A great piece on the dangers of teaching in the arts, when our culture no longer really seems to value it:
And as I grow older, so I am mocked by technology. Today, every device insists on telling me the time. I watch the red figures on a microwave count down the remaining seconds of my life. “Cook for three minutes,” it says. So I cook it for two and save a minute of my life. I take a similar approach to the National Lottery. I don’t play. That saves me £50 a year. This year, what with the recession, I decided not to buy two tickets, so I am saving £100. If they continue to freeze salaries, I may not buy three.
So what used to be a secure life is so no longer. Our teaching is inspected for its effectiveness, our research explored for its “quality”, awarded stars like children in primary schools rewarded for not wetting themselves. Our students are asked if they love us. We are required to explain our relevance, recruit students with higher qualifications, students with lower qualifications, produce more first-class degrees, explain why we give so many first-class degrees, recruit overseas students while the government turns them away at immigration.
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