, Sweden:
Bilingual Benefit – summer‐work at the local library The main objective of the project was integration. The project also aimed:  to create diversity in the library profession and enhance access to information  to create role models  to  disseminate  a  way  of  working  for  integration  through  trade  unions,  library  networks and schools.    Swedish local authorities (municipalities) hire high school students during summer holidays.  The  summer‐work  is  often  placed  in  parks  and  public  gardens.  Bilingual  Benefit  placed  students with another language‐background than Swedish at the local library.  Libraries should deliver literature and media to all in all languages. That is the principle. In  practise libraries and the library profession are limited by language constraints. This means  that the library’s services are not equal for all citizens in the local community.   By  having  high  school  students  with  another  language‐background  than  Swedish  work  at  the library the project resulted in better communication between the library and its social  context,  both  when  it  comes  to  language  groups  and  age  groups.  The  students  became  ‘ambassadors’ for the library in the local community.     The project involved a trade union, libraries at the local and regional level, local authorities  and state authorities. A seminar was held at the Gothenburg Book Fair.  http://www.ltv.se/LTVTemplates4/LTV_Page____27417.aspx    
When this programme is presented by the library itself the central issue is the “meeting” in several aspects. First of all we have the meeting between the young immigrant and the culture of a “Swedish” library with staff, “Swedish” literature on the shelves and “Swedish” traditions in every day work life. Secondly we see the meeting between the young immigrant and the “Swedish” visitors of the library and thirdly we have the meting between the young immigrant and the “immigrant” visitors
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of the library. All these meetings involve challenges for both the participant and the learning environment. Each of the meetings has its own challenge for attitudes both for the participant and the environment besides the issues of knowledge and skills. By way of example, the key competence of communicating in a foreign language is formally described with the following composition of knowledge, skills and attitudes (European Council 18 December 2006):
“Competence in foreign languages requires knowledge of vocabulary and functional grammar and an awareness of the main types of verbal interaction and registers of language. Knowledge of societal conventions, and the cultural aspect and variability of languages is important. Essential skills for communication in foreign languages consist of the ability to understand spoken messages, to initiate, sustain and conclude conversations and to read, understand and produce texts appropriate to the individual's needs. Individuals should also be able to use aids appropriately, and learn languages also informally as part of lifelong learning. A positive attitude involves the appreciation of cultural diversity, and an interest and curiosity in languages and intercultural communication.”
When this competence is challenged in combination with the competence of learning to learn it seems evident how the two support one another. The learning to learn competence is described in the following way (European Council 18 December 2006):
“Where learning is directed towards particular work or career goals, an individual should have knowledge of the competences, knowledge, skills and qualifications required. In all cases, learning to learn requires an individual to know and understand his/her preferred learning strategies, the strengths and weaknesses of his/her skills and qualifications, and to be able to search for the education and training opportunities and guidance and/or support available. Learning to learn skills require firstly the acquisition of the fundamental basic skills such as literacy, numeracy and ICT skills that are necessary for further learning. Building on these skills, an individual should be able
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to access, gain, process and assimilate new knowledge and skills. This requires effective management of one's learning, career and work patterns, and, in particular, the ability to persevere with learning, to concentrate for extended periods and to reflect critically on the purposes and aims of learning. Individuals should be able to dedicate time to learning autonomously and with self-discipline, but also to work collaboratively as part of the learning process, draw the benefits from a heterogeneous group, and to share what they have learnt. Individuals should be able to organise their own learning, evaluate their own work, and to seek advice, information and support when appropriate. A positive attitude includes the motivation and confidence to pursue and succeed at learning throughout one's life. A problem-solving attitude supports both the learning process itself and an individual's ability to handle obstacles and change. The desire to apply prior learning and life experiences and the curiosity to look for opportunities to learn and apply learning in a variety of life contexts are essential elements of a positive attitude.”
The challenge for a young immigrant in the public library forms the basis for the acquisition of all he different competence aspects mentioned above. The participant even contributes to the library’s own capacity as it can serve a broader community. To sustain the knowledge and skills the learner as well as the organisation develops the necessary attitudes. The part played by attitude development in learning through cultural engagement seems to be an essential component in all of the collected programmes. This characteristic also implies some similarity in learning through culture with work place learning. The collected programmes from the cultural sector throughout Europe presented above are an eye opener for many as it is still not normally expected that cultural institutions create such original pedagogical programmes. The possibility in the programmes almost speaks for itself. We even have to bear in mind that what we have been looking at here are examples of learning through cultural engagement which are more or less original or unique as they do not normally form part of the day to day practice in cultural institutions. This means that beside these examples we should also consider the ordinary meetings in these cultural institutions between education and culture.
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We would probably find that many of the characteristics in the extraordinary programmes also are to be found in general educational activities in the cultural sector even though they are intended for a mainstream audience and have a stronger focus on the competence of cultural awareness and creativity. This is also an explanation of why and how the earlier studies and recommendations about synergy effects between education and culture have been as they have. But that way the true potential of the cultural sector in lifelong learning has also been seriously and wrongly overlooked.
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REFERENCES
ACP - Access to Culture Platform “Policy Guidelines”, Brussels July 2009 Bengtsson, Jarl “National Strategies for Implementing Lifelong Learning(LLL): an International Perspective”, August 2009 PASCAL Hot Topic, http://www.obspascal.com ”Lifelong Learning Stockholm 2000 and Life wide Learning”,
Ekholm, Mats & Härd, Sverker
European Commission
“Making a European Area for Lifelong Learning a Reality”, COM (2001), 678 Final, Brussels 21st November 2001. “Implementation of ‘Education and Training 2010’ Work Programme – Key Competences for Lifelong Learning – a European Reference Framework”, General Directorate Education & Culture Brussels November 2004 “Proposal for a Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council on key competences for lifelong learning – a European Reference Framework” Brussels 10th November 2005 COM (2005) 548 final – 2005/0221 (COD) “Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on a European agenda for culture in a globalizing world”, COM 2007 – 242 final, Brussels 10th May 2007 “Call for expressions of interest – Culture sector Platforms”, General Directorate Education & Culture March 2008 “Recommendation of the European Parlament and the Council of 18 December 2006 on key comptenmteces for lifelong learning”, 2006 – 962/EC, 18th December 2006
European Commission
European Commission
European Commission
European Commission
European Council
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European Council
“Resolution of the Council of 16 November 2007 on a European Agenda for Culture”, 2007 – C287/01, 16th November 2007 “Council conclusions on education for sustainable development – 3046th Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council meeting Brussels 18 and 19 November 2010”, 19th November 2010 “Council conclusions on the role of culture in combating poverty and social exclusion - 3046th Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council meeting Brussels 18 and 19 November 2010”, 19th November 2010 “Lifelong Learning and the New Educational Order”, 2nd edition, Stoke on Trent, UK and Sterling, USA 2006. “Frames of Mind”, 2nd ed., New York – Basic Books 1983 “Lifelong Learning in Museums – A European Handbook”, edited by Kirsten Gibbs, Margherita Sani & Jane Thompson, EDIDAI rsl – Ferrara 2007. “Museums and Education – Purpose, Pedagogy, Performance”, Routledge - London and New York 2007 “Towards a comprehensive theory of human learning”. Volume 1 of Lifelong learning and the learning society. London & New York: Routledge 2006
European Council
European Council
Field, John
Gardner, Howard
Gibbs, Kirsten & all.(ed.)
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean
Jarvis, Peter
Lauret, Jean-Marc & Marie, Francois (ed.) “European Agenda for Culture – Open Method of Coordination – Working Group on developing synergies with education, especially arts education – Final Report”, Brussels June 2010.
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Schuller, Tom & Watson, David “Learning through life. Inquiry into the future for lifelong learning”. Leicester, UK: NIACE – National Institute of Adult Continuing Education 2009. Zipsane, Henrik “Lifelong learning through heritage and art”, pp. 173-182 in Peter Jarvis (ed.) “The Routhledge International Handbook of Lifelong Learning”, Routledge - London & New York 2008
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