Here’s a story in the Guardian about an education plan in the United Kingdom for students to take part, in some fashion, in “high culture” at least five hours per week. They can attend theater and music performances, browse through galleries, practice a musical instrument — anything so long as they come up against the better creative activities.
The teachers groups have rejected the plan, but, refreshingly enough, not on ideological or social grounds. We don’t hear any of the usual objections: “Where do you draw the line between high culture and pop culture? Why confine ourselves to an essential European tradition?” etc. Instead, they just say that they don’t have time to ensure those five hours, and that the responsibility lies primarily in the home.
That such a proposal even got to the point of consideration, though, is amazing, at least from this side of the Atlantic. I can’t imagine it happening here.