The UK's Health Secretary has recently encouraged British doctors to prescribe Arts, Culture & Social Activities to improve the health and wellbeing of patients.
Below you can find a reading and speaking task for B2 students and upwards:
The arts and humanities are
afterthoughts in many American schools, rarely given (0) ______ priority________ as part of a comprehensive education,
though they formed the basis of one for thousands of years elsewhere. One might
say something similar of preventative medicine in the U.S. (1) _______________________. It’s tempting to idealize the
priorities of other wealthy countries. The Japanese investment
in “forest bathing,” for example, comes to
mind, or Finnish public
schools and France's funding
of an Alzheimer’s village.
But everyplace has its
problems, and no country is an island, exempt from the global pressures of
capital or hostile interference.
But if we consider such things
as art, music, and dance as essential—not only to an education, but to our
general (2) _________________ —we
must commend the UK’s Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, for his “social
prescribing” initiative.
Hancock wants “the country’s
doctors to prescribe therapeutic art- or hobby-based treatments for ailments
ranging from dementia to psychosis, lung conditions and mental health issues,”
reports Meilan Solly at Smithsonian. The plan “could find patients enrolled in dance classes and singing
lessons, or perhaps enjoying a personalized music playlist.”
In a speech
Hancock delivered on what happened to be
election day in the U.S., he referred to a quote from Confucius that represents
one particularly ancient educational tradition: “Music produces a kind of
pleasure, which human nature cannot do without.” (He also quotes the Rolling
Stones' “Satisfaction.”) Hancock’s idea goes beyond aristocratic traditions of
old, proclaiming a diet of the arts for everyone.
They’re not
just a right in their own terms as the search for truth and expression of the
human condition. We shouldn’t only value them for the role they play in
bringing meaning and dignity to our lives. We should value the arts and social
activities because they’re essential to our health and wellbeing. And that’s
not me as a former Culture Secretary saying it. It’s scientifically proven.
Access to the arts and social activities improves people’s mental and physical
health.
We’ve (3) ____________________ all
come across research on the tremendous health benefits of what Warnock calls
“social activities,” maintaining friendships and getting out and about. But
what does the research into art and health say? “The medical benefits of
engaging with the arts are well-recorded,” Solly writes, citing studies of (4) ______ ________________ making
great strides after performing with the Royal Philharmonic; dance lessons
improving clarity and concentration among those with early psychosis; and those
with lung conditions improving with singing lessons. Additionally, many studies
have shown the emotional lift museum visits and other cultural activities of a
social nature can give.
Similar trials have taken
place in Canada, but the UK project is “simultaneously more (5) ___________________ and less
fleshed-out,” aiming to encourage everything from cooking classes, playing
bingo, and gardening to “more culturally focused ventures.” The proposal does
not, however, fully address funding or accessibility issues for the most at-risk
patients. Hancock’s rhetoric also perhaps heedlessly pits “more prevention and perspiration”
against “popping pills and Prozac,” a characterization that seems to trivialize
drug therapies and create a false
binary where the two approaches can work well hand-in-hand.
Nonetheless, a shift away from
“over-medicalising” and toward preventative and (6) _______________________ has the potential to address not only
chronic symptoms of disease, but the non-medical causes—including stress,
isolation, and sadness—that contribute to and worsen illness. The plan may (7) __________________ a rigorously
individualized implementation by physicians and it will "start at a
disadvantage," with 4% cuts per year to the NHS budget until 2021, as
Royal College of Nursing public health expert Helen Donovan points out.
Those (8) ______________ aside, given all we know about the importance of
emotional well-being to physical health, it’s hard to argue with Hancock’s
premise. “Access to the arts improves people’s mental and physical
health,” he tweeted during his November 6th roll-out of the initiative. “It makes us
happier and healthier." Art is not a luxury, but a necessary ingredient in
human flourishing, and yet "the arts do not tend to be thought of in
medical terms," writes
professor of health humanities Paul Crawford, though
they constitute a "shadow health service," bringing us a kind of
happiness, I’d argue with Confucius, that we simply cannot find anywhere else.
1.- Vocabulary: Fill-in the gaps with one of the words or
phrases below.
comprehensive
|
likely
|
|
stroke survivors
|
healthcare system
|
challenges
|
holistic approaches
|
well-being
|
require
|
2.- Reading Comprehension
1.- What does Matt Hancock want British doctors
to do?
2.- What does research say about the
medical benefits of art?
3.- Can you explain what the phrase in
paragraph 8 “create a false binary”
means?
4.- How is this proposal going to be
funded?
3.- Speaking: Discuss the following statements
1.-"Access to the arts improves people's mental and physical health".
2.- "More perspiration against popping pills and Prozac".
3.-"The proposal does not fully address funding and accessibility issues (#8).
