Duck and Cover

Duck and Cover was one of the winning stories performed by the wonderful Lin Sagovsky at the 'Women and Girls' Liars League event on August 11th.

Read it or listen to it here or watch 👇

On Play: Learning from Fairytales

A Tiny Feast by Chris Adrian (2009) is a modern fairytale. My Goodreads review gives it five stars and explains:

'The juxtaposition of the fairy world with a cancer ward gives us a new viewpoint with which to see the world of science. Real life needs hopes and dreams without which we would not strive to overcome our trials. Sometimes it's better to be 'away with the fairies' than to engage with the sadness and hardship of human life and death. All this and so much more, presented with humour, warmth and a hospital environment we can believe in, wrapped in the guise of a short story.'

The story has many important messages which include the idea that children should play, and that sometimes fairytales and the like are ways people can use to process what is happening around them and make a kind of understanding of the impossibility of devastating situations. In the story we are told:

'A boy should play—that is his whole purpose.'  

In this instance it is illness which prevents the child from playing but in society we have created many other ways to prevent our children from playing and ways of curbing their playfullness. Whether we are dressing them beyond their years, schooling them with examinations or creating a society which has unrealistic expectations of them by giving a range of responsibilities while not always balancing the book with tending to their rights. We don't have to see the child-soldier or the child in forced labour or the child marriages or mutilation to see the child's right to play being eroded.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) agrees:

'That every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

That member governments shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.'

Article 31

Today the National Union of Teachers (NUT), called for a ballot on boycotting primary school testing  (Coughlan,2016). There have been many boycotts since the SATs were introduced (reference) including  my family's. It was a simple method, whereby the head of the school informed us when the SATs were scheduled and we would keep our child away from school at those times. The head went as far as to tell us the specific times, so that our daughter was only absent for a few hours rather than missing a whole day. Our daughter left primary school 16 years ago but it seems, we are are having the same arguments. 

Arguments which Holt was having in 1976, when he makes a case for for doing, instead of education. The kind of education which Holt (1976) describes as 'learning cut off from active life and done under pressure of bribe or threat, greed and fear' (p.3). Whereas:

‘Play is freely chosen, personally directed, intrinsically motivated behaviour that actively engages the child. Play can be fun or serious. Through play children explore social, material and imaginary worlds and their relationship with them, elaborating all the while a flexible range of responses to the challenges they encounter. By playing, children learn and develop as individuals, and as members of the community.’ 

 Davy, A. (2006)

This is why I am a youthworker. To play, to encourage play, to remove barriers to choice of and in play and to build relationships and communities from the central tools of play, which include:

• freedom
• voluntary participation
• choice
• personal interest
• individual direction
• motivation
• engagement
• exploration
• social skills
• creativity
• flexibility
• challenge
• experiment
• learning
• development
• individuality
• cohesion

(List based on Davy, 2006, quote above)

So let's play.

Adrian, C. (2009) A Tiny Feast, The New Yorker, Issue April 20, 2009

Couglan, S. (2016) Teachers Union Calls for Ballot on Primary Test Boycott, BBC News  

Davy, A. (2006)  New Playwork: Play and Care for Children 4-16, Cengage Learning EMEA

Holt, J. (1976) Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better, Penguin Books Ltd, Middlesex

United Nations (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner

Change: Theory and Practice

“Education is the most powerful weapon 
which you can use to change the world.”

Nelson Mandela

Anderson in The Community Builder's  Approach to Theory of Change (2005, p. 2-6) prescribes the following path to elicit change:

1. Identify the social change wanted or long term goal
2. Map a pathway backwards to preconditions to achieve that goal
3. Map further back to what preconditions are needed for those outcomes
4. Map further back to the preconditions primarily needed to begin the process of change

This will include the identification of interventions required to achieve each outcome and indicators at each level of outcome to measure success.

Anderson provides a practical guide to facilitating a group through this process, including a case study, PowerPoint presentation and training materials.

Anderson, A. (2005). The Community Builder's Approach to Theory of Change: A Practical Guide to Theory and Development. New York: The Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change. 

Keep Learning to Keep Young

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. 
The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young." 

 Henry Ford

So what do we do with our young ? We start teaching them from birth, first survival skills like feeding. Then skills like movement and communication. Then we put them in a compulsory learning environment for approximately 11years, with an option to stay on for a further two or three at college and three or four more at university.

At the end of the the 11 years of compulsory education (preceded by 5 years informal education) we say they are of age to marry, to join the forces and to have babies. They are not thought to be educated enough (despite this being the time when people have had the longest period of formal education of their lives) to vote.

This is either a sad indictment of our educational system or a sad reflection of those in power who have left their learning years too far behind.

And we wonder why some young people have no interest in politics. Why do adults feel the same way? Because they think it doesn't concern them.

It's just another way to control them...limit their voice...forget that they are our future leaders. They will run the world. And hopefully they will learn from our mistakes. They will keep learning and keep young.

Raised by Wolves - So much for keeping the wolf from the door!

The nature nurture debate continues, but does it matter if you have genes that give you a good start in life when you could end up being raised by wolves?

The fairy tales like Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book or earlier tales like that of Romulus and Remus all had happy endings. They didn't worry about the critical times for language acquisition or other such needs of a child. Real life Mowgli syndrome is an altogether more disturbing story, and one which doesn't even have to include four legged animals. In the case of Genie a ten year old girl brought up in isolation from human social contact, the animals who raised her were humans. There has been no happy ending there.

Of course we think this is an extreme case of horrific abuse and that most children who suffer abuse don't to that extent, that they have some measure of a quality of life. And we reckon it doesn't happen that often anyway.

However....

• 23% of people report being physically abused as children (WHO)

 And what about deprivation?

• 1 billion children in the world are living in poverty ...that is 1 in 2*
• 100 million children are stunted or under weight**
• 640 million children have no adequate shelter*
• 400 million children have no access to safe water*
• 270 million children have no health services*
• 120 million children have no education*

And because of this...

• 3.1 million children die a year because if poor nutrition**
• 1.4 million children die a year from a lack of safe water and sanitation*
• 2.2 million children die a year because they are not immunised*
• 18, 000 children die every day because of poverty (UNICEF)

Sources: *Poverty Facts and Stats by Anup Shah

** World Food Programme Hunger Stats

So much for keeping the wolf from the door!

So how about nearer home? In Tower Hamlets, the East End of London there is a child poverty rate of over 50%. How can this be ? How can a London borough book ended by the illustrious City and the financial district of Canary Wharf have children living in poverty, and so many ?

The government committed to ending child poverty by 2020, however, according to the Guardian (2014), the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts that by 2020 it will increase by 39%.

So much for keeping the wolf from the door !

So what happens to the children in the world who avoid or survive the abuse and deprivation? Do they grow up to do better than the previous generation or is their behaviour conditioned by the wolves that raised them? Whether children experience the animal-like carnivorous greed for food or the capitalist 'Wolf of Wall Street' greed for money, they will be conditioned by the extended capitalist media family, this wolf in sheep's clothing.

'We best measure a society’s true worth by how it treats its youngest members ‑ the girls and boys who would one day become tomorrow’s parents, citizens and leaders.' 

Anthony Lake, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

Will our children grow up to be wolves too? Are we committing to an ever spiralling vicious circle and widening gap between the rich and poor? Creating a more unequal society. And more and more children in the world dying from neglect?

When we discuss the nature/nurture debate we do so as if the nurturing is a given. However I would contend that the word 'nurture'  is a contradiction in terms when it comes to children being raised by wolves. And that, considering the way that children are treated by the human animal, at times it would be kinder to throw them to the wolves.

So much for keeping the wolf from the door!

Not So Wonderful

Today I failed to in my efforts to eat the elephant 'one bite at a time'. I had mustered the energy I wasn't feeling and had, as James put it, 'switched on' for the group of school students to the point where it wouldn't be noticed that I felt like throwing up and lying down in a dark room. Whether it was my sinuses or side effects of the medication I just started, it didn't matter, I couldn't shift it. All I could do was rise above it and tackle one task at a time. I was doing well, acting as if nothing was wrong, welcoming the students and cheerfully asking them to join me in circle time, catching up with their activities that week. As I took the sign-in sheet out, I thought I'd inject a little humour and positivity into the proceedings, so as I read out each name to mark them in I adding adjectives to their names like:

The wonderful ...

And here we have the great....

And the fabulous...

And we have the lovely...

I went through all the young people', who on hearing how wonderful, great, fabulous or lovely they were reacted with shy smiles and delighted laughter. It was really sweet. Then I went through the workers names and the students enjoyed hearing each adults name being called out in a similar fashion and even reminded me of a missing worker and I made sure I mentioned that the 'Wonderful Avril' was missed and they were pleased. Then I asked the name of the replacement teacher. She said 'Miss Muir', that her first name was too hard to say and anyway that's what the school expected.

I didn't swallow it. Instead, after saying 'and the wonderful Avril', I followed it up with a quieter lower toned, 'And the not-so-wonderful Miss Muir' to the shock of the few who heard me, including Miss Muir. I quickly redressed the error and said,  'I'm joking,' and said more loudly and cheerily, 'And of course the lovely Miss Muir.' And I clapped and whooped to overcompensate and bring proceedings to an upbeat end.

I was a little ashamed of myself. I should have risen above it. Although she was the only one to want only her surname used, I should have dealt with it better. I suppose I was disappointed that such a wonderful moment with the young people was slightly tarnished by her need to keep an authoritative distance between her and her students.

So to prevent this occurring in the future I will write into the contract between the schools and our centre that part of the way our informal education works is with everyone starting and being treated equally, which begins with our identities and our names - our first names first.

And I will try to continue to eat the elephant one bite at a time...however unpalatable the bite.

Lighting Fires

Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.

Attributed to WB Yeats & originating with Heraclitus around 500 BCE

I can't always choose what happens to me but I can choose how I experience it. Whether I see it in terms of motivation, inspiration, warning or confirmation, its all learning.

I set out to live my life this week lighting fires rather than filling pails. I went to a networking meeting in City Hall, worked with the Museum in Docklands on a local history project, got some news of the 'life threatening' variety relating to my daughter's health one day and went to her graduation the next. I learned that fire could be a metaphor for warmth, security and light. It could be the cosy feeling of safety or the flicker of inspiration or the kindling of a passion. It could also burn. All could motivate.

Light

The meeting in City Hall was surprisingly enlightening and inspirational. It sparked ideas. It prompted me to think about writing and learning from it and learning and writing about it. A see-saw Kolb's Cycle. We do something, think about it, make conclusions and surmise, try something and start all over somewhere in the cycle – back and forth and round and round.

Warmth

On the history project, during a tour of St Annes (one of the five Hawksmoors in London), I noticed all the publicity materials and commented that our centre didn't have any. Milly, a 15 year old working on the project said 'You don't need it. We know what you do and we know how good you are.' This made me feel a warm glow. Maybe I was doing something right.

The Burn

Our campfire where we toasted marshmallows

The life threatening news relating to my daughter's health burned. It was a terrifying shock and although she lives with a somewhat debilitating condition already, most long term degeneration is trumped by the slightest invocation of the 'C' word. We hoped it was a warning shot across the bow. A fire that wouldn't take. That it was the hot stove or fireplace where we learned not to play with fire. An early diagnosis would mean early intervention, like a small fire could be more easily put out. But forest fires all start the same – small. I had to tell myself to see it as good news, its not as if the fire was out of control. It could still be a good thing. A warning can be good. That's what I told her.

Security & Passion

Then came graduation day. I had encouraged my daughter to go from the start. I had no idea if it would be a good experience or not but I knew that as much as she could regret going she could also regret not going and at least if she went she could have a basis for her opinion. We went and it was wonderful. Jenny was anxious and nervous, from the putting on of the gown to the walk on stage to receive her scroll but she felt like she had been acknowledged for her achievements by her peers and an institute which shared her passion for learning and it felt good. She had worked and paid her own way through her education with the Open University and had shared with us everything from the excitement of the opening of the box of course materials to the slowly incremental word counts to the too close for comfort deadlines. We got to also share the celebration.

Tony Benn's son was there to receive an honorary doctorate posthumously on behalf of his father. He talked about his fathers activism and love of learning. He talked about when discussions abounded regarding raising the age of compulsory education to 18 and how his father had disagreed. Tony Benn said that the age of compulsory education should not be raised to 18 but to 95! He advocated lifelong learning. He had not been challenged on this assertion, apart from one man who told him that 95 didn't work because he was 96!

'Its not every day you get your dream job', a mum of a young man I have worked with, commented this week. 'Thank you', she said, he couldn't have done it without youse.'

None of us can do it without each other. That's what I learned this week. We motivate and inspire each other. We are each others fires.