Hard core empirical data in the form of scholarly research, along with a great deal of qualitative and quantitative analysis, have revealed incontrovertible information supporting the efficacy of arts education on the minds of children. We deliver an arts education to children because introducing and teaching children about music, dance and visual arts, for example, are good things to do. We need no other rationales or reasons.

These days, however, everything has to be reasoned in educational practice through constant references to literacy and numeracy. Literacy and numeracy are treated as if they are genuine subjects or fields of actual study. They are not subjects or disciplines. Literacy and numeracy are states or conditions at which one might arrive as a result of schooling.

Nonetheless, through the process of standardised testing under the banner of NAPLAN, it seems that we can give children scores in literacy and numeracy and compare them with other children, rather like judging a running race.

In this race for literacy and numeracy, a process of national dumbing-down is taking place, and that dumbing-down is numbing children’s and teachers’ minds. The race for literacy and numeracy has assumed a gigantic presence in education, subsuming our perspective on what we value...