Gift of words - A poem for my students

It's always true that I learn much more from my students than they learn from me.  This poem is for the Cert Ed/PGCE classes of 2016, Barnsley and Northern Colleges, with thanks and love.

Alternative notes from a teaching observation



You're a juggler
A tight-rope walker
A spinner of plates -
In this three-ring circus
Where the show goes on

I observe in the wings
my view obscured
by the cloak you wear
and a blurred lens
that is not my own

It's a spectacle of faith, hope and circumstance
Of fear, joy and love
The best show on earth
I could watch a million times over

And I will wait and return
Because I know
That when the cloak falls from your shoulders
There will be no words left to write

Because the colours will be so dazzling
I'll have to turn my face away.

Prevent and critical pedagogy

As an educator who aims to work affirmatively and openly, Prevent has been a challenge. I've started writing about the topic on a number of occasions and given up (perhaps the very word 'Prevent' itself has had this effect?)  My views on the agenda will be clear to anyone who follows me on Twitter or reads my blogs, but I have been desperately trying to take a stance that opens up rather than closes down debate - that 'problematises' it in the Freirian sense; knowing also that the legal duty applies to me as an educator and public servant. 

Hearing and exploring diverse and oppositional views is vital. In a world of lesson planning that currently advocates 'Haynes manual' approaches, speedy bite-size and chunked sessions that tick all the Ofsted boxes, there is little room for debate and discussion (unless scheduled in).  In this world we do not like uncertainty either; yet Prevent itself is an area for fear, confusion and misunderstanding, where people are scared to open up and spaces are no longer safe. The 'fundamental British values' appear sound yet can also be divisive.  I use Twitter* to surround myself as much as possible with diversity - of opinion, culture, race and thinking and am following with interest the stance taken by University of Warwick and the NUT; organisations wishing to distance themselves from the agenda as much as possible.   My dilemma as a teacher educator has been whether to subvert, resist, or facilitate debate, but my biggest feeling at the moment is one of responsibility for my own students  who will be going out into the world needing clarity and having had the chance to think all of this through.

It is always worth going back to the source when discussing policies and regulations, so as a reminder here is a link to the updated Prevent duty:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445977/3799_Revised_Prevent_Duty_Guidance__England_Wales_V2-Interactive.pdf

Of course, if you teach you will no doubt have already been trained in Prevent; perhaps going on the government's WRAP training course (Workshop Raising Awareness of Prevent), or working through one of the many e-learning courses (mandatory, in many organisations).  These courses provide basic information about the policy and 'fundamental British values', as defined, not by British people, in actual fact, but by the government.  What these courses do not allow much room for is any discussion of the policy or issues it raises.  I felt it was imperative that I allowed room for this within my own teaching, but struggled for a while with how to do this, and what kind of session to run.  I was also extremely wary of imposing my own values and views but wanted to allow discussion through principles of critical pedagogy.**

Enter community philosophy.

This practice is essentially an enquiry-based process that explores and unpicks language; connects ideas and philosophical concepts; challenges hegemonic practice and assumptions; and collaboratively builds new knowledge.  Much of this is based around the Freirian concept of 'conscientization'; the process of developing a critical awareness of one's social reality through reflection and action.. I love many things about CP but perhaps the best thing in my view is that individuals and groups create their own questions. Sessions usually start with the introduction of a stimulus; a photo, newspaper article, poem, activity - anything really. In responding to the stimulus, groups come up with their own question which they then discuss.

What's philosophical about this? Well, discussion tends to centre around concepts - so that a question around 'community' may lead to debate around society, identity, respect, even love.  There is something very empowering about deconstructing these terms we hear bandied about and lazily used in everyday language ('shirkers', anyone?!). Try exploring and questioning the concept of 'health' or 'radical' to see that interpretations are culturally-informed and complex.  Community philosophy is a positive activity however, so doesn't leave a group feeling threatened by this exploration - as well as deconstructing concepts, groups build new concepts with real meaning and value. Sessions end with a period of reflection, to discuss and take action - where do we go next?

You can see the relevance of this tool for exploring a topic like Prevent; and so I am in the process of running a number of Community Philosophy sessions that allow trainee teachers and teacher educators to enquire into the topic and create their own questions.  So far these questions have been important and far-reaching, including:

- How can we foster a sense of belonging in our classrooms?
- Is Prevent racist?
- What does it mean, to be 'radical'?

Philosophical enquiries always end with a call to action, and for many of my students these have included:

 - re-reading and analysing the original Government guidance
- following diverse voices on Twitter and joining campaigns
- learning more about other cultures and religions
- researching 'non-violent communication'*** as means of facilitating respectful debate
- running a philosophical enquiry on British Values with their own classes
- doing Identity and values work with their own groups
- using Restorative Practice approaches to build classroom communities.

I'm not sure that teachers (and their students) have safe spaces in the way that they did before, but I'm convinced that using community philosophy for critical thinking can help to give educators room to explore their own views and work towards positive action.  And perhaps it is time to reclaim the word 'radical'; as Paulo Freire said:

"The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side."





*Useful Twitter accounts to follow:
@rapclassroom (Darren Chetty)
@writersofcolour (Media Diversified)
@Preventwatch
@schoolequality

@IRR_news
@DiLeed (Di Leedham)
@totallywired77 (Tait Coles)
#educationnotsurveillance

** For more on critical pedagogy, take a look at this article by Tait Coles
http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/feb/25/critical-pedagogy-schools-students-challenge

*** Rosenberg, M.B. (2003). Nonviolent Communication; A Language of Life. PuddleDancer Press.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin Books.

Birdsong, after the flood

Reed Bunting

I walk the causeway
that bisects the hollowed bowl
so long a crater
now pitted scar turned wetland.

Before me the cast is now of thousands
Of goldeneye, gadwall, lapwing and grebe
Playing interlinked roles
And excavating damp earth for food the floods failed to wash away

The booms are bitterns.
Drills the wheeze of peewit
Beneath, the low thrum of wings
And rising above, the song of the teal in a minor key

I turn and trace the half-light
Until the antropocene dream
Fades like the sun behind the dragline
That nature reclaimed
For the roosts of owls.

Storyjumpers: 7 'Not really arrows'

This is part 7 of a story jumping activity for Digital Writing Month. Bruno started it, followed by Kevin, Maha, Sarah, Ron and Tanya.  Sign up in the Google Doc if you'd like to join in.

As Kevin bit into the cookie, he suddenly felt reality return and the mists in his mind began to clear.  He looked around.  What the hell was he doing in the garden, and why was he eating a random biscuit that he had found on the ground beside him?  He staggered to his feet and headed back inside, only to collapse again in a heap on the sofa.

The events of the past few days had clearly been too much. He was over-tired, hungry and clearly exhausted by his constant sax playing. He was no longer sure about his relationship with Sandy; how on earth had she become so violent?  And this was now layered with confusion about his feelings for Sarah.  She seemed to be the only person who understood his constant need to fix things.  It was about time, he pondered, that he fixed his emotional situation; maybe he should try applying those practical skills to his own personal life.

To distract himself, he took another look at Bruno's map which was lying crumpled on the floor.  He hesitated as he picked it up; the last thing he needed was another out-of-body experience.  As it was, he was starting to feel a little paranoid; he had almost got used to that feeling after realising that he was under constant surveillance from his neighbour, but this was different.  It was as if people around the globe were listening in to his private thoughts and reading his mind as they unfolded. He felt a strange sense that this map would predict his future in some way, and that every event and happening was already out of his control.

Kevin put the map down again without looking at it and walked into the kitchen.  He needed to eat and sleep, and shake off these strange ideas before he really lost the plot.  But the compulsion to look at the map was almost unbearable, as if time was running out. Surely a little peek wouldn't hurt?  He poured a glass of water and studied it from a distance.  Even in the dim light he could make out a number of arrows.   This time, he decided, he would do it properly.  Opening his tool-box he took out a magnifying glass, some plastic gloves, tracing paper and a pencil.  He rested the map on the table directly under the anglepoise lamp and put on his glasses.  Safe within the familiar trappings of his usual 'fix-it' mode, he started to feel calmer and in control.  How weird could this be?

The letters at the top of the map were clear; whatever had smudged the letters hadn't reached this part. It was a date; 30 November, 2015. Only a few weeks away! Kevin wondered if this could account for his deep-rooted sense of urgency.  He hurriedly moved down the map to the part which was worn and water-marked, and much harder to make out.  Perhaps the arrows would provide a clue.

But as soon as the magnifying glass was in place he realised his mistake.  He'd been looking at the map upside down and as a result had completely misinterpreted the symbols.  What he thought were arrows were in fact something entirely different, and much more sinister.  They were...

[to be continued... by Ron @ronsamul)

Me, mapped

"We are often asked to tell our stories according to someone else’s standards of what counts, but we are not necessarily asked about what matters to us, what we value, even if it can’t be measured."

So begins the first challenge for Digital Writing Month (#digiwrimo).  It's a 'what if' question that asks us to introduce ourselves, not using the standard and limiting CV format but in whatever creative means takes our fancy.

CVs are indeed limited; they lay out our lives under standard headings, in sans serif font (naturally); they condense the most exciting of happenings down to one line and MUST BE ON TWO SIDES OF A4 ONLY.  And as for the hobbies and interests section... if you say something remotely interesting you are probably lying and if you are honest you are possibly the dullest person in the history of the universe.

I've been looking at maps as an alternative way of expressing and exploring personal journeys and tracking my own thinking.  In her book, The Post-Human, Rosi Braidotti uses the term cartography to describe the process of examining where we are, now:

'A cartography maps what it means to live at this moment in time.  It is a theoretically based and politically informed reading of the present.'

Cartographies, according to Braidotti, examine power locations, are non-linear in time; they de-familiarise and challenge thinking. Braidotti associates them with critical theory, but I like the idea of applying the principles to lives too; a map can show complexity, contours, colour and be multi-dimensional in a way that CVs cannot.  A map will show the mountains we have climbed, the rough patches we've overcome, the scary bit where there be dragons... it will be coloured by the stuff that's influenced us, show where the pain has been but allow us to move on through it, not making that aspect any more or less important than what else appears alongside it.

  

This blog for me, is my cartography.  I doubt it is what Braidotti intended, but nevertheless I've realised I'm applying similar principles.  There's theory which I use to inform my thinking; I unsettle myself through the use of unfamiliar writing styles and methods; there is politics running through the heart of it all. Most of all it is value-based; so that everything I write comes from the examined and explored ethical measures that form my basis for action.

Some parts are sketchy and hard to navigate - a back of a fag packet job (often literally).  Others are more detailed, filled in with coloured inks, pored over and written out a few times.  Braidotti often talks about the need to 'get over ourselves' so I try (usually) to infuse them with the hope and affirmation that she talks about as a post-human way of being in the world.

My blog isn't a CV; it is subjective, biased, and rough around the edges, but it tells you much more than those two sides of A4 ever could.

I might still add a hobbies and interests section though.

• Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Polity Press.

Cartography #1

So, since my visit to Utrecht I am doing that classic thing of seeing and making links to post-humanism everywhere.  From Paul Mason's 'Post-Capitalism' to the rewilding movement, Brian Eno's fantastic John Peel Lecture to Knausgaard's autobiographies ... the themes are varied but all circle around new ways of living, loving, and interacting with each other and the world around us. Decentering the human, moving away from identity politics, making being different 'from' NOT about being 'less', dismantling capitalism through affirmative politics and the creation of 'assemblages'*.  So much to unpick and so little time.  I've got an hour for this one, so time to get over myself and just write something down...

'The political is right here' - as Rosi Braidotti emphasised, both in her book 'The Posthuman' and during the lectures in Utrecht.  In order to move forward we have to start from our own bodies and situated practices, examining and drawing up our own cartographies, looking at where we are located and asking ourselves 'what have we forgotten to forget?'  In my last blog I came up with a series of questions about creating a post-human curriculum for education, but in this one I want to take a step back, by thinking about my own standpoint and some of the ties that bind us to old ways of thinking.

One of the key themes of the summer school was art - a surprising and an additional challenge for someone who considers themselves a bit of a philistine.  But soon I was wondering - why do we always have the separation of art from science or the humanities? The idea of art and science being 'paths along the same track' is exciting and in itself opens up possibilities and new approaches. I had seen for myself students writing poetry and creating art in a teacher education class, so it was probably time to revisit my own stance and examine my resistance to it.

Modern art was always a bit of a standing joke in my family.  I remember my Grandad visiting the Tate Modern and showing him Carl Andre's 'Equivalent V11' (forever after known to us as 'the bricks').  Cue outrage ('this isn't art!') and much mirth for years after. (We took him to Covent Garden the same day - as a previous barrow boy who worked the original fruit market there in the 1920's, he was pretty disgusted by that too).


The art shared with us in Utrecht was unsettling and pushed all the boundaries.  Perhaps the most startling piece of all was Uterus Man, about which I will say no more but encourage you to watch it for yourselves:

https://vimeo.com/82164043

(My first reaction (as @teachnorthern will testify) was the incisive and articulate 'what the fuck?!'   I would love to know what your reaction and thinking is about Uterus Man, so please share your thoughts here :)

The kind of art we were talking about in Utrecht was not 'art that is', but 'art that does'. From the refugee art of the 'We are Here' collective in Holland, to Aernout Mik's amazing 'Cardboard Walls', which addresses, through the lens of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the way that the things we thought we controlled (nature and capitalist doctrines) can take charge of our lives and overturn them.  The common thread of post-human art was an affirmative ethics, and the encouragement of living a certain way in spite of capitalism, and not against it.  The art of Pussy Riot is examined here in a talk by Rosi herself; an example of radicalism which is oppositional but not negative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5J1z-E8u60

Art is being restructured and refusing labels; we need a new vocabulary for the concepts, liberating and opening our minds along the way.  The pervasive 'anti-intellectualism' in our culture doesn't help us to access art of any kind, or seek out its use for positive change.  (As someone who apologetically calls herself a geek in their Twitter biography, and keeps her writing hidden from friends and family, I am guilty of denying this aspect of myself.  But as Rosi would say, it is time to 'get over ourselves'.) Art, whether a pile of bricks or a superhuman womb, gets you talking.  My challenge to myself is to keep an open-mind and continue to push my own boundaries; not switching off when I see something I don't get, but switching on, and looking for the questions that move me forward.


Footnote:

One of the most exciting post-humanist notions is around the creation of 'assemblages' - informal, rhizomatic groups of thinkers which may pop up unexpectedly and subversively, just like the mushrooms dropped and growing after leaving the farm at the end of my road.  In this week alone my thinking has been inspired by at least 50 writers on Twitter, friends @bobby_gant and @leehughes84, colleagues and students.  Most will not know each other but many are connected in different ways.  The potential and affirmation of these subversive groups is made more powerful by the nomadic, unexpected nature of the connected thinking... thanks to all.


Rosi Braidotti - Punk Women and Riot Grrls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5J1z-E8u60

Beauty and the post-human

There's no greater come down after a week at a university summer school studying politics, philosophy and art, than a night with two fractious children watching Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

I'm back from a frankly mind-blowing week in Utrecht on a post-humanism summer school and desperately trying to make sense of what I've learnt, before the day to day realities of school uniform shopping, mindless work admin and Disney Channel kick back in.  I felt like an imposter for most of the time I was there if I'm completely honest - it's a while since I did my own Masters and I was amongst much younger and sharper brains than mine - but a number of key concepts and ideas hit me, and I want to make sense of them now, and act of them before they disappear in a haze of work stress and children's homework.  My challenge to myself (and I have accepted it) is to capture my key questions and thoughts before the end of the film comes, and I have to go and make tea.

So firstly, what is post-humanism?

Rosi Braidotti's book, 'The Post-Human' (the basis for this course) starts with the following statement:

'Not all of us can say with any degree of certainty that we have always been human, or that we are only that'.

How often do we consider what we mean by 'humanity', a term so often used but rarely analysed or questioned? We assume a consensus about what a human is - an entity based on common shared identities, with certain relationships to the environment and the globe - explained for us via philosophies that position 'man' at the top of the chain.  But the notion of what is human has also been exclusive and binding - denying the 'other' that does not fit the ideal, holding on a pedestal the 'Vitruian man' of Da Vinci's drawing - perfect in its geometry, white and male.  The paradigm is changing, as we start to look at other possibilities; removing the binds of gender, for example, to accept a spectrum of sexual being whether gay, gender queer, gender fluid, heterosexual, androgynous and so many other things in between ('sexuality is what I do, not who I am').  Women throughout history (and often still) have been outside of the human ideal, 'othered' through association with witches, the religious and spiritual, other-worldly sirens and temptresses, challenging the rationality of 'man'.  Post-human feminism offers an empowering alternative to the dualism of male/female and gender as a 'power machine' (it is worth remembering that gender as a concept doesn't even exist in other languages - in French, 'genre', the closest equivalent, is a purely grammatical term).

Post-humanism asks us to change this paradigm, to 'de-centre' the white, male human and to look at other possibilities for 'humanity'.  What is exciting is that we are already seeing this, through overt changes to acceptance of gay relationships, acceptance of gender neutral pronouns in every-day usage, challenges to our white-centred educational curricula, main-streaming of disabled sports, 'non-typical' models, the list goes on.  There is a very long way to go, of course, but the changes made in my own lifetime are staggering enough when I actually stop to consider them.

(If you want to watch something truly hopeful, take a look at Sue Austin's Freewheeling - an empowering piece of work that challenges our perceptions of disability - http://www.wearefreewheeling.org.uk/?location_id=1849).

There's no doubt that we are in a predicament, chained by advanced capitalism, threatened by environmental disaster, united globally more than ever before, but more fearful and less accepting of difference than ever (as I write, Budapest station is being closed, leaving thousands of stranded refugees to suffer on the streets outside).  In the midst of this it is imperative to try to make sense of the world, through, as Braidotti suggests, a politics of affirmation that looks for possibility and potential ('potentsia').  A politics that does not deny pain, but urges us to 'get over ourselves', by starting where we are, resisting the injustices of our times while engaging with them, in the spirit of hope.  The next step for me is to continue to 'get over' my own sense of impostership and ignorance and to work at locating myself, mapping my own, as Braidotti puts it 'cartography' so that I can start from where I am, read what I need to, and free myself from the ties that bind me to the past. (As the daughter of a map-maker, it must be said that this idea really appeals to me).

When I look my own teacher education work it is clear that much of it is actually already grounded in post-human thinking.  During the course I thought a lot of about how we work, and jotted down a number of questions, which I hope to address here and discuss with colleagues in the future:

1.  What would a post-human teacher education curriculum look like?
2. How do we examine our own position regarding 'pain' in education, and how do we make it affirmative?
3.  What are the 'ties which bind us' to a particular standpoint on education?
4.  What are the 'missing slices of the past' which our curriculum is lacking?
5. What kind of liberating 'assemblages' can we create to take our work forward, and how?

I have to stop now, the film is drawing to a close and the Beast is about to be turned into a Prince, saved by true love. I was always disappointed by this part; I always loved the Beast, with his kind heart, generosity, wisdom and general furriness (who wouldn't want to cuddle up to him?!)  As a child, I often wondered why he had to change.  But of course, the Beast is an 'other', a misfit in our view of what should be human.  Of course the story ends when he changes, because there is no possibility left.  Perhaps it's time to change the story, as we shift our own paradigm about what it actually means to be human.

• Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Polity Press.