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A&H
Opening Doors
Using the creative arts in learning and teaching
he le n simons
University of Southampton, UK

j u dy h i c k s
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

a b s t rac t
This article explores how using the creative arts in teaching in higher education
can engage and empower individuals who learn in different ways, and who may
have been excluded from traditional forms of learning which value cognitive and
verbal means of learning and assessment. Drawing on an evaluation of a creative
arts module in higher education, which used drama, movement, music, and visual
art as teaching methods, the article first outlines a case for the kind of learning it
is possible to engender through the creative arts. The second part exemplifies the
argument in illustrating how use of the creative arts in teaching influenced the
students’ learning. The article concludes by arguing that, given the current
emphasis on inclusive education, an opportunity exists to use the creative arts as
a bridge to facilitate inclusion and open doors to those previously disenfranchised
in the education system.

keyword s artistic expression, creative arts, inclusion, learning, participation

introduction
‘Art is an empowering tool for individuals who may not know where to start.’
‘It seemed to encapsulate the whole concept of anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive
practice.’
(Students in a Creative Arts module)

I t i s 2 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. Three elderly people (two women and

a man) shuffle quietly into a room to the theme of Emmerdale Farm on the

Arts & Humanities in Higher Education

Copyright © 20 06, sage publications, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi ISSN 1474-0222
vol 5(1) 77–9 0 doi: 10.1177/1474022206 059 9 98

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television. They watch – motionless – and continue to do so while the news
follows. A facilitator interrupts their viewing and suggests they come to
another room to work as a group. The man walks out slowly with a resigned
expression on his face. Laid out on the table are a number of photographs of
their lives. The facilitator invites them to reminisce though she does not use
this word. The two women sort through the photographs and begin to talk
about them, becoming quite animated. The man sits alone in silence staring
at one photograph. He is withdrawn – with an expression on his face whose
meaning only he knows. To us it might be considered thoughtful, lonely, sad.
Throughout, strains of Glenn Miller in the background add a sense of pathos
to the scene.
The man looks up – turns to the women and says ‘He’s dead now. The
doctors, they were useless. They did nothing, absolutely nothing. Put the
missus in a home, she couldn’t stand it. She went. Four years ago. Look at
him, eh . . .’
He continues staring at the one photograph, then shifts to another and
back.
Five minutes pass. The facilitator asks the group for an observation on this
experience. One of the women says ‘I feel really happy. It has been good’.
The other responds ‘Sometimes I feel as though my brain is not working like
it used to. It is good to remember times that we have had – some good, some
not so good’. Both look at the man still sitting some distance from them.
There is a pause. ‘Some memories are best left buried. It has brought it all
back. Forty years. He’s still there like it was yesterday. Not happy . . .’ He looks
down. His expression is unchanged.
The facilitator then leaves them to talk further about the experience
together. The two women try to engage the man from time to time. He sighs,
seems a little agitated, still staring at one photograph. ‘I had my health here.
That’s in the team. I had my health. Young man then. Before I met Eileen.
She’s dead now’.
One of the women says to the other: ‘I feel part of the group instead of
just being on my own . . . We have not really spoken to each other before. It
is better than just slumping in front of the television. It has even brought us
back to life’.
Silence for a few moments. Then the man murmurs something about tele-
vision – places the photographs back on the table and slowly, very slowly, with
drooped shoulders, slopes off to the television room.
He turns on the TV and quietly says:

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Just because the photo’s yellow and faded
It doesn’t mean that you are forgotten
Just because I am old and jaded
It doesn’t mean that my brain is rotten.
I am still the same as I was before,
You may not see
But I am still ME.

Silence fills the room. We feel the sadness, the loneliness.

What we had just witnessed was a role-play presentation by a group of students

of aspects of their learning on a module ‘The Use of Creative Arts in Care
Settings’.1 The module introduces students theoretically and experientially to
a range of art forms – music, dance, drama, and visual arts – reconnecting them
with their creative potential and encouraging different routes to learning. This
was their final assessment. While the role-play was enacted, and against a
backdrop of photographs and press cuttings from different periods of history,
a narrator quietly outlined the virtues of working in this medium for helping
individuals re-encounter or reconstruct their lives. It was a sensitively inte-
grated scenario of theory and practice, of cognitive and affective learning. But
it was how it engaged our hearts that gave it such impact.

c r e at i n g n e w p o s s i b i l i t i e s f o r l e a r n i n g
In this article, we examine the potential for using the creative arts in the
process of teaching to widen the opportunities for students to learn in
different ways. While the case we present is applicable whatever the subject
or educational context, we have chosen to exemplify the argument with a
focus on the widening participation agenda in higher education to elaborate
the benefit of using the creative arts in learning for students traditionally
excluded from access to higher education. This presents the argument at its
sharpest edge.
Widening participation has been prominent on the government’s agenda
for several years and is likely to remain so given their aspiration to increase
participation in higher education – towards 50 per cent by the end of the
decade (HEFC, 2004). Particular groups who are beginning to be targeted by
universities include those from lower socio-economic groups, disabled
students and those facing multiple barriers relating to age, gender and ethnic
origin (Universities UK, 2003). The National Report on Widening Partici-
pation suggests that increasing participation ‘must ensure that higher
education is responsive to the aspirations and distinctive abilities of indi-
viduals’ (2003:10). The challenge here is to motivate students who have not

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responded to previous formal education or who may have been damaged by
it, and those who have been excluded for other reasons such as admissions’
policies and narrow conceptions of academic achievement. Our contention
is that the creative arts will open doors to these different groups, as they
encompass different ways of knowing and understanding. With certain excep-
tions, the current educational climate, with its emphasis on targets, standards,
predetermined objectives and outcomes, favours a cognitive, rational style of
learning, more dependent upon linguistic or logical-mathematical intelli-
gences than, for example, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal or inter-
personal intelligences (Gardner, 1999). This is disempowering for those whose
intelligence stems from a different motivation or is manifest in a different way.
Integrating creative styles of teaching and learning in our educational
practices is not only timely, then, but is also necessary if all students are to be
offered opportunities to explore their creativity and come to ‘know’ without
the pressure of formal modes of learning and assessment. As McNiff says:
The [creative process] has an intelligence that can be trusted and the gift of creation is
the ability to work with it. Envisioning the basis of creation as spontaneous movement
suggests that the most fundamental discipline involves keeping the channels open and
responsive to what is moving within us and within our environments. (McNiff, 1998: 21)

With McNiff ’s challenge in mind, we first present an argument for the

power of the creative arts to enable people to trust their inner intelligence
and imagination and enhance opportunities for learning. Secondly, with
excerpts from a case study evaluation of the higher education module referred
to earlier, we illustrate how the use of different art forms in teaching facili-
tated trust, confidence and the expression of emotions. This enabled students
to develop their learning and communication skills, value difference and
visualize future options. In presenting these examples we are not focusing on
the substantive content of the module, but rather the processes of teaching
and learning through the creative arts that took place within it. Our aim is
not to prescribe what readers may take from this case. Rather, in line with
case study tradition (Simons, 1996; Stake, 1995) and Stake’s (1978) concept of
naturalistic generalization, readers can gauge how and in what ways the
argument and experience resonates or challenges them to explore the creative
arts in their teaching.

p ow e r o f t h e c r e at i v e a r t s i n l e a r n i n g
The roots of creative expression can be found in the continual but ever
changing relationship between culture, artistic activity and social develop-
ment. Some authors (see, for example, Moore, 1992; White and Robson, 2003)

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claim an inevitable link between the health of a society and the pool of
artistic activity the society creates. And, according to Warren (1984), the right
of an individual to make his or her own ‘creative mark’ is an indication of a
progressive approach to learning in any society. However, art is often defined
in terms of product or artefact rather than as an integrated element of the
imagination, which is what we are exploring here. Our emphasis is on the
process of using the creative arts in education to facilitate new styles of
learning and to develop that fundamental creativity which ‘lies within each
of us waiting to unfold’ (Allen, 1995: xvi). In the argument that follows, we
examine three elements of the creative process that demonstrate the scope of
the creative arts for opening doors to different ways of learning.

Universally human
Artistic expression has traditionally been conceived as the responsibility of a
few gifted individuals and, as a result, the majority of people have been denied
the right to ‘make their mark’ ( Jennings, 1998; Moore, 1992). Increasingly
however, the power of the arts is being recognized for many groups who,
because of birth, crisis, accident, race or status, have not had access to the arts
or opportunity to develop their creative imagination (Smith, 2001; White and
Robson, 2003). Yet each person has within them the potential for creativity.
‘Seeing comes before words’, as Berger has reminded us: ‘The child looks
and recognizes before it can speak’ (Berger, 1972: 7). From an early age
drawing and painting is the way children develop their inner worlds and first
represent their encounters with the outside world. The imagination of the
child (and the imaginary friends they often have) is universally recognized, as
is the decline of such capacities, reinforced often by our education, as we
grow into adulthood (Robinson, 2000). Storytelling and photographs have a
similarly universal appeal (Berman, 1993): ‘[Stories] are the freest invention of
our deepest selves, and they always take wings and soar beyond the place
where we can keep them fixed’ (Okri, 1997: 44). Familiarity with photographs
is part of social life, and their diversity and versatility can generate new ways
of seeing and reconstructing our social worlds (Walker, 1993). The students’
scenario in the Introduction provides a snapshot of how the image enables
people to reconnect with memories and experiences. Using photographs in
social-educational encounters is also less threatening than art forms that
require self-expression.
Creative processes can also transcend cultural differences and acknowledge
shared goals and aspirations. As Brecht has pointed out, a piece of art can
create a group of people not divided into classes but ‘universally human’
(cited in Fischer, 1959: 10). Though the universality of the arts and their

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capacity to reach many people is recognized in cultural life, it is not always
acknowledged in teaching, learning and assessment in the education system.
Conventional perceptions of academic achievement need to shift to value
the power of the imagination. Our imagination, says Allen (1995), is the most
important faculty we possess. ‘Imagination . . . is central to our capacity to
confront and deal with obstacles in life and to invent solutions to problems’
(Malchiodi, 2002: 3).

Developing the creative imagination

So, how does engagement with the creative arts foster the development of
the imagination? First, through involvement in the creative process we lose
the tendency to frame the world in familiar ways. Freed from the categories
and lenses through which we traditionally see the world, we can ‘loosen
outworn ideas and make way for the new’ (Allen, 1995: x). It is, as Updike
says, a question of finding space – ‘a certain breathing room for the spirit’
(cited in George, 2000: 92).
Secondly, participation in creative processes enables us to make sense of our
experiences (Moore, 1992; Whyte, 1997; Winter et al., 1999). Storr (1993)
makes the point well when he says,‘It seems likely that when we either create
something ourselves, or contemplate the creations of others, we are attempt-
ing to integrate and reorganize our own inner experience’ (Storr, 1993: 192).
Thirdly, participation in the creative arts enhances confidence, self-esteem
and self-image as individuals and groups begin to see aspects of themselves
hitherto unacknowledged. The power of such realization is transforming.
Take visual art as an example. Jennings and Minde describe how engagement
in art using a range of materials, including paints, clay and collage, acts as a
catalyst for change: ‘The art-work becomes a symbolic language for . . . inner
feelings and helps . . . to make a bridge between the inner and outer reality’
( Jennings and Minde, 1993: 54). These authors suggest that art can be used
to try things out, to explore new possibilities while offering a safe base to
return to – a form, a shape, a texture or colour familiar to us. It is this process
of visual creation that allows us to see more options (Allen, 1995), to state
new goals and take new directions.
Drama provides a similar function by enabling us to imagine occupying
different roles (Miller, 1997; Neill, 1993). Winn (1996) explores how the
imagination can aid one’s travel into ‘another role, another world and another
shared experience, coming back enriched and hopefully changed’. ‘Without
a well developed imagination’, he asks, ‘how would we be able to contem-
plate a future outside the confines of our past and present experience?’ (Winn,
1996: 168). Through improvisations, theatre scripts and role-play individuals

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can begin to imagine what it is like to be someone else. This point is well
exemplified in Wright’s research, The Play’s the Thing (2000), which generated
theatre scripts that enabled participants to explore barriers that had prevented
them from realizing their educational potential. In some cases this led to
enrolment in further and higher education. What this suggests is that ‘the
theatre is a place where anything can happen and everything is possible’
(Pearson, 1996: 221). It is also a reminder that the ‘democratic nature of drama
provides a well of options and inspiration that can never run dry’ (Hopkins,
2002: 40).

Accessing emotions and feelings

The accessibility of the arts as indicated in the previous section not only
inspires individuals to explore new life choices but encourages them to
connect and reconnect with their feelings and emotions. The power of the
arts for this purpose has a long history. Aristotle believed that the function of
art was to purify the emotions, to overcome fears, so that the individual could
be liberated from the confines of everyday life (Ross, 1964: 276). The art form
that arguably provides the most immediate access to emotions and feelings is
music. There is a wealth of evidence of the beneficial effects of music on our
health and well being (Bunt, 1994; Davies and Richards, 2002; Weisberg and
Wilder, 2001). Much of this evidence focuses on the power of music to ‘open
doors’ within individuals by reconnecting them with their memories,
deepening relationships, and offering opportunities for personal expression.
People can articulate in musical form feelings and impulses that may be hard
to translate into words. Music can also transcend the everyday. As Yon points
out ‘music lifts me, my feelings, thinking and spirit are extended beyond the
strictures of ordinariness’ (Yon, 1984: 84).
Movement and dance provide similar access to a different form of
knowing, one which appeals to a kinaesthetic intelligence (Gardner, 1999;
Levy, 1995). The work of Sutherland (2000), for instance, in creative
movement work with young people has shown how non-verbal exercises –
on body and spatial awareness – had an influence on the development of
mathematics, and how the listening skills employed in movement influenced
language development. Eisner (1993), in the context of arguing for more
artistic approaches to teacher preparation, has noted that ‘rationality has been
conceived of as scientific in nature, and cognition has been reduced to
knowing in words’ (cited by Woods, 1996: 21), to the exclusion of alternative
views of knowledge and mind that exist in poetry, pictures and dance, for
example. This underscores the value of engaging with multiple senses and
incorporating non-verbal forms of understanding in teaching, learning and

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assessment if we are not to exclude those who learn predominantly in these
modes.

doors opening
In this section we offer some evidence of student experience from a case study
evaluation of the creative arts module referred to earlier. The data for the
evaluation included student diaries of their experience and development, ques-
tionnaire feedback, audio-taped group interviews, observation and video of
final performance assessments. The conduct and reporting of the evaluation
adopted a three-stage process of gaining informed consent. First, access for the
evaluation was sought from students and they were encouraged to participate
by writing a reflective journal. Secondly, permission to use quotations was
sought when group interviews were conducted. Thirdly, at the point of
writing this article, permission was again sought from the students to include
their quotations and observations. Names are anonymized in the reporting. We
have chosen to report issues that represent learning for a majority in the
module and offer some key quotations to illustrate these points, though more
are available in the database. Rather than report on the whole of the evalu-
ation we have selected three themes to exemplify part or the whole of the
foregoing argument for the potential of the creative arts in learning.

Freeing expression, developing creativity, integrating emotion and intellect

Overall, the students whose experience is reported here were enthusiastic
about how the theory and experience of creative arts influenced their
learning. While a number did not see themselves as creative and expressed
anxiety about using art forms at the start of the module, this was short-lived,
as the following students explain. One who claimed she had ‘no artistic actual
proper talent’ loved the visual arts session because she felt free to be creative,
knowing that the end product was not the main point:
I am not going to do a still life drawing or anything like that. I felt really free creatively
because it is not really about product but about process, which is great . . . as a method
of communication . . . relationship building and for freeing expression.

The same was true for another:

The thought of having a go at using creativity myself was beginning to make me feel
nervous. I love all the arts, but there is always an academic shadow hanging over me, this
hinders my true feelings and expression.

However, she continued, ‘as soon as I began to paint I couldn’t stop. I was
amazed at how little I had to think, and how completely engrossed in my

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activity I became’. Having released her feelings and overcome that initial
nervousness, she was able to think and explore ideas. ‘With the art session, I
felt liberated by being enabled to confront my inner thoughts visually.’ For
one of the male students, participation was not so much a fear, as he ‘loved
playing and being creative’, but a reconnection:
This is not a new learning but more a confirmation of things . . . Maybe I haven’t lost
my creativity; it has just been suppressed over time. I have found it easy to relax and go
with my creative flow.

The first student quoted here concluded from her experience that ‘art is
an empowering tool for individuals who may not know where to start’, and
it enabled further reflection – ‘one creates a visual tool for reflecting upon’.
Another said that it was important to understand issues at an emotional level
before he could integrate the intellectual and cognitive aspects of the module.
This was evident in his work with photographs, which we witnessed in the
group assessment scenario with which the article began.
These observations confirm the assumption we have made throughout this
article that working with the creative arts allows the development of the
imagination and encourages new ways of understanding. It also provides an
educational process for further reflection. The value of using the arts to
develop a reflective process in education is explored in detail in Fish and Coles
(1998) and Higgs and Titchen (2001).

Building trust, gaining confidence, valuing difference

Movement and dance were initially difficult for some students, especially
those for whom they were not regular or familiar activities. However, one
who found the movement session difficult noticed a change in the group at
the end of it: ‘We all walked in as individuals and largely left as a group. There
was something in that space . . . it may have been the trusting.’ While there
are risks involved in working collaboratively, this student noted that the
supportive framework created a ‘chance to bond . . . there was no tension . . .
so we worked really nicely as a group’. Another who was also less sure initially
about the dance component of the course – ‘the dance was more challeng-
ing because of the trust exercises involved’ – discovered that ‘I can take small
steps . . . you have a range of different options’.
The trust that developed gave students freedom to take risks and explore
ideas. The following student speaks for many when he says,‘There is no right
or wrong. It is all about expressing oneself through creativity rather than
words. There is a sense of freedom in this’. And another described how, with
this level of confidence and trust in the process, she could begin to explore

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the theoretical concepts in the module: ‘It is also about communication, not
being stuck on the left side of the brain’. What students found particularly
helpful here was storytelling and the use of masks. These tools enabled them
to ‘see’ people differently, and this broadened their understanding of what it
means to listen and learn from others: ‘it opened my eyes to other people
when they were telling their stories’; ‘it was a wonderful tool in allowing
others to express their worlds in a non-threatening way’; ‘[it allowed me to
see] how unique individual lives are, and how each one of us brings
something different to a group situation’.

Creative arts as an assessment skill

One of the most important learning outcomes of the module was seeing how
‘to use the creative arts as an assessment skill as opposed to just an art form’.
The scenario with which this article started is one example of such an
assessment that involved the use of drama, historical record, social history – a
collage of photographs over time, which revealed a particular history – formal
narration illustrating understanding of concepts in the course, and the
integration of that understanding in an affective role-play. This was quite a
departure from formal modes of assessment such as essay writing or examina-
tions. Other groups chose masks, paint and clay and storytelling to demon-
strate the key concepts and understanding they had acquired.When knowledge
is enacted and integrated in these ways, it is a powerful form of learning. The
‘knowing’ is indisputable. It was clear to the examiners what the group had
learned. The concepts were clearly expressed and the insights immediately
apparent. However, it was the demonstration of understanding embodied in
the presentation that was the ‘value added’ in this form of assessment.

c o n c lu s i o n : o p e n i n g d o o r s r e c o n c e i v e d
If creativity could be put into every module we have, I’m sure there would be more
people interested in university. I do not think it would be that difficult. (Vicky)

Vicky’s comment perhaps sums up what many of the students thought about
the value of the learning they acquired through the processes of the creative
arts, and the potential this affords for widening access to learning. If the
experience of these students is at all characteristic of other students in higher
education, there is scope here for using the creative arts more generally in
learning and teaching and to encourage wider participation. However, there
is currently little evidence either of widespread adoption of such creativity
in teaching and learning in higher education, or an increase in participation
for groups targeted by the government (Bekhradnia, 2003), despite the current

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policy focus on widening participation (HEFC, 2004 – The Aim Higher
‘Don’t Stop’ campaign; National Report on Widening Participation, 2003).
Part of the reason, we suggest, is that these reports do not address the kind
of curriculum and teaching approaches that might facilitate participation by
the groups the policy aims to include. If we are to reach such targeted groups,
we need to find ways to build bridges between their worlds and the worlds
of further and higher education.
What we have argued in this article is that the creative arts can provide
such bridges. The evaluation study reported here illustrates how the creative
arts do not discriminate – learning is available to everyone when an appro-
priate route is provided – and assessment of achievement does not rely on
written and verbal outcomes alone. Furthermore, the students’ testimonies
indicate that experiencing the creative arts in learning has helped them
acquire key skills similar to those identified by McKenzie – communication
skills, questioning skills, team skills, problem-solving skills, lateral thinking,
flexibility and adaptability (McKenzie, cited in the Royal Society of Arts
Report, 1997) – all skills that facilitate creative learning both in formal
education and beyond. Yet if we take the figures in the Robinson Report as
an indicator, we have a long way to go to provide opportunities in our
education system for all individuals to realize their creativity. This report
points out that by the age of five, a child’s potential for creativity is 98 per
cent. By the age of ten this has dropped to 30 per cent, at fifteen it is just 12
per cent, and by the time we reach adulthood our creativity is said to fall to
a mere 2 per cent (Robinson, 2000: 6). If we wish to redress this decline of
creative potential, it is essential that the education system finds a way to
reconnect all individuals with their intrinsic creativity.
Inclusion in this sense is an inversion of what is currently proposed. Instead
of assuming that the aim of widening participation is to include those
currently excluded in the system, which remains unchanged (i.e. that those
excluded have the adaptation to make), we suggest the reverse – that the
education system open its doors to different modalities of learning, including
some of the ways in which those currently excluded learn (i.e. the system
adapts). Though we have focused our argument primarily on the power of
the creative arts to facilitate learning and widen participation for those
currently excluded from higher education, we conclude by emphasizing that
learning through the creative arts should be integrated into mainstream
education for all students. Creativity is too important to be left on the
margins.

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ac k n ow l e d g e m e n t
A version of this article was first presented at a conference entitled ‘Widening
Participation; Research, Policy and Practice’, CEDAR 10th International Confer-
ence Warwick University 15–16 March 2004.

note
1. This module was an elective in the BA Degree in Social Work at the Institute
of Health and Social Care, APU, Cambridge. The aim of the module was to
enhance students’ understanding of how the creative arts could be used to promote
empowering and inclusive practice in education, health and social care contexts.

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b i o g ra p h i ca l n o t e s
h e l e n s i m o n s is Professor of Education and Evaluation at the University of
Southampton, UK, where she specializes in evaluation, qualitative methodology
and research ethics across the professions. Her pedagogical, evaluation and research
practices embrace democratic and participatory values and humanistic approaches,
such as narrative, case study and portrayal, the creative arts in teaching and
learning, and research ethics. She is currently a trustee of Artswork, an independ-
ent youth arts development agency committed to offering creative opportunities
for young people aged 12–35. Recent publications include: ‘Utilizing Evaluation
Evidence to Enhance Professional Practice’ (2004), Evaluation 10(4): 410–429;
‘Whose Data is it Anyway? Ethics in Qualitative Research’ (2004) Qualitative
Research Journal of Malaysia. Address: Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences,
University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK. [email:
h.simons@soton.ac.uk]
j u dy h i c k s is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Health and Social Care, Anglia
Ruskin University, Cambridge, where she specializes in creative approaches to
learning and teaching. Combining her training in the arts and social care fields,
she researches the contribution the creative arts can make to enhancing learning
and teaching. Currently she is researching innovation using the creative arts in
practice learning and assessment throughout the eastern region. Research interests
include social policy development, innovation, inclusion in education and creativ-
ity in educational practice. Address: Institute of Health and Social Care, Anglia
Ruskin University, Cambridge, CB1 IPT, UK. [email: j.a.hicks@apu.ac.uk]

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