By: Mrs Trellis

Mrs Trellis
Sun, 15 Dec 2024 11:48:32 +0000

Sigh… The whole point of taking schoolchildren to cultural experiences is to broaden their minds and their education. To expose them to things, people and experiences they might not otherwise necessarily experience. And guess what? Once exposed to those environments quite a lot discover they like theatre/art/ballet/opera/galleries or museums and then work hard at school to push their boundaries beyond their local environment and class experiences. It’s called social mobility. And it’s a good thing.

When I was quite young, my Mother took me to the V&A one birthday as a treat. I took a schoolfriend with me. At one point we became separated from him and had to backtrack to find him. He was staring at an exhibit inside a glass box. A beautiful object, made by craftsmen with amazing skill and artistry. I’d looked at it and moved on, because I was used to seeing such things, but my friend was transfixed. He was beaming and saying: “Look at it…” Over and over. It suddenly dawned on me he’d never seen anything like it before in his life, because that sort of museum just wasn’t the kind of place his parents would have taken him to. And his little terraced house did not contain anything older than probably 20 or 30 years. It was a revelation to me as much as to him.

He is now a master craftsman, turning out beautiful things. I doubt that would have happened if he’d gone to a rap session or graffiti workshop. Some things are good for the soul, and we should expose our children to them, precisely to stop them becoming middle class preserves.