What is the value of arts and culture in the curriculum?
The Edinburgh International Culture Summit presents innovative thinking, experience, and expertise from cultural practitioners around the world. To ensure that our programme is continuously relevant to a global audience, we root our discussions around issues of universal urgency. For our Summit 2022 edition, our themes are Culture and Sustainability, and Culture and Education.
These themes are reflected in our digital programme. Our most recent talk on sustainability in and around the cultural sector, held in December, reflected on COP26 and the tangible next steps for artists and organisations. The recording of this event, Beyond COP26: a cultural shift? is now published in full on CultureSummit.com and is free to view.
This year we will turn our attention to our second thematic strand. Working in partnership with the British Council, we will present the first of our discussions on the subject of Culture and Education.
Our first event of 2022, What is the value of arts and culture in the curriculum?, starts the conversation on Tuesday 8 March at 11am (GMT). Drawing on a range of experiences from around the world, our panel will consider how we currently structure and design our education curriculums. We will look at new approaches in education models: models that recognise the transformational potential of culture and creativity at their core. Our speakers will discuss the vital role that arts and culture can play as critical elements within the curriculum to support the achievements of students, far beyond the purely academic, while also helping them develop their digital literacy and skillsets to allow them to thrive in an increasingly digital world.
The panel and an audience Q&A will be chaired by Chief Executive of the British Council, Scott McDonald, who will be joined in conversation with three guest speakers:
Professor Guy Claxton, Emeritus Professor at Winchester University and Visiting Professor of Education at King’s College London, is an internationally renowned cognitive scientist, and the author of nearly thirty books on education. His most recent book, The Future of Teaching And the Myths That Hold It Back, was published by Routledge in 2021.
Fairouz Nishanova, Director of the Aga Khan Music Programme, an organisation that works to design and implement a country-specific set of activities for each country into which it invests, promoting revitalisation of cultural heritage both as a source of livelihood for musicians and to strengthen pluralism in nations where it is challenged by social, political, and economic constraints.
Sarah Yearsley is the Scotland Coordinator for Engage, the National Association for Gallery Education. Engage Scotland programmes events, projects and research supporting those working in learning and engagement in visual arts venues. Sarah is interested in how people engage with contemporary visual art and the methods that galleries use to facilitate access.
This digital event will stream live on Culture Summit Hub with an introduction from Jean Cameron, Executive Producer, Edinburgh International Culture Summit
When: 8 March 2022 (11:00 GMT)
Format: 1hr discussion with 3 speakers and a chair
This event recording is now available to stream below:
Panellists
Confirmed speakers:
Scott McDonald, Chief Executive, British Council (Chair)
Prof Guy Claxton, Visiting Professor of Education at King’s College London
Fairouz Nishanova, Director, Aga Khan Music Programme
Sarah Yearsley, Scotland Coordinator, Engage
Scott McDonald is the Chief Executive of the British Council. Previously, he was the President & CEO of the Oliver Wyman Group and sat on the Executive Committee of Marsh & McLennan Companies, including more than 75,000 staff in over 100 countries. Before joining Oliver Wyman, Scott worked in investment banking, the editorial side of the magazine industry, and ran a small publishing company. Scott is a member of the International Advisory Board and the Global Strategy & Leadership Expert Panel of McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management. He also sits on the European Advisory Board for The Nature Conservancy and the Advisory Group for Yodomo, a UK crafting platform. Scott has degrees in Finance & Economics from McGill University and International Relations from Cambridge University. He is an avid hiker, runner and fisherman and lives in London with his wife and daughter.
Prof Guy Claxton is Emeritus Professor at Winchester University and Visiting Professor of Education at King’s College London. He has previously taught and researched at Oxford University, Bristol University and the University of London Institute of Education. An internationally renowned cognitive scientist, Guy s books include Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind; Wise Up: The Challenge of Lifelong Learning; The Wayward Mind; and Intelligence in the Flesh. Recent books in education include What’s the Point of School?; Building Learning Power; and with Bill Lucas and others, New Kinds of Smart, The Learning Powered School; and Educating Ruby. Guy’s Building Learning Power approach to teaching is widely used in all kinds of schools across the UK, as well as in Poland, Dubai, Indonesia, India, China, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina.
Fairouz Nishanova, is a cultural development specialist with a lifelong love of performing arts, music and dance that embraces the many styles and traditions of the lands where she has lived, worked, and travelled. Ms Nishanova joined the Aga Khan Development Network in 2000 has served as Director of the Aga Khan Music Programme at the Geneva-based Trust for Culture since 2005. The Aga Khan Music Programme is an interregional music and arts education program with worldwide performance, outreach, mentoring, and artistic production activities. The Initiative designs and implements a country-specific set of activities for each country into which it invests and works to promote revitalisation of cultural heritage both as a source of livelihood for musicians and as a means to strengthen pluralism in nations where it is challenged by social, political, and economic constraints.
Sarah Yearsley is the Scotland Coordinator for Engage, the National Association for Gallery Education. She has a particular interest in the ways that people engage with contemporary visual art and the methods that galleries use to facilitate access to and enjoyment of the visual arts. Before joining Engage, Sarah managed the Contemporary Art Society’s National Collecting Scheme for Scotland.