What Is To Be Done, Sandra?

Learning in
Cultural Institutions of the Twenty-First
Century
This article explores the difference between learning and education
within the context of contemporary cultural institutions. It discusses
current theory and practice and argues that learning needs to shift from
the margins to the heart of these institutions. It identifies structural and
practical obstacles that need to be overcome for change to take place
and concludes with suggestions as to how this might be achieved.
1901. Vladimir Lenin is warming his samovar and reaching out for his
pen, about to embark on writing a political tract that will change the
face of history. I am guessing that he did not have to get the kids off to
school, put the washing on and respond to sixty emails before he set
about this task, but one has to appreciate the quality and pragmatism
of the question he asked himself, that is, What is to be done?
Of course, this question did not come out of thin air. Lenin was building
on the bedrock that was Marxist theory and an ideological imperative
for change that was fuelled by inequality and injustice. His plan was
about a plan, and that was to put theory into practice to change the
face of his society.
2008. The revolution did not turn out quite how Lenin had anticipated.
Instead, society has been revolutionised by new technology. Needs are
changing, the workforce has diversified, and we are facing a global
change in the environment and our relationship to it. We have new and
faster access to information than ever before, and there is a shift from
industrial economies to those that are knowledge-based. In turn, the

production of knowledge through educational practice has been

scrutinised, challenged and revisited with new theories and shifts in
policy. In the face of all this, I am forced to reflect on my own sector
and ask of my colleague, Sandra (with no intended flippancy), What is
to be done? Are there any theoretical bedrocks for us to draw on and
make a plan of our own?

The idea of learning

For the last twenty years I have been working in the field of arts, across
a range of organised learning environments. I have spent time in what
we call formal education (that is, in universities and in schools), as well
as in informal learning environments (such as youth groups and
cultural settings). What I can say, without hesitation, is that these
environments are not the same. A university is not a youth club and a
school is not a gallery. This may appear painfully obvious, but actually
sits at the heart of the question of What is to be done? because of the
different value systems applied to the concepts of the formal and
informal, and the questions that lie behind the pragmatism of what.
These questions are concerned with the choices we make about why
we feel it is important for people to learn certain disciplines, traditions
and behaviours and not others, and how we go about organising this
as a society. Despite the differences inherent in the practices of the
formal and informal, what one cannot help but notice is the way in
which the organising structures of formal learning are often applied to
the informal, such that the concept of departments, sixty-minute
transmission models, courses, a teacher imparting information, and a
raft of quantitative assessment methods is still apparent. In most of my
experiences of the informal sector, my work has been measured

against the formal model. My aim, however, has been to explore and
generate research about the different ways in which learning takes
shape and what the outcomes are for those who participate. My
observation, and that of researchers in the field, is that often a different
kind of experience takes place out of a formal, examined setting and
this provides a different set of attitudes and understandings for the
individuals involved.
In attempting to unpick the differences between the formal and
informal, or rather to explore and explain the similarities and
divergences of both, I have come to describe learning and education in
more particular terms. There are a variety of ways to explore the idea
of learning depending on ones discipline. Neuroscientists describe it
as the neurological process of receiving and processing new data.
They explain that every human being is wired up the same way to
learn. Information from external stimuli is received in the brain where it
is filtered through analytical and emotional networks and then stored as
memory (or rejected en route). This cognitive process (that is, the
mental process through which we acquire and manage information)
sorts the wheat from the chaff, and enables us to make decisions as to
what to store and what to edit out.1 They would argue that there is
therefore no formal learning and no informal learning to be had. There
is only one type (just learning), and it is simply the settings and
approaches that differ.
Educational psychologists often describe learning as change through
experience. The ways in which this is explored is frequently divided into
behavioural, cognitive and constructivist accounts (to name but three).
Within these lie a great number of fascinating theories that cannot be
explored here, but central to much enquiry is the idea of learning as a

process by an individual, whether concerned with observed behaviour,

brain processes, or self-constructed ideas and concepts.2
Education, on the other hand, might be defined as the structures and
systems established to manage and guide learning: what we
teach/learn; why we teach/learn it; and how we teach/learn. These are
structures based on a set of socially determined values. This means
that education is ideologically driven (by ideology I mean the dominant,
hegemonically maintained hierarchy of value).3 Given that our society
prioritises formal learning, the informal tends to be labelled as selfimprovement or leisure, implying a lack of necessity or seriousness.
When measured against the formal system, it often fails to reach the
mark. How, given this ideological scenario, could it do anything other?I
have also found it helpful to refer to the two key types of memory at
play in our everyday physiological activity; that is declarative and nondeclarative (procedural) memory. Declarative memory can broadly be
defined as the facts, figures, dates and events etc that the brain stores,
but that you have to call up when needed. Non-declarative memory is
that which you do not have to call up and is described as behaviours
and habits, such as using a knife and fork, driving, playing an
instrument etc.4 Importantly, the education system prioritises
declarative memory, and this is the feature that is most tested.
However, long-term learning, habit and behaviour depend on nondeclarative memory, and are what we rely on once our formal learning
has finished. After all, how often do most people learn in a group of
thirty, seated behind desks, with an instructor present, in their
professional lives? Why do we place such high value on the kind of
knowledge that trains us for University Challenge but that does not
enable us to ask better questions?

Current debates
When looking at the structure of learning systems, four key elements
are core to delivery. These are time, space, content and method. The
current education system has been devised within the parameters of
certain time-slots, and works within a set of spaces (classrooms,
lecture theatres and halls etc). Content has been agreed in terms of a
curriculum and in further and higher education as degree courses, units
and diplomas in specialised subjects. Methods may differ depending on
shifting learning theories, but are currently dominated by informationled, outcome-oriented transmission models, teacher to pupil (although
there are clearly changes emerging and there have always been
exceptions). These four systematised elements have been challenged
by many educationalists and innovators. Charles Leadbeaters paper
What Next? 21 Ideas for 21st Century Learning (2008) addresses such
issues, where it is clear that notions of content and approach, space
and time, need some refreshment, not to say rethinking for twenty-firstcentury learning.5Over the past ten years a perceptible shift has taken
place in education and arts practice at a national and international
level. The development of technology and user-generated material, the
emergence of the knowledge economy, and the need for creativity (as
a means to generate innovation) have meant that models of learning
that sought to impart information and prepare and develop a workforce
for specific industries (that is, manufacturing or industrialised labour)
are no longer sufficient for our societal needs.6 This shift is reflected
within contemporary cultural and education practice as well as in recent
research papers. Current users, published governmental and NGO
reports, academic articles and artists describe these shifts in practice
as follows:

from the passive to participative: learning that involves

participation and hands on activity rather than being a receiver
of knowledge.
from standardised delivery to personalisation: one size does not
fit all and different learning programmes are required that can be
tailored to an individuals needs.
from the didactic to co-learning: a shift from the transmission
model of learning with a single expert/tutor, to shared learning
that is guided in response to the needs of the users and shaped
in collaboration with them.
from knowledge acquisition to knowledge application: the
movement away from learning information for the sake of doing
so, to understanding how to use knowledge across different
settings and in original ways for valued outcomes.
from a single authorial voice to plural voices: the development of
collaborative practice and production, giving rise to a wider range
of perspectives and opportunity for the students voice in
formalised settings.
from private knowledge to public access: best exemplified
through the world wide web/open source etc., but relating also to
the ways in which the private knowledge of individuals and
institutions has been opened up, shifting power relationships
away from closed knowledge holders.
Notable commentaries in the UK have come from Tom Bentley7 and
Ken Robinson,8 for example, and are found in government reports.9
Indeed, there has been a shift away from the term education towards
learning, with the aim of putting the learner more centrally and
interrogating what is being learned and why, relative to the organised
systems in which learning exists.What has all this to do with learning in
cultural settings? Recent debates about cultural learning have been set

up to explore, I assume, exactly the kinds of issues raised here.10

What marks cultural learning as that which is different from learning in
other settings? What is its value and what can we expect to achieve by
doing it? Research from Creative Partnerships (now Creativity Culture
and Education),11 engage,12 the Guggenheim,13 and research
projects at Tate are beginning to reveal the different kinds of learning
that take place for people when engaging in cultural activity. For the
most part, research projects have been explorations with young people
in relation to education in schools (often because of the value this
brings). However, there is increasing research into family and adult
learning.14 Findings suggest a range of outcomes from working within
different cultural disciplines and with different user groups. This is why
comparisons across the arts always seem so difficult to find, as each
scenario has a different set of particular inputs. But I would argue that
there is also a set of repeated and identifiable similarities that frame
cultural learning and that sit to the side of education as described here.
For the sake of clarity, let us understand that cultural learning in this
instance means learning that takes place beyond the classroom or
lecture theatre, within a cultural setting, and that this takes cultural
product as its subject matter for direct engagement.15
Key findings repeated through the research outlined above can be
identified as increased confidence, a shift in attitudes and behaviours,
improved motivation and sustained engagement. There is also
evidence of an increase in critical thinking applied beyond the learning
environment. Interestingly, there is a demonstrable improvement in
knowledge of the subject area and skills with which to create a product,
but these appear least central within the findings, as though this would
be self-evident, the part you had to do, to get the rest.16 Several of the
research documents begin to explore what other associable impacts

this learning has across a range of other subject areas in terms of

transferable skills and life skills. The particularity of activity and
disciplines also has an effect on what is learned. For example, working
once a week on a project over twelve months will produce a different
outcome from working over just one week, and engaging with dance
will give physical skills that visual arts do not. Despite obvious
differences such as these, there is a great deal of synthesis to be made
of the breadth of data that has been collected over the past five to ten
years. Using a form of creative learning (that I defined through working
with many groups of learners, teachers and artists), we found that the
practice of artists, their own method of approach, encouraged and
generated long-term learning.17 What I would like to draw out here,
therefore, is that, as shown by much research in cultural settings, most
outcomes are related to non-declarative memory.
So whats going on? The learning that is taking place is affecting
attitudes and behaviours. It is also generating critical, reflective thinking
and transferable skills, sustained engagement and application across
disciplines. I would suggest that cultural learning (or perhaps one
should now say cultural creative learning to reflect the point made
previously) is helping to form habits of mind, potentially for a lifetime.
Its content and its approach differ from the established model of
education, as cultural and creative learning seeks to generate
sustainable skills that can be applied across subjects and
education/personal boundaries. This appears to be a more metacognitive approach to learning (that is, being aware of ones own
thinking and the strategies one is using).18

Example

Using the visual arts as a model for translating these ideas into
practice it is possible to see how habits of mind are generated. In a
recent talk Shelby Wolf outlined her findings of a project involving
young children at Tate Modern called Looking for Change.19. 19 This
is a four-year project that takes place weekly in three London schools
and in the galleries. It explores the development of childrens visual
literacy and focuses on looking, talking and making. This project seeks
collaboration with schools to see what can be achieved beyond the
gallery walls, thereby maximising the experience when children arrive
in the gallery. Wolf suggested that the work being undertaken is
shaping the childrens memory. She details how, through engaging with
art, they are forming habits of mind, building interpretive abilities,
forming observational faculties, creating symbolic meaning, developing
persistence and moulding a vision of who they might be as adults. This
kind of analysis is supported through a publication entitled Studio
Thinking; The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education,20 which moves
away from many educational publications seeking to validate or apply
the arts in terms of how they can support and improve the formal
education model and moves, as David Perkins suggests in the preface,
through the looking glass into long-term impacts of learning, made
manifest through applying information directly for today. Is this the
real benefit of cultural creative learning: that we generate time to
create habits of mind? That we have capacity to do so and that we
embody this through direct activity making the imaginary
concrete? And can it be said that gaining cultural skills are only
possible over a sustained period of time?
Evidence, and indeed experience, would suggest that sustained
contact is crucial in generating long-term learning, and that this not only
sets up a series of personal behaviours, but skills and aptitudes.

Shirley Brice Heath and Shelby Wolf suggest that in the visual arts:
Learning to see details also brings the capacity to see the bigger
picture to relate the bits and pieces to what will become a larger
whole this fundamental principle applies in the sciences, in everyday
problem solving and spatial navigation within the world. Managers and
musicians, plumbers and painters, engineers and videographers
become successful largely through their ability to see beyond small
details into the larger picture.21
They also comment:
seeing details calls for visual focus sustaining the eyes on a space
for more than a few milliseconds. The area of the brain dedicated to
visual focus lies at the very centre of the various sections given over to
vision. Focus matters, because it allows viewers to look deeply within
an object or situation and see detail from line to shape and colour to
motion Hence, as young children work in creating art regardless of
form or medium they gain practice in holding attention on a sphere of
action or range of space. In doing so they take in the fundamental
elements or building blocks of the world around them. They gain inner
vision.22
Clearly, visual learning not only works to develop an understanding of
art, but also of a range of much wider and fundamental needs in
understanding the visual and spatial world around us. Heath and Wolf
also reflect on the importance of guided looking and the advantages of
language and metaphor as habits of mind:The first of these advantages
comes through the movement of mental processes back and forth from
the visual to the verbal.23Certainly within Looking for Change we have

observed a development in childrens oracy and vocabulary together

with their interpretation of art works. That is to say, the ways in which
they are talking about art involving metaphor and richer description are
extending their depth of understanding the art too. Looking and
language are here connected. The importance of this, and of the
programme more broadly, is that young people build knowledge for
themselves through language, looking and discussion; without doing
so, they will only ever be able to receive ideas and information filtered
by others. Without building ones own knowledge it is impossible to
build an understanding for oneself. Real access is about being able to
do exactly this, make meaning, transferring relevant ideas from one
object to another.Peppered throughout the research and within
accounts from Inspiring Learning in Galleries: Enquire about Learning
in Galleries, time as an issue is also highlighted.24 Often it is referred
to as an absence that there isnt enough time in a school day to work
on cultural or creative programmes. Time also represents motivation, in
that the children get so engrossed in the activity that their concentration
extends and they are more applied, taking longer over their work,
staying late, working through breaks and arriving early at school to
achieve more.25 Becoming skilled requires practice and it is no
surprise therefore that the more often the children the gallery works
with look, make and reflect more, the better they get at understanding
and analysing.Working beyond the classroom walls also enables a
different experience for the learner, one that is particular to the subject
in question and that can use the space appropriately to enable the
learner to explore the subject (in this case art) more authentically and
directly. Seeing the detail of a real object is quite different from slides,
prints or more often photocopies, just as a live performance is different
from a video recording of the same event. Generating deeper levels of
understanding needs experience of the art form itself and its making,

which gives a further dimension and requires materials appropriate to

the idea. Working in an environment that has the facilities to enable this
to happen challenges us to make, think and talk differently. Space
matters because it also disrupts the usual learning experience of sitting
down and receiving, opening up the many ways in which we all learn,
for example, visually, kinaesthetically and emotionally.Cultural creative
learning, I would claim, has other valuable differences from education
as defined here. It necessarily entails engagement with emotions, the
realisation of a material product in the real world and the ensuing public
engagement that the product demands as it exists within the public
realm. These three aspects also develop different abilities from usual
learning environments and these are concerned with understanding
how to interpret or reflect emotional content, how to apply an idea to its
material production, therefore making the abstract concrete, and
navigating the public realm in terms of critique. These are important life
skills that find little space in the education system and, ultimately, they
help form and shape our relationships, to people, to the wider world
and to critical reflection.It is understood that learning without content
specificity, facts, figures and subject knowledge, is only half a project.
One could not learn without declarative memory that constantly informs
our behaviours and habits of mind. I am not suggesting, therefore, that
we replace detailed content, nor even that we get rid of traditional
lectures and information-giving when necessary. But I am arguing that
we take the non-declarative more seriously and recognise that without
it, we have information but without foundations on which to lay that
information, and little understanding of how to apply it to different
contexts; that is to say, we have knowledge, but potentially not much
learning. One habit of mind is to know when you need to input new
content information to generate understanding. At present we attempt
to learn the other way round; that is, learning how to know rather than

knowing how to learn.

Cultural sites of learning

What does this mean for twenty-first-century learning in cultural
establishments, institutions and organisations? To focus one minute on
the millions of visitors that museums and galleries in particular enjoy
each year, many different kinds of publics are formed. Some visitors
come as tourists for a few hours, others come for the day. There are
those that come once a month or to courses, some with their families
ad hoc, and some for sustained periods over years. How do we
generate or integrate the best kinds of habits of mind as well as
develop knowledge? How do we manage different approaches and
audiences as well as take into account the shifts in practice that have
taken place globally? This returns us, rather neatly, to the initial and
now clearly complex question of What is to be done?
What is to be done is based on the assumption that something needs
to be done or rather to be changed. I would argue that learning in
cultural institutions does need to transform to meet the requirements of
societal changes as outlined in the initial pages here, as well as in
cultural and educational practice and production. I would also add that
it needs to change its focus to include the development of nondeclarative memory such that long-term benefit can be generated.
Although it would be wrong to suggest that there is no such work that is
taking place (and there are many projects in cultural institutions that
are exemplars of such changes), there is nonetheless a sense of
uncertainty as to where culture sits and fits in terms of learning and
what it can provide beyond education. Part of the problem may also be
the potential solution, in that cultural venues have capacity to deliver a

range of models for learning from the lightest of touches to deep

long-term projects. I believe that cultural organisations are perfectly
placed to model new approaches and work with education to
reassemble the ways in which we learn across settings. However,
learning in cultural organisations may be in a bit of a tangle having
been buffeted between intrinsic and extrinsic needs, growing popularity
as well as target driven delivery demands. Rather like Christmas lights
brought down from the attic each year, the result is a tangle of knots.
Some seem to emerge simply from having been left alone, whilst
others exist that have been actively tied for good reason at the time.
Perhaps now we can begin to loosen a few of these knots and lay out
the lights.

Knot 1: Being authentic

Cultural institutions are not educational institutions that are required to
follow nationally set frameworks for learning. Of course, we all have our
own subject/organisation-specific ideological frameworks instead, but
there is no imperative to work to exams or any other standardised
outputs and we are therefore able to focus on the experience of
learning very deeply, should we want to. We need to let go of
overwhelming extrinsic demands that pull or shape us in uncomfortable
ways. In doing so, we have the opportunity to represent ourselves
more authentically, giving us the opportunity to be more diverse, to
stretch wider and venture into places and ideas that education (as
defined here) may not wish or be able to go. This, I believe, is an
exciting prospect, that would enable cultural practitioners to find space
(both physically and intellectually) truly to innovate, take risks and be
bold about practice. Cultural sites are places where failing (and by
this perhaps all we mean is trying new things to explore how learning

can be developed) can happen safely and be swiftly addressed without

damaging any lives, messing up any exams or taking down any
institutions. We are cautious of taking risks as we have become more
fearful of failure in relation to formal learning and output related
requirements. There is, therefore, a bent towards keeping things as
they are. But unlike Lenins plan, this one will not ever cost lives. What
exactly are we frightened of failing about?Indeed, letting go of the idea
of educational departments is also necessary, as the idea of
departmentalisation has gradually led to learning being perceived as
something that only happens within the work of such a department.
(Over there, alongside an organisations real business.) We know,
however, that learning is generated and takes place throughout
organisations and across many teams. At Tate, for example, the act of
curating art for exhibition generates its own learning for the
professionals involved as well as for the visitors. Courses online,
community and regeneration programmes, research projects, archival
and library services, conservation and information all offer and
generate learning experiences. I am not arguing against having a team
of experts working in cultural institutions to develop learning (far from
it), but that their purpose, role and value is to use their expertise to
construct, draw out and maximise learning opportunities across these
many areas and make interventions or animations where needed so
that we can more effectively engage with our wide range of publics.
Professionals (formerly known as education departments) would
therefore shift from being the guardians of learning for an institution
and passers-down/on/across of information, to becoming central to the
real business; facilitators in learning who construct and programme
opportunities for the widest range and deepest levels of learning to
take place.

Knot 2: Apply knowledge

Cultural institutions are not working from zero. We need to start using
the body of new information, research findings and theory available to
us and begin to apply it in our working lives. Of course, changing
programmes and systems is always difficult and a bit messy, as it
requires letting go of established patterns of working and finding space
to take risks and try new things. In large organisations and institutions
this is even harder as one has to plan for change with a lot of notice.
Purely on a practical level, programmes are set, brochures are
designed, and courses are booked often at least a year in advance. We
need to begin to form shifts in practice that can take us towards new
programmes, new ideas and new ways of thinking. Innovation is not an
overnight miracle grown from pixie dust, but a good long-term plan
(with the right people involved).

Knot 3: Partnerships
Cultural institutions do not exist in isolation. Art museums typically
currently have many partnerships in place and opportunities to work
with artists and colleagues within education and beyond, to help us to
explore new terrain. Once we understand the boundaries of what we
are and how much we can achieve, we can look to others to help us
develop and learn more. Recognising that we cannot (and do not need
to) do everything ourselves, and that expert knowledge outside the
cultural institution is available, means that we can move faster, wider
and in ways more tailored to audiences needs. Being able to articulate
that we also have something particular and unique to offer others and
to work with education more innovatively also means that we can be

players in an important and changing landscape of learning. Therefore,

partnerships, dialogue and cultural and educational collegiality need to
be extended to generate new ideas and learning
opportunities together.

Knot 4: Space and time

Cultural institutions do not have the same time and space limitations
that educational institutions have. We already occupy alternative and
appropriate spaces for cultural creative learning and for some of us,
opportunities to grow more that lend themselves to the global shifts in
learning. It is therefore possible to work to the needs of the content
rather than of a timetable and we need to let go of feeling the need to
replicate educational systems and models, unless they serve the
purpose of cultural creative learning.

Knot 5: Quality over quantity

Quality does not have to be subsumed by quantity nor delivery over
what is being delivered. In the McMaster report a clear and strong case
is put forward for quality, risk and innovation.26 The case can be made
for depth over breadth and the quality of a learning experience over
numbers passing through it. In reality, this is a difficult balance of
reaching as many as possible as deeply as possible, but I think it
would be fair to say that we may have reached a point in a delivery
model that can only just keep up with itself and its audiences, putting
an enormous strain on the professionals involved and inhibiting
innovation through the need to comply with known delivery outcomes.
When is it time to take stock and reflect on what we are delivering?

That time is now. But loosening these knots is, of course, easier said
than done. However, without doing so, it will be difficult to change
practice and move forwards to meet the needs of a changed and
changing society. The ability of cultural creative learning to explore,
test and model new forms of approach actually place it at the forefront
of new practice, should it choose to do so.

Reassemblage
The question of what is to be done regarding learning in cultural
institutions comes at a time when fundamental questions are being
asked about the ways in which we organise our social learning systems
more broadly. I have tried to outline some of the many research
papers, books and documents that attempt to offer alternatives, or at
least explore the current problems within educational practice needing
to be addressed. It is clear, whichever way one looks at learning, that
practice is changing, and more value is being given to participative,
collaborative learning methods that also enable more flexible methods
of generating and applying new knowledge. The move towards
creativity in the primary curriculum is one such example of this. I have
argued that these changes in practice can be aligned with long-term,
non-declarative memory and habits of mind. I have also argued that
cultural creative learning gives additional emotional and social value
that do not find a place easily within our education system.
Despite cultural creative learning being perceived in our society as
having less value than formal and examined learning, I have suggested
that the kinds of learning that take place culturally can in fact offer
something of benefit to the education system per se and that in art
museums we are in a position to trial, test and model learning with our

educational colleagues, and, indeed, across disciplines and sectors. In

the preface to Studio Thinking David Perkins writes, exposing an
attitude all too familiar to many of us, maybe this is the sort of messing
around we can afford when were not dealing with high-stakes core
subject matters. He responds to this kind of perspective with, what if,
far from a fantasy world, studio learning turns out to be much more
realistic regarding the way learning really works than most typical
classroom settings?27
Asking questions about methods of cultural creative learning and habits
of mind can, I believe, be significant drivers in the shifts in education
we are seeing because they help construct alternative approaches to
the norm. Cultural creative learning privileges meta-cognitive
processes and long term learning, two important features that are
required for a flexible, knowledge-based economy that seeks the
application of knowledge in new ways to generate new outcomes
for innovation.
Rather than sitting back and waiting for changes and solutions to fall
upon us, I am arguing for cultural creative learning to put itself at the
heart of change, using its very otherness to enable it to take the kinds
of risks that education may not be able to take and to do this based on
the range of theoretical perspectives borne out of research through
practice. I am suggesting the reassembling, not just of the content,
methods of approach, time and space, but also of the system and
attitude towards learning, an attitude that often manifests itself as a
department rather than the actual experience.
Within this, there is detail to be had. There is a need to examine the
knots of current cultural learning and begin to unpick them whilst

trialling new ideas and programmes. These, too, need to be

reformulated to reflect the global shifts in learning as outlined above.
There is a need to understand that cultural creative learning is more
than time spent away from core subjects. We are very far from messing
around: we are seeking to find ways of learning that are deep and
lasting. Indeed, cultural creative learning can bring a significant range
of learning practices and habits of mind to the table. Like Lenin, we
need to be considering how to apply theory to practice and this will be
complicated given the many complex institutions, extrinsic demands
and internal resources that need to be considered. Unlike Lenin, we
can do it with others rather than in opposition to them. I do not think
that anyone has ever deliberately set out to make knots; sometimes
they simply appear, sometimes they are tied to respond to a place or
context. Reassemblage will be not just possible, but I imagine an
exciting episode in the history of cultural creative learning. And with this
in mind, Sandra has offered to pop on the samovar and let things
simmer for a while. She had not imagined that there was quite so much
that could be done.

Notes
1. F. Bear, B.W. Connors and M.A. Paradiso (eds.),
Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain, second edition, Baltimore,
Maryland 2001, pp.7403.
2. C. Griffin, G. Holford and P. Jarvis, The Theory and Practice of
Learning (second edition), Great Britain and United States 2003.
3. It is accepted that some theories bring both the socially
determined and individuals processes together. Clearly both are
at play since an individual cannot be separated from his or her
social context. It is for the sake of argument here, that I have

divided the two, to explore how the socially determined values

have perhaps overshadowed the individuals learning potential.
4. Bear, Connors and Paradiso 2001.
5. C. Leadbeater, What Next? 21 Ideas for 21st Century
Learning, for the Innovations Unit, DCFS, see
http://www.charlesleadbeater.net/home.aspx , 2008.
6. T. Bentley, Learning Beyond the Classroom: Education for a
Changing World, London 1998, pp.1002.
7. Bentley 1998.
8. K. Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative,
Oxford 2001.
9. DfES Review Group, 2020 Vision: Report of The Teaching and
Learning in 2020 Review Group, London: DfES, 2006; National
College for School Leadership, Leading Personalised Learning in
Schools, NCSL, 2006.
10. J. Holden, Culture and Learning: Towards a New Agenda,
London 2008.
11. Creative Partnerships, This Much We Know, Creative
Partnerships, London 2007.
12. B. Taylor (ed.), Inspiring Learning in Galleries: Enquire about
Learning in Galleries, London 2006. See http:// http://www.enquire.org/
13. R. Solomon, Teaching Literacy Through Art, Guggenheim
Museum, New York 2007.
14. L. Dierking, D. McCrady, D. Frankel and L. Adelman,
Facilitating and Documenting Family Learning in the 21st
Century, Current Trends in Audience Research and Evaluation,
vol.15, May 2002, p.62.
15. Culture is defined here under the framework of
responsibilities for DCMS.

16. Creative Partnerships 2007.

17. A. Cutler, Signposting Creative Learning, UNESCO
International Arts and Education Conference, Portugal:
conference proceedings, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/ . Key
features of creative learning as defined in this paper include:
problem identification, divergent thinking, confidence, a balance
of skills and challenge, risk-taking, refinement and the pursuit of a
valued goal.
18. See http://www.education.gov.uk : Basic strategies are:
connecting new information to former knowledge; deliberately
selecting appropriate thinking strategies from a repertoire; and
planning, monitoring, and evaluating thinking processes. The
study worked on the hypothesis that there are two levels to
childrens meta-cognition. The first level is the acquisition of
meta-cognitive knowledge, the second level is the ability to
produce it, which, according to the research, happens over time.
19. This project is supported by UBS.
20. L. Hetland, E. Winner, K. Veenema and K.M. Sheridan,
Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education, New
York and London 2008.
21. S. Heath and S. Wolf, Visual Learning in the Community
School: Art is All About Looking: Drawing and Detail, London
2004, p.10.
22. Ibid., pp.1112.
23. Ibid., p.9.
24. Taylor 2006.
25. This is supported through the findings as outlined in A. Cutler
2005.
26. McMaster, B. Supporting Excellence in the Arts: From
Measurement to Judgement, London 2008.

27. Hetland, Winner, Veenema and Sheridan, Studio Thinking:

The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education, New York and
London 2008, p.v.