BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FROM time immemorial, mankind had sought ways to deal with delinquency, and with juvenile delinquency on the increase more effort needs to be channeled towards lessening deviant behaviour amongst this group.
Try the creative arts on for size!
As expressed by Clement ‘Bouncing’ Williams, a longstanding creative arts enthusiast and co-founder of the National Players Theatre Movement, viewed as a vehicle of education, entertainment and expression, creative arts provides the perfect avenue for students’ development.
And through this development, he explained, students would be better equipped to make positive decisions, which would lead to a lessening in the incidences of delinquency.
“Creative arts would help to lessen the level of delinquency, because if taught properly it is suppose to be bringing you immense satisfaction. And if done at the level of the students, where they are comfortable and happy in what they are doing, it would reduce delinquency.
“The performing arts lends something to your spiritual development, your personal development, educational development, social outlook and how you get along with people. It helps you in so many different ways…I feel it should have been a principle subject on the curriculum for a long long time.”
For years, some form of the arts has been taught in schools across the Federation, and with the increased concentration, Williams believes the benefits to school children would be vast.
He said there is a particular confidence that is inculcated through creative arts involvement, which one could use as a tool in navigating through complicated and problematic situations.
“The arts being taught in school is long overdue. In fact, different aspects of the arts have always been taught in school. Literature is the biggest body of the arts, and it has always been taught in school. More and more emphasis is now being placed on the creative arts in school. The Basseterre High School, for example, is now expanding their curriculum to include theatre arts and the performing arts. CXC has always examined the subject and they are taking it on for the first time as a principal subject.
“It is very important because it lends the avenue for creativity for students to help and develop themselves. They would be able to learn to master situations. For example, if you have been acting for a period of time, sometimes you face a real-life challenge and you can look at it as a scene that is to be played. That knowledge, that confidence which one could depend on, having done so many plays, could help one get through some very difficult situations.
“For example, where I was getting married, I thought it was another scene in my life so I wasn’t worried or scared of panicky. I did it just like another scene in my life.”
