"But I wish more would be done to familiarize children, youth, and adults with their own musical and other cultural traditions. I also wish that more could be done to familiarize children, youth, and audlts with the music and other cultural traditions of other people in their nation and around the world.

Maybe if we knew more about how others make music, sing, dance, and live, move, and have their being, we would realize that groups of people within our nation and throughout the world actually have more similarities than differences."

No truer words ever spoken, Azizi!

One of the things that most infuriates me is the fact that English schools do not find the time to teach our children about their heritage and tradition.

When I was a kid we had lessons devoted to traditional music and dance, and once a year the London schools would put on an event at the Albert Hall (the most prestigious concert venue in the country).

The "London Schools Folk & Country dance festival" consisted of the best performers from all the schools in London. I played a violin solo there myself at the age of ten.

All of this has, sadly, disappeared, largely due to successive governments' disinterest.

At the school where I worked for the last fifteen years, I used to do regular gigs for the kids, usually on the last day of the term, and the kids loved it, often asking for me rather than watching a film on video.

So I offered to run a regular extra curricular club, and had a list of about thirty children who wanted to join, twelve of them Black or Asian.

I was told that it would be inappropriate for the caretaker to do this, unless a teacher could be found to sit in on sessions, in spite of the fact that it would be taking place at a time when most of the staff were still on site.

None of the teachers were interested, including the one who taught music and ran the school choir, so it never happened.

How do you fight that level of apathy?

Don T.