politics – Stumbling with Confidence

Beyond the Debatable Hills: is it curtains for the arts in education?

As yet another UK university announces major course closures and redundancies – mainly affecting arts and humanities – it’s worth being reminded that entries for A level arts subjects: dance, design & technology, drama, music among others, have reached the lowest since at least 2011.

Back in 2016 I presented at an arts conference and wrote an associated journal article ‘Predictive Texts’ that took a look into the future of the arts in the UK in 2026 based on the then current trends. I described a cultural landscape in which the arts had largely been stripped out of the educational experience of children and young people. I described the consequences of that policy on the live performing arts sector which was now being by-passed by a generation of students who had not received consistent, or in many cases any, arts education through primary and secondary education where the focus was on STEM education. I reflected on how that educational neglect had led to a kind of cultural blindspot or illiteracy which, in turn, had led to a severe decline in arts attendance as that generation of millenials now sought other avenues for their entertainment and spending.

There have been many dozens of articles written in the last few years voicing concern about state and future of the arts in the UK, particularly in education. Tory policy towards the arts threatened the existence of the entire creative sector, particularly those parts of the sector in which live performance is an integral part of their raison d’etre: live theatre, dance and music. Today, despite the change in government, almost daily there is news of another university cutting its creative and performing arts courses.

The decision to cut arts funding in higher education by the last Tory government signalled not only a drastic diminutions of the arts in education but also, as a consequence of this and other policies, an acceptance that whole sections of the creative sector could be allowed ‘go to the wall’ despite the fact that the sector as whole contributes massively to the GDP. The contrast with the then government’s support of the fishing industry, which played such a huge role in Brexit, is stark. At present fishing contributes around £1.4 billion to the economy (Gross Value Added data from the Office for National Statistics). The creative industries contribute around £124 billion to the economy (2022 figures)

While the election of the Labour Government and the accompanying positive statements about supporting the arts and creativity in education provide some indication of a change for the better (we’ll wait and see on that one), in the meantime a bleak future for the arts beckons. The creative industries are fed via a pipepline of skills and talent that are nurtured in our education system. By reducing or stopping the flow of creative talent along that pipeline ensures that the creative industries, and certainly those parts of the sector that are seen to be less ‘valuable’ in economic terms, wither on the vine. It also ensure that access to the arts and arts training increasingly becomes the preserve of the wealthy and privileged and those who have social, cultural and economic capital.

I am reminded of a sentence from the 2015 book by the eminent producer and impresario Michael Kaiser titled ‘Curtains? The Future of the Performing Arts in America’. Examining the trends, Kaiser describes a ‘doomsday scenario’ in which, across America, many theatres, arts centres and other performance venues, hit by the decline in audiences and/or funding, “sit vacant, reminders of a different era, not unlike the Colosseum in Rome and the Parthenon in Athens”. Kaiser was projecting some years into the future, but in the UK the Covid crisis massively accelerated the onset of that doomsday scenario.

Thinking about all this I was reminded of a book I read years ago, which remains one of my favourite books (it’s also on Neil Gaiman’s list of all-time favourites, so I’m in good company). The book is called Lud-in-the-Mist, written in 1926 by Hope Mirrlees. Mirrlees was a classicist, and much of her work dealt with the contested boundaries of Art and Life.

In Lud-in-the-Mist there are two countries. There is the land of Dorimare, a nation of stolid burghers, merchants and artisans. A rather prim and very proper place, where everyone knows their place, where the motto is essentially ‘it’s the economy, stupid’, and where the arts are relegated to activities such as needlework and country dancing: pursuits for the refinement of gentlewomen and gentlemen.

On the border of Dorimare, however, on the other side of the Debatable Hills, lies the land of Faerie, a strange, dark land full of mysteries and wonders…not all of them pleasant. The upright citizens of Dorimare so fear the land that lies beyond those dread hills, that the word ‘Faerie’ is never to be uttered.

Dorimare’s main city of Lud-in-the-Mist lies at the confluence of two rivers: the Dapple and the Dawl. The Dawl is like any other commercial river, but the Dapple happens to flow out of the land of Faerie, and brings with it fairy fruit, that is smuggled into Dorimare. Eating fairy fruit has a terrible effect on the upright citizens of Lud-in-the-Mist: it causes people to start singing strange songs, to spout poetry, to dance with abandon. In other words, it turns them mad.

The plot revolves around the disappearance of a group of young ladies and the Mayor’s son who have been kidnapped and taken to the land of Faerie, and the attempt of the Mayor, a bumbling, self-important, rather fatuous man to rescue them. (Any resemblance to a real persons is entirely coincidental). As a consequence of that quest, fundamental changes are wrought – to the Mayor and to Dorimare itself.

In Lud-in-the-Mist, Mirrlees is dealing with the division of the world into Apollonian and Dionysian aspects: the homely and the wild. There is also the long battle between Classicism and Romanticism, and Freud’s theories of the conscious and unconscious mind, and the relationship between terror and beauty.

The actor Mark Rylance, in an interview, said that the arts are essentially ‘mysterious’ which is why they frighten politicians and policy-makers, because they can’t control them, they can’t measure them.

I imagine the educational curriculum in Dorimare’s schools is very much what like the one demanded by Gradgrind in Dickens’ Hard Times;

“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the mind of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them.“

And if you think that’s rather extreme, consider this – handed to parents at a primary school in London:

‘The new programme of study in English is knowledge-based, this means its focus is on knowing facts rather than developing skills and understanding. It is also characterised by an increased emphasis on the technical aspects of language and less on the creative aspects.”

So, alongside schools dropping all ‘non-core’ subjects i.e. arts subjects and a few others from the school curriculum in order to enable students to catch-up on everything they missed due to Covid, we also had catastrophic cuts to arts subjects in higher education in line with the Tory government’s insistence that all higher education programmes must align with “economic and societal needs” – which the government believed will only be met by STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) programmes and some others such medicine and agriculture. One can only look with envy at the financial support some other countries are putting into supporting their creative and cultural sectors as they recognise the importance and value of those sectors to the well-being of society as a whole.

I was thinking about Lud-in-the-Mist because it seems to me we are increasingly living in a country which is becoming more Dorimare-like by the day, where the arts are increasingly banished to the equivalent of the land of Faerie, where creativity is associated with the creation of goods and wealth, where any hint of an artistic or genuinely creative spirit is dismissed as bad influence, and to be actively discouraged and eliminated.

Across our education system, from primary through to tertiary, there is now a very real danger, evidenced by the course and departmental closures and the significant drop in the take-up of arts subjects, of subjects like art, dance, drama and music disappearing entirely from the curriculum. The clear and present danger for the wider creative arts sector will be the cutting off the pipeline of interest, skills and talent on which the sector relies. We are facing the prospect, in many areas of the country, of the spectre of a cultural wasteland, not unlike Kaiser’s ‘doomsday’ scenario.

A hundred years ago, in Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrless asked how might we truly embrace the arts in all their wondrous, dangerous, life-affirming glory along with the eccentrics and mavericks? Or are we fated to banish them, their works and deeds, to that strange, wonderful, forbidden land beyond the Debatable Hills?

The final, celebratory chapter of Lud-in-the-Mist, as the citizens of Dorimare throw open the gates of the city to allow those mysterious, dangerous, life-affirming Faeries to enter, provides the answer.

2 Jews, 3 Arabs and 5 cups of tea

More years ago than I care to remember, five men sat around a hissing stove in a campsite outside Sofia in Bulgaria. It was 1969 and Robert and I were two Jewish lads from North London driving from London to Israel via Turkey. We were discussing life, the universe and the future of the Middle East with three Arabs: two Jordanians and a Syrian. Three teachers. Three friends on holiday together.

We had arrived at the campsite quite late in the day, set up our tent and cooked ourselves a meal. Then, as usual, we had a wander around the campsite. We noticed that a number of cars had Arabic number plates. Some of the other campers were walking around the site, and no doubt some must have seen – because it was difficult to avoid – the big sign on our windscreen which said ‘London to Tel Aviv’. To be honest, I thought the sign was a bit of a mistake, especially as it was only two years since the ‘6 Day War’ or ‘June War’ when Israel had defeated the armed forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and had occupied the Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. But it was Robert’s car, and I wasn’t going to argue.

As darkness fell and we boiled up the kettle for a brew, three figures appeared. One said, in perfect English: “Apologies for disturbing you, but my friends and I saw the sign on your car. Are you really going to Israel?”

“Yes, we are”, Robert said.

“Are you Jewish?”

An awkward moment and an awkward pause. But I had one of those ‘well, in for a penny, in for a pound’ moments, and said “Yes, we are. My name is Paul. This is my friend Robert. We’re making some tea. Please join us…but I’m afraid we only have two cups”.

The first man spoke briefly in Arabic to the other two, who nodded assent, and one of them turned and walked away. Then he turned back to us: “Thank you. We will join you. I am Ibrahim, I am a teacher from Amman in Jordan. These are my friends, they are also teachers.” And pointing in the direction of the man who had walked away: “He has gone to bring some cups”.

When the man returned we all shook hands, introduced ourselves properly, sat around the stove and poured the tea.

At first the conversation was the normal campsite conversation: Where do you live? What do you do? Which football team do you support? (they knew the names of most of the Manchester United players – Best, Charlton, etc.). Then, inevitably, we came to the not insignificant matter that we were about to travel to a country that had recently defeated their countries in war and had occupied parts of their countries.

What struck me then, and has stayed with me all these years, was that there was no obvious bitterness. These were individuals who just wanted a decent life for themselves and their families. Who wanted to teach, and to do good in the world. They did not see us, as Jews, as their enemies; neither did we see them, as Arabs, as our enemies. As we sat and talked, about our lives and our hopes for a peaceful future (and football), there was a strong sense of a shared humanity; that by moving beyond the shackles of politics, religion and history, we were just five individuals, enjoying each other’s company, respecting our differences, sipping tea under the stars.

Arts Education: banished beyond the Debatable Hills?

We have replaced wonder with tick-box excellence, and mystery with an impact case study.

If you collect the many dozens of articles written in the last few years about the state and future of the arts in education and place them on a pair of positive/negative scales, there’d be very little – if anything – on the positive side.

Thinking about this I was reminded of a book I read years ago, which remains one of my favourite books (it’s also on Neil Gaiman’s list of all-time favourites, so I’m in good company). The book is called Lud-in-the-Mist, written in 1926 by Hope Mirrlees. Mirrlees was a classicist, and much of her work dealt with the contested boundaries of Art and Life.

In Lud-in-the-Mist there are two countries. There is the land of Dorimare, a nation of stolid burghers, merchants and artisans. A rather prim and very proper place, where everyone knows their place, where the motto is essentially, ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ , and where the arts are relegated to activities such as needlework and country dancing: pursuits for the refinement of gentlewomen and gentlemen.

Dorimare’s main city of Lud-in-the-Mist lies at the confluence of two rivers: the Dapple and the Dawl. The Dawl is like any other commercial river, but the Dapple happens to flow out of the land of Faerie, and brings with it fairy fruit, that is smuggled into Dorimare. Eating fairy fruit has a terrible effect: it causes people to start singing strange songs, to spout poetry, to dance with abandon. In other words, it turns them mad.

The plot revolves around the disappearance of a group of young ladies and the Mayor’s son who have been kidnapped and taken to the land of Faerie, and the attempt of the Mayor, a bumbling, self-important, rather fatuous man to rescue them. As a consequence of that quest, fundamental changes are wrought – to the Mayor and to Dorimare itself.

In Lud-in-the-Mist, Mirrlees is dealing with the division of the world into Apollonian and Dionysian aspects: the homely and the wild. There is also the long battle between Classicism and Romanticism, and Freud’s theories of the conscious and unconscious mind, and the relationship between terror and beauty.

I imagine the educational curriculum in Dorimare’s schools is very much what like the one demanded by Gradgrind in Dickens’ Hard Times;

And if you think that’s rather extreme, consider this – handed to parents at a primary school in London in 2015:

I was once asked, by the then German Federal Minister of Education as it happens, as we stood together in the queue for coffee at a conference on the future of Arts Education in Europe, what it was that had made the UK such a world leader in art, design, fashion, music , theatre, etc. He was comparing the UK with his own country and the fact that, with a few notable exceptions, Germany – with a relatively successful economy compared to the UK – had demonstrated nothing like that level of consistent creative output over the years.

I didn’t have a rigorously researched, evidence-based answer to give him, but I did say that I thought it had something to do with our long history and tradition of non-conformity, of sticking two fingers up to authority, and our high and genuine tolerance of eccentricity. Neither of which, I suggested humbly, were common attributes in his own country.

The Minister said ‘Ah, that’s very interesting’…and moved on.

I was thinking about Lud-in-the-Mist because it seems to me we are increasingly living in a country which is becoming more Dorimare-like by the day, where the arts are increasingly banished to the equivalent of the land of Faerie, where creativity is associated with the creation of goods and wealth, where any hint of an artistic or genuinely creative spirit is dismissed as bad influence, and to be actively discouraged and eliminated.

In our education system there is now a very real danger of replacing genuine creativity with skills acquisition, wonder with tick-box excellence, and mystery with an impact case study.

So, how might we truly embrace the arts and our creative non-conformists, eccentrics and mavericks, or are we fated to banish them, their works and deeds, to that strange, mysterious, wonderful land beyond the Debatable Hills?

The final, celebratory chapter of Lud-in-the-Mist provides the answer.

Selma Connections: A King, a Rabbi and a Caution

Like many, I’ve been watching the commemorations and celebrations of the 50 years since the momentous ‘Bloody Sunday’ on 7 March 1965 in Selma.

Looking at the various films and photographs from that time and place, you may have noticed that in a number of them, standing or sitting next to Dr. Martin Luther King is an elderly white man, wearing glasses and with a shock of white hair and long beard. His name is Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, which is the anglicised version of his Hebrew name: Avraham Yehoshua Heschel….which was also my father’s Hebrew name. They were both named after a famous 17th century Polish rabbinical mystic.

Rabbi Heschel was a leading figure in American Judaism and also a very active social activist. He believed strongly that one’s spirituality must have legs. At the invitation of Martin Luther King Jr., Heschel participated in the opening day of the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights. The photograph of Heschel walking alongside King and other religious and political leaders is considered an emblem of the civil rights movement and of Black-Jewish relations of that era.

After the march, Heschel wrote about the experience in a private memo, “I felt my legs were praying.”

Jumping to the present, and the particulars horrors emanating from the so- called Islamic State, with its violent, barbaric intolerance of anyone and anything that does not fit with its particular world view, Heschel’s caution about the dark side of religion has a particular resonance:

“…when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.”

From out of the educational wilderness…towards what?

Two things became clear to me this week, both connected with education.

The first, I suspect, has been clear to many for quite some time, so I’m just ‘keeping up at the back’ on that one. The second one is far less publicly obvious, but I reckon is rather more insidious than the first.

The first is that the Tories have probably given up on the idea of winning the next election (my predictive text insisted on ‘ejection’!) and forming a government. So they have embarked on a mission to change the educational landscape so fundamentally and significantly that no government will be able to undo or reverse – within the lifetime of that government or even just a lifetime – any of the changes that have been wrought.

The second thing that occurred to me, which became obvious at a meeting I attended at the Department for Education (DfE) on the reform of ‘A’ levels, is that the ideological pressure is now so great that the language of education is being changed fundamentally, literally as we speak it and write it.

Others have commented – in various and many articles and blogs – how words and phrases such as ‘child-centred’ and ‘progressive’ that used to have such a positive, hopeful meaning now attract only scorn and derision from those who deign to govern us. There has also been a great deal of concern and comment regarding the constant dismissal and consequent erosion of the arts – which, by their nature, tend to be child-centred and progressive – in the national curriculum and in the media discourses on education. It’s all about STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics.

It’s also worth noting that the academies and free schools, that are so favoured by our government, are not tied to the national curriculum, so other measures (see below) are required to ensure the focus on STEM is maintained.

Recently the ideological focus has expanded to encompass not only the primary and secondary sectors, but also the tertiary sector and higher education (note: Mr. Gove has admitted in print that he would love to have the whole educational system under his guiding wing at the Dept. for Education).

To accompany and support this expanded focus, and to maintain the ideological commitment to STEM, we have had to adopt a new vocabulary of educational double-speak, in which some ‘A’ levels are designated ‘facilitating subjects’ for entry into a ‘good university’, while others – mainly but not only arts subjects – are designated ‘non-facilitating subjects’. In addition, Ofqual (the government agency responsible for all qualifications in the schools’ sector) has decreed that all ‘A’ levels must be designated as either ‘exam-assessed’ or ‘non-exam assessed’, the latter referring to any form of assessment that is not a traditional, sit-down, written examination: a not uncommon phenomenon in the arts. What is astonishing is that the nice, seemingly intelligent people at Ofqual and the DfE insist that there is absolutely no implication of value in that language. They insist that all subjects are regarded as equal, despite the unequivocal evidence that some are clearly more equal than others. The baleful consequences can be seen in the growing list of schools that have deleted arts subjects from the list of A levels they offer.

Our political leaders have taken it upon themselves to lead us out from what they perceive as the desert of educational disaster – in which we have been wandering for at least 40 years – and to enter the promised land flowing with STEM and increased PISA scores. When it comes to education, particularly in England, they are guided not by the evidence provided by years of careful, rigorous research by educational researchers, nor by the evidence provided by scientists in new and potentially paradigm-shifting fields such as educational neuroscience. Rather they stick a finger in the air to see which way the ideological wind is blowing, listen carefully to what their favourite soothsayer has to say on the evils of past educational discourses and practices, check that the pillar of right-teous ire that is the Daily Mail is well and truly behind them and that the pillar of smoke and mirrors is in front of them…and off they go, confident that the caste of pedagogic priests and disciplinarians that they have appointed will ensure obedience and silence dissent.

As we traipse reluctantly behind them, we look back to see the tattered tents and banners of genuine, life-enriching and life-enhancing education left blowin’ in the wind.