Who the **** is Rita Angus?

I took art history for approximately three weeks in 1993, at the beginning of my seventh form year. It was going fine, until I was asked to do an assignment on an artist. The artist was Rita Angus, and I thought to myself, "Who the **** is that?". I could've found out, but that would have meant a trip to the Invercargill public library. Already, my commitment was exceeded.

I dumped art history, and in desperation for a replacement, took chemistry. I got an E. I'd like to say my experience of failure made me a better person, but whatever.

I accept that times change, and education should move too. (I'm not a Luddite, because that means people who hate technology, not people who are merely stupid at it.) I accept, too, that people need enough of the right kind of education to get a job: economic wellbeing matters. I can’t say whether dropping art history from the curriculum is a good move, pedagogically speaking, or a bad move, or just a response to a lack of interest from students.1

But I'm going to make the case, as someone who studied plenty of other 'useless' subjects, that when it’s taught the right way, no subject is useless at all. Here’s what my journey into uselessness taught me.

• Any subject that involves making a case is good for your skills. It doesn’t matter whether you’re analysing a poem or pulling apart an engine: you need to explain what’s going on. Think what someone who doesn’t quite get it, or disagrees with your perspective, might say, and how you’d respond to the points they’ve raised. Then you’ve not only used your logic, but learned how to put yourself in the shoes of someone with different ideas - two of the most important skills, one ‘hard’ and ‘one’ soft, that are going get you through the next sixty or so years of life.
• Think about how you’ll communicate your point of view. You want to be persuasive, but not a dick. What will do the trick? Words, numbers, pictures? What’s the best kind of language to use, the most careful approach?
• Cherish persistence, because persistence is the hallmark of the best humans. What you persist at matters less than your ability to stick at the subject, whatever it may be. Because when you make it into the workforce, this so-called ‘real world’ you’re being trained for, the workmates you’ll value most are the ones who care for what they do, want to do it well, pitch in, get back in the saddle when it’s hard, and do the thing - no matter what that thing actually is.
• Let yourself enjoy learning, especially if you’re not the ‘academic’ type, because successful learning of any kind begets good things. Remember the moment you got the hang of something you found hard, big or small, and the dopamine hit it gave you - whether it was baking biscuits or speaking in public or solving a quadratic equation? How you felt just a little more inclined, and a bit less self-conscious, about trying to learn the next tricky thing? We have no business, none at all, taking that feeling of accomplishment and efficacy away from our kids (or ourselves).

Good things take time.

I’ve written before about how a growth mindset didn’t come easily to me - was something I had to consciously cultivate. It didn’t make me great at everything I’ve tried, but it taught me the sheer bloody joy of the trying.

I now know who the **** Rita Angus is. I have nothing intelligent to say about her work, but I like the primal comfort of the colours, the way the angles fold into one another, and that self-portrait where she holds a cigarette and kind of looks like she doesn’t give a damn.

Probably, there were people in her life who thought that her whole art thing was a bit useless. I’m glad she didn’t listen.

You’ll find some of the most joyful uselessness ever at The End is Naenae. Become a paid or unpaid subscriber for more!