Leading Cultural Learning part two: dazed and confused

So, where did all those stories leave me? I used to think and say, frequently and stridently, that cultural organisations needed to put learning at the core of their mission and operation. Now I'm not so sure. All I can offer are a few maybes.

Maybe we need to recognise the tension between cultural and educational 'pedagogies'. As Susan Sontag once wrote, the role of the artist is to make things more complex. Generally, the role of the teacher is to explain, simplify, ensure understanding. In learning through culture, how can we make sure that the arts aren't serving a more reductive learning agenda that they probably won't serve that well anyway.

Maybe learning is best left as an unintended or unplanned outcome of the artistic opportunities that artists and organisations provide through making and showing work - creating spaces where learning can happen, but might not.

Maybe the most effective educational strategy is for artists and organisations to focus on the quality of their products, and make sure that as many different kinds of people as possible engage. This requires serious, sustained targeting at 'not yet reached' audiences, rather than random acts of cultural kindness, and needs a reclamation of the concept of audience engagement from marketeers.

Is this cultural learning heresy? One person thought my views were straight from the 19th Century. I made it clear that I wasn't arguing for the abandonment of education officers, departments and programmes. Too much great work and progress has been made, and England's cultural learning infrastructure is the envy of much of the world. I also wasn't arguing against those whose mission is largely or entirely focused on learning. Their work adds huge value to our artistic and educational landscape.

I also suggested that there might be some fascinating work to do in terms of the learning offer of the arts-producing SMEs - the small producing or touring companies, festivals and other venue-free ventures, who might be able to offer much more to children and young people with some minor tweaking and regearing.

But I am not sure what I am arguing for... and maybe that reflects the problem and potential of art's relationship with public policy and public services.  The education sector and wider policy world are crammed with people who are more certain of their position than their position deserves... who put doubts aside to exaggerate the strength or their argument. How can art compete in this environment? As Wayne MacGregor once said, 'the job of the artist is to not know'.

I also know that we're dealing with an education sector that, more than ever, is systematically wired to neglect the arts, and relies on cultural partners to cover up for their deficiencies. And we are also facing a cultural sector that, despite the Arts Council goals, strategies and occasional words, is also subtly being offered the option to 'stick to their knitting' (and maybe my 'maybes' above are guilty of this too). With the  Henley Review about to offer recommendations to government, those passionate about cultural learning need to lobby collectively and coherently - rumours are that there's money to be released. But as we coalesce and create ever more stunning evidence for the power of cultural learning, let's nurture rather than neglect our doubts about the whole enterprise - ultimately, doubt may be our most valuable currency.

Leading Cultural Learning part one: six stories, no ending

I was asked to speak to this year’s cohort of Clore Fellows. Ten minutes as an interlocutor (I had to look it up) on ‘leading cultural learning’. I thought I’d risk a new riff, moving far from my standard creative learning patter to reveal my inner confusion. I started with six stories, told in chronological order.

Story One: 1997

As a teacher, I had no real affinity with the arts. To my shame, I didn’t teach one dance lesson in five years, and the visual art I attempted was too rare and too shoddy. I did however play around with drama, especially for assemblies. I remember creating a lavish assembly for an OFSTED inspection. Oblivious to those men with clipboards at the back of the hall, my Year Five Class performed a rousing history of the Jarrow crusade, complete with a couple of historically misplaced Woodie Guthrie songs. OFSTED failed the assembly, as it did not include an act of collective worship.

Story Two: 2002

As a parent, I remember visiting Tate Britain with my two toddlers to see Michael Landy’s childhood home, rebuilt in painstaking detail in the centre of the main hall. It was a powerful experience, provoking emotions around identity, memory, and family. Whilst recovering from this art thunderbolt, I wondered what my children were making of this. Before I had the chance to find out, I had been dragged into a nearby room, and forced to make cardboard box homes with my kids. The Tate’s family learning programme had destroyed any chance of engagement with its art.

Story Three: 2009

On my Clore placement to the Theatre Royal Stratford East, I met one of their young Associate Directors. A few years before, as part of the youth theatre, he had, with friends, devised a dance piece based on the Pied Piper of Hamlyn. It had rapidly moved onto the theatre’s main stage, and two years on was now the Barbican’s Christmas show. He was now CEO of his own company, Blue Boy Entertainment.

Story Four: 2010

At a think tank seminar, the artistic director of a large venue talked about how education was now at the centre of his organisation. He claimed that his own programming decisions were now more informed by the education department’s views than by anybody else. I thought ‘you’re lying, and I don’t know why you’re lying.’

Story Five : 2011

In one of my final visits to a Creative Partnerships school, I visited a secondary school which had done some wonderful programmes over five years, most recently working with a visual artist on ‘museum of love’ to explore concepts of love in Shakespeare’s plays and poems. The creative agent at the school, who was managing the programme, talked about how she had tried to ban the word art and artist from discussions with pupils and teachers.

Story Six: 2011 again

Last month, I was talking to someone in the arts education world. I was telling her about some schools which were thinking of starting ‘look clubs’, after school clubs where pupils would visit museums, galleries, buildings and landscapes, with an emphasis on looking and contemplation, rather than drawing or doing. She scoffed at me: ‘that’s not very participatory!’

Conclusions to be drawn… in next blog.

Beetroot Boris to bring back ILEA?

Over a lunch with journalists, Boris Johnson yesterday suggested what Ken wouldn't dare - that maybe the mayor needs some influence over London's schools.

His logic is good. So much of the rest of his agenda for London depends on improving educational outcomes, especially for the poorest families. And the GLA has the potential to do so much more. Although many local authority support services are excellent, and the move towards self-financing principles of 'buy-back' are sharpening up or closing down many others, the oft-expressed assertion that London councils are too small to do the big things well and too big to do the small things well might be true for several aspects of education - special needs or school transport, for example.

One of Boris' aides Munira Mirza has been doing some excellent work banging heads together and provoking people and organisations to provide a better cultural education for all young people in London. This shows what is strategically possible. The mayor's sponsoring of two academies is a stranger move, but is probably symptomatic of his frustration about having no direct routes into influencing London's schools.

The Daily Telegraph wrote back in 2006 that 'power in education in everywhere and nowhere'. The ongoing fragmentation of the school system means this is more true now than ever. How would another tier of authority play into this landscape? Does Boris want to take power from schools, Local Authorities, academy chains, or even the Department for Education?


Rather than 'seeking input' to a random mix of education issues, Boris needs to go back to first principles: What in education could the GLA be accountable for, and why?  And once we've answered these questions, two others follow:

• What should the GLA do to support schools?
• What should the GLA do to challenge schools?

Boris should also recognise the strengths and successes he could build on. London's schools are now outperforming most of the rest of the country, and  improvements in certain inner London boroughs are staggering. The percentages attending private schools has plateaued and may even be falling. Rising school populations has been partly caused by a decline in middle class family flight to the suburbs or beyond. The  'apartheid' of racial and social segregation in London schools that the head teacher of City of London School claimed we were 'sleepwalking towards' just isn't happening, especially compared to many Northern cities. Stephen Gorard's statistical work is especially useful here. Urban school systems around the world are dealing with similar issues around poverty, diversifying populations and other urban stress points, and may have much to learn from London as a case study.  


London's schools certainly don't have all the answers, and many of them are still in need of transformation. But before proposing new policy prescriptions, structures or funding streams for London's schools, it might be worth a deeper analysis of the last decade. Schooling in London: What went right?