I've passed through my country's education system, yet I can't draw.

That thought has been on the top of my mind for quite a while recently, and I was quite annoyed by this fact. I'd love to be able to draw properly, and a lack of effort in class on my part could not have been the issue here. A glance at my old school reports confirm this, A for effort, E for attainment is the general trend; Typically accompanied by a pessimistic write-up. It is true that I seldom drew anything in my own time, I often expressed my creativity by building things rather than drawing things.

So what am I getting at here? Well in retrospect I've come to believe that the methods of teaching itself may have been at fault here, rather than me being retarded. Art classes always existed in the school system, from the start up until I chosen what GCSEs I wanted to take. These classes varied in content, I can recall illustration, painting and clay modelling all being covered by the curriculum. The first issue that comes to mind is there was plenty of practical work yet remarkably little teaching going on. Did any of my art teachers actually have any qualifications? Could they actually do any decent art themselves? I don't know. Given the teaching usually consisted of "This week we'll be painting. Okay, have fun." I think I'm probably qualified enough to teach Art in an English school, I'm pretty good at criticising children -- and it'd seem that's the only requisite skill. (aside: Actually, I have taught friends how to use Photoshop in the past, and my skills are ample enough to design and code this website, so maybe I'm overqualified.) The second issue that comes to mind is the lack of time art gets. I seem to recall spending about 1 hour per week in art classes, this is nothing compared to the hours other subjects get, especially when "Art" in itself covers illustration, painting and modelling.

I think the attitudes of creativity teachers need to change, too. The mandatory Drama and Art classes seem to feature a lot of doing things yet very little tuition, and thus a child's success in these subjects comes largely down to his or her own intrinsic abilities. A child should be able to come out of the system being able to draw competently if they've put the effort in. If the tuition provided was on-par to that one receives in woodwork and metalwork classes then I'm almost certain that children like me would be coming out of the system with some drawing abilities.

Academic subjects such as English and Science all get to benefit from a tier system -- children are placed in a group with other children based on their abilities. I believe this to be a good thing. Those who are struggling with the basics will be taught the basics, whilst those who are particularly proficient get to master the finer nuances of the subject. Imagine a world in which illustration is taught in the same way. I'd love it.

Some might argue that the tier system just injures the ego of the children in the lower tiers, and indeed this is true, but people these days care too much about such things, and most people have too much ego anyway. I was in bottom-tier for English when I started secondary school (high school), yet I was in top-tier for my final year -- I managed to move up 1 tier per year in the subject. And conversely, I managed to fall back a tier in maths due to being a bit shit at it, and certainly not top-tier material. However I will note that a lot of kids in the bottom-tier English didn't put in any effort to progressing. Maybe some of them were just sugar-driven ADHD junkies, like a rising portion of western children are becoming, or maybe the bottom-tier class teacher was too pessimistic.

"But still -- imagine how awesome I'd be if I was capable of decent illustration, too." That's what I've been thinking recently. I've always spent my Januaries reflecting on the past and deciding how to spend the coming year and this January is no exception. So I've decided that after I both graduate from my university and get a job (or become a postgraduate) I'll teach myself to draw. Luckily the Internet has swollen with information since the days of my art classes, now there is a vast amount of material out there that generally anyone can use to learn anything they want, which is a very awesome thing indeed, and well worth defending from those who seek to control it.

And lastly, I'd like to apologise for the piss-poor juxtaposition of this article. I wrote this whilst both fatigued and waiting for my code to compile (630mhz Pentium-M FTW?) @_@