How I Turned into an Acorn.

                                                  

Unlike, presumably, the AQA and those who have made the decision to circumvent our children’s education, I have actually lived in a country – a very large and populous country – where more than two generations  have been brought up in utter ignorance of their history, their place in the world, or any sense of the aesthetic. They live their entire lives unmindfull of the fact that beauty exists as anything other than an artificial and economic imperative.

As a result of having shriven from their environment all that is not logical, practical and dependant for its value upon re-sale worth, their country has become a barren, featureless landscape; their cities the most polluted concrete units in all the world; their children unable to project interest beyond the sealed barrier of Self.

Artsy-farty whaffle?  Then let’s look at the fact that, though mainly concealed, the suicide rate per capita is estimated to be the highest world-wide in that country.  The at-risk sector of the population is the 9 to 90 year old   age group across all demographics. The initial figure of ‘9’ is no misprint or mistake. It represents the age at which suicide becomes a general risk.  Younger children don’t suicide in enough numbers to be included. But younger children do kill themselves often enough not be totally anomalous.

 No assessment for statistics relating to self-harm have yet been carried out. However, across the student body ranging from Undergrads to Post.docs whom I taught or tutored, it was roughly around 80%.

Hyperbolic whaffle perhaps? The relation between these ugly facts and the fact that the Arts have been violently and ruthlessly excised from the National consciousness is a tenuous one born of purely personal conclusions?

Indeed,  in a country where empirical evidence is almost impossible to garner, is it, at the very least, simplistic to base so many conclusions about a country’s societal problems upon the absence of the Arts?

I don’t find it hyperbolic or simplistic in the least: it is in fact an extremely complicated paradigm and it took me almost seven years before I could confidently asses the affect of the complete lack of beauty, truth, imagination and critical thinking upon an entire civilization.

The impact of this cultural shift in a country once upheld as one of the most innovative, sophisticated and inventive civilizations in the world, demands more unpacking and investigation than a five-minute blog. However, what one can do in a five minute blog is to run up a warning flag.

The value of the courses currently being snatched away from whole generations in England are currently being discussed by academics in articles, interviews, blogs and columns.  I have no wish to go over the same ground.

What I DO wish to point to is the result of refusing to consider Education as an holistic, life-enriching process through which  each emerging generation becomes aware of not just their responsibility, but of the countless opportunities each of them has to contribute to the betterment of their world.

The result of stifling a country’s creativity is empirically proven. We already know the result of limiting people’s horizons; of depriving them of imagination; of reducing their cultural capital; and of rescinding their ability to make free choices. One point six million people in China stand witness to it.

For us to continue now to let our politicians make decisions for the future by going compliantly down this road is irresponsible at the very least. The death knell of our civilisation at most.

We have to take back our heritage as Britons. Because, in the space of a generation in which the Arts are deemed the province only of the elite, who will have the critical skills to stand up and cry “Stop”?