WHEN at a meeting, I offer that perhaps we already have too much formal schooling and that, under present conditions, the more we get, the less education we will get, the others look at me oddly and proceed to discuss how to get more money for schools and how to upgrade the schools. I realise suddenly that I am confronting a mass superstition.” (Goodman) The mass superstition which Goodman described in 1962 is no less prominent today through the 5-18 education system as it defines the Scottish curriculum. This “superstition” has evolved to the point of crisis; although not for the same narrow and perhaps selfish reasons cited by art and design teachers in Dundee as they rail against the ineptitudes embodied in Higher Still (TESS, October 5).

Goodman argued that institutionalised learning stunts and distorts a young person’s natural intellectual growth and, indeed, engenders real hostility towards education from which an individual may never recover. He saw a system producing “regimented, competitive citizens likely only to aggravate current social ills”.

In Scotland we are burdened by exam-led curricula, our structures impede the role of a teacher, driving a divide between social and intellectual needs. Schools are processing pupils as stereotypical components in some educational factory, offering instruction in skills and the ethic of “the project”, permitting no deviation from the “business-style profit and loss, flow chart” character of the whole-school development plan.

Art can and should provide an alternative way. Not only do we have to grasp that art is a part of social production, but we also have to realise that it is self-productive, that it actively produces meanings. It is one of the social practices through which particular views of the world, definitions and identities are constructed, reproduced and defined.

Comenius, the great educator, held that one should “free the individual by removing the primary cause of bondage, that is, education for national ends”. Art is infinitely personal, wholly individualistic and characteristically “wilful” in a way that demands its uncompromised inclusion as a societal symptom of humanity. Yet within schools it is compromised by standardisation of training programmes across all curricular disciplines. In an exam-led culture few schools take the risk of “real” art intruding into the equation. We at Dunfermline High School are one. How can we collectively as a nation of art educators reassert human values and individuality? I propose a long-term solution through a series of six radical articles of faith.

* “Not at the edge . . . but on the cutting edge.” Art and design should be at the centre of the curriculum as a compulsory experience for all pupils at all stages.

* “I think therefore I am.” Art and design should take the lead and democratise its curriculum to empower participants and negotiate agendas including the criteria for success.

* “Give to the gifted.” Talented pupils deserve special educational needs status and entitlement.

* “Embrace technological innovation.” Teachers must deploy new and traditional technologies with equal importance.

* “The art room should have no walls.” Departments must link with external agencies in order to contextualise and validate activities.

* “Risk all to innovate.” Art and design must embody an ethos of risk-taking in pursuit of creativity and innovation.

This is what I want for my pupils. I believe Paul Goodman would approve.

Rab Walker is head of art and design at Dunfermline High.