First of all, I want to say that I am a proud alumni of the University of Birmingham with a first-class degree in Drama and Theatre Arts, and I\u2019m the first person in my family to have attended University. I currently look after the marketing and events activities of the School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music. I have only been working in the Higher Education sector for a mere six months, but I am truly delighted to be able to work at the institution which has opened my eyes to think autonomously, critically and creatively in both my degree and my current role.<\/p>\n
I have recently travelled in time to the Year 2026, a bit like in HG Wells\u2019 novel, The Time Machine<\/em> with less morlocks. I was suddenly 33 years of age and in this short post I would like to voice my concern for our fragile arts subjects in Higher Education.<\/p>\n But first, a bit of context from my experience. Over the years, we have seen a drastic shift in teenagers choosing to study arts subjects at A Level, and consequently degree-level. Why is this? Well, as fees rise, grants diminish and the class divisions of students are more and more evident, learners see themselves not so much as open-minded vessels for learning or pursuing their passions, but as consumers<\/strong>. Consumers of instant feedback, grading lecturers, grading landlords, grading facilities, political meme-making etc. And I don\u2019t blame them. I regularly hear \u201cI have technically paid \u00a3300 for this seminar, and I don\u2019t feel I have gotten anything out of it\u201d, simultaneously with, \u201cmate, I didn\u2019t do the reading for this seminar, I just looked it up on Wikipedia instead\u201d. This juxtaposition of taking ownership and lethargy illustrates that students may feel at constant confrontation with themselves as to what they feel a degree is for. Degree = Job. Degree = Investment in Future. Degree = Practical, clear-pathway-into-a-role, professional, starting salary, having a great job in unsure times of political unrest. Arts subjects = \u2018Mickey-Mouse Degree\u201d, unclear path into the future, freelancing, struggle, not getting back the investment that has been put in, not an obvious function in the economy, no utilitarian value, a lifetime of debt.<\/p>\n In 2026, this paradigm shift has resulted in a tectonic plate shift. The University of Birmingham will become an environment where the exam-mill of primary and secondary education has left students subdued, lacklustre and constantly hungry for instant, physical and measurable evidence of their progress. This shift has increased the lack of interest in arts subjects, such as, Modern languages, History of Art and Music. In the future, this domination will be greater and departments will have shrunk or be non-existent.<\/p>\n I am not saying that I need to shove a handful of 2026 students in my time machine and take them back to the 1960s so that activists could galvanise them out of their lethargy and encourage them to take control of their passions and futures. I mean, I wasn\u2019t even alive in the 1960s, but my time machine has taken me back there so I have a pretty good idea of what it was like. What I am saying, however, is that University learning should be a mutual exchange of passion, methodologies and debates between lecturers and students \u2013 not a one-way consuming machine whereby all outputs need to be measured , have a monetary value and link directly to your job in five years\u2019 time.<\/p>\n Today, I thought it would be interesting to travel back to Hull College in 2011 to see my 17-year-old self on her lunch break from her Acting BTEC. I said to her,<\/p>\n “I\u2019m sorry, Danielle, I have travelled into the future and I\u2019m afraid you\u2019re just too poor to go to University… Don\u2019t cry, arts degrees are a waste of time and money anyway”.<\/p>\n Obviously, I don\u2019t have a time machine, I can\u2019t see the future at all, and I didn\u2019t have a conversation with my past self. I fear, however, that if necessary measures are not put in place to ignite the trust between arts degrees and teenagers again, 2026 will be a place with considerably less passion and hunger to learn.<\/p>\n I feel like we are taking baby steps, with our recent \u2018Why Study Languages<\/a>?\u2019 and \u2018Why Study History of Art<\/a>?\u2019 videos, but these are tactics. The HE Sector needs a strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First of all, I want to say that I am a proud alumni of the University of Birmingham with a first-class degree in Drama and Theatre Arts, and I\u2019m the first person in my family to have attended University. I currently look after the marketing and events activities of the School of Languages, Cultures, Art … Continue reading “2026: Doomsday for the Arts? Danielle Blackburn”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,46,13],"tags":[17,47,79,28],"class_list":["post-647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-curriculum","category-students","category-teaching","tag-curriculum","tag-students","tag-subjects","tag-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":648,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions\/648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}