Category: Arts

Points for the value of a musical education in your country.

• Your country must be the focus
• Both formal and informal education may be considered
• The extra-curricular as well as curricular
• Examples of musical experiences in school and elsewhere
• Such an education may be undervalued
• It may be argued that it should not be a priority
• The benefits of a musical education
• Increased concentration, for example, Mozart and cognitive flexibility
• Therapeutic benefits
• The ability to play an instrument at whatever level has benefits
• Do not interpret ‘value’ literally

Points for against the photograph rarely tells the whole truth

• Can capture a moment of truth
• Can be spontaneous (holidays/events/visits)
• Depends whether a natural or artificial pose
• Cameras can distort (zoom/select/lighting/background)
• Truth as an art form
• Modern technology can edit/enhance/airbrush
• Depends on the function/purpose
• Mobile cameras can capture real situations (protest/war/suffering)

Are Sculpture and statues highly regarded today?

• Sculpture an ancient art form still practised today
• Statuary and significant figures from the past
• Objects of timeless beauty
• Attractions, sometimes controversial, in our public spaces
• Statues and sport – outside stadiums, for example
• Carvings and sculptures across cultures can be remarkably similar
• Educational benefits
• For the ancients they were part of everyday life – why not today?
• Their defacement or destruction diminishes us all
• Today we can venerate the artistry both past and present
• Compare to digital art and new media

Whether photography is exposing reality and promoting change

• War photography, for example, Capa, McCullin
• Images of poverty
• Animal survival
• A photograph can say more than words
• However the photograph can lie or distort
• Intrusiveness, for example, the paparazzi
• Historical record
• Vanishing cultures
• Threatened environments
• People can become inured to the images – could be counter-productive

view that there are times and places in which music should never be played.

• Personal devices
• Music should never be played in inappropriate contexts
• Some people may find music, or certain music, appropriate in certain
situations whereas others do not
• Time and disturbance
• While eating
• The view may be challenged
• Enforcement
• Sacred places
• Music can be essential
• Musical genres may be discussed, compared, contrasted

Argument points for art can be as useful as it can be beautiful

• Interior decoration of all sorts
• Furniture
• Landscape Gardening
• Architecture
• Public sculpture
• Bridges
• Cuisine and presentation
• Clothes and fashion
• Receptacles e.g. pottery
• Advertising
• Engineering
• Jewellery
• Photography that raises awareness of contemporary issues
• Could mention art as therapy

• the arts range from high art to popular culture
• the arts offer a personal experience for everyone
• the arts push the boundaries of acceptability over time (eg Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain)
• for many, the arts hold little interest or influence
• the arts might encourage people to view society from different perspectives (eg Damien Hirst’s winning “Mother and Child (Divided),” a cow and a calf bisected and emerged in formaldehyde, was a tabloid sensation.)
• the arts could be seen as a reflection of society and its values at the time
• Contemporary works like Bansky can highlight issues that need to be solved
• arts can be elitist (Read Article)
• arts can be sexist (eg Les demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), Pablo Picasso _