Learning curves

Richard Morrison (October) is absolutely right to sound the alarm over declining arts education in UK schools and universities, as have many other prominent cultural figures recently.

But the problem is much more widespread than just unconcerned politicians. We are up against the brick wall of the ‘get a proper job’ mentality, as summed up by an online comment I read recently: ‘We need scientists and engineers. We do not need musicians.’

(In which case we don’t need footballers, athletes or tennis players, either.) It’s an attitude with centuries of utilitarian snobbery embedded in it, but until we start unpicking it, I don’t think we are going to get very far. But, as American polymath Buckminster Fuller said, ‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete’. What shape that new model may take is up for debate, but getting arts experiences out there so that people can discover for themselves how they can become essential parts of their lives is going to be vital.

Mike Wheeler, via email