Volume 2, Issue 1, Spring 2017

Schooling & Culture

Young Worker’s Camera 15 – 24 years old,

B
Werker 10 — Community Darkroom,
Amsterdam 2014.
Volume 2, Issue 1, Spring 2017

Schooling & Culture 1

3 Editorial 45 Education Cuts
The State We’re In
Don’t Heal
A tear out poster and flyer
9 Deconstructing
the White Paper 49 Freshie
Shared notes from a Radical Education Forum Using narrative, fiction and inherited family
discussion of the Education White Paper 2016 photographs to facilitate conflict in the classroom
between teachers and educationalists

56 Meeting at the
13 Reclaiming Our Past
Schooling & Culture 1978 – 84
Crossroads
A conversation between one of the Schooling & Culture
founders Andrew Dewdney and former student contri­
23 Classroom Do’s & butor Russell Newell

Don’t’s for Students

62 Power, Structures,
and Teachers
Collaborative research project challenging
Language, People
rules and the law! Pull out poster designed with students for your
classroom, with lesson plan ideas and project write up

27 Accountability,
67 Recovering the State
Information, Education
We’re In
after the White Paper Questioning and charting the potentials and
A cultural studies analysis of the history and practice achievements of the state, as well as its pitfalls
of educational data collection

73 The Desire to
30 The Edu-business
Decolonise Education
We’re In
A comic strip illustrating academisation
in the Name of Social
and Cultural Justice
32 Teachers Don’t Talk A critique of how education plays a part
in reproducing racism
About Education
An invitation to be part of an e-conversation about
issues in secondary education that will be published
79 Young Worker’s
in the next issue of Schooling & Culture
Camera
A young worker photography project with
33 Clerk to Governors werker magazine

A clerk’s account of school governing body meetings

as the arena in which corporate, educational,
and governmental spheres collide
82 Why Teachers
Oppose Prevent
38 Art, Schooling A statement written by teachers and education
workers in opposition to the government’s
and Contemporary counter-terrorism strategy

Culture
Bee Gees and colour wheels: a reflection on
86 Reading List
the relevance of the art room today in response A selection of books recommended by the
to Martin Lister Schooling & Culture Working Group (ongoing..)

40 Hip Hop Ed 88 Afterword —

A hip hop educator’s introduction to the theory
and practice of a co-investigative pedagogy
Looking Forward
The workings out, processes and potentials
for Schooling & Culture
 Editorial I

“This journal has been

conceived primarily as
a practical contributio
n […] to a current de
surrounding secondar bate
y education… Anyon
who has worked direct e
ly in secondary educat
for even a short period ion
of time would find
it hard to deny that th
e most dominant feat
of much recent experi ure
ence is that of the na
and effects of educat ture
ional change. For the
teacher this must invo
lve an active participat
in the process of chan ion
ge. This can be experi
enced individually as -
a resistance to the
effects of change as
well as some attempt
grasp what brings ab to
out change. This proc
is far from abstract, it ess
is a matter of urgent
attention and practic
al importance to our
work as teachers.”
(Editorial, Schooling &
Culture, Volume 1,
Issue 1, 1978)

Schooling & Culture be intimidated by precarity which

Volume 2, Issue 1,
Spring 2017
The State We’re In
Finding time to exhale and reflect
on our commitment to education
for young people, or even for
that matter to do the washing up,
is a challenge in itself between
assessment forms and home/work
tensions. The ‘centre ground’ has
been dragged so far to the right
that to question the values of
education policy is to risk being
shouldered out of the public sphere
altogether. Education reforms
have disfigured relationships and
intentions built on care and learning
by preferencing evidential data,
competition and other typical
characteristics of neo-liberalism.
And yet, here we are, refusing to
typifies our time and defying
neutrality and acedia which numbs
our struggle.
Schooling & Culture disrupts
a culture of individualism, competi-
tion and surveillance by claiming
a new collective position within,
and outside of, the school context
through self-representation and
lived experience. This journal is
an invitation to strengthen solidarity
between teachers, students and
cultural practitioners by exploring
politicised praxes of secondary
school teaching in the face of
increasing conservative toxicity.
The first iteration of this issue is
produced by autonomous group:
youth workers, teachers in Pupil
Referral Units (PRUs), academies
and state schools, cultural practi-
tioners, artists, parents, school
students, workers, professionals,
freelancers, academics, educators,

Schooling & Culture 3

I Editorial

4 Schooling & Culture

 Editorial
educationalists, trainee teachers, teaching
assistants — a multitude of definitions fit our
span of work. This publication is, and will be,
a dialogue across race, ability, class, gender,
sexuality and geography, concerned with
positive and practical strategies for action
in our educational work. Schooling & Culture
exists as a space to ask potentially controversial
questions, make difficult critiques, or present
open-ended interruptions, with the confidence
that comes from collective reflexivity. The work
claims, shares and protects a space in which to
experiment; thus we acknowledge the frequent
necessity for anonymity.
I
It’s old news that funding and resources
have been cut to near non-existence across
all sectors. While concerned with schooling,
we also lament the closing down of other
informal spaces of pedagogy: youth clubs,
community centres, libraries, playgrounds.
We regret the lack of potential for spontaneity,
we resent the sterilization of opportunities
for encounters with known and unknown
neighbours, the dispersal of neighbours,
families, networks. This project is homeless
and recognises the homelessness of many
social and political projects that may or may
not still be breathing, that suffer the cost of
disagreeing, dissenting.

e r s c e n a r io this Schooling & Culture during 1978 –1984

Whichev
(now referred to as ‘Volume 1’) was a colla­

h a s fo u n d itself boration between a group of radical left teachers

journal f o r it to be
and working class secondary school students.
in t e n d
in we
It was produced as a direct response to increasing

t ow a r d s meaning- cuts and policies on the eve of a new Conser­

used
hips with
vative government and was informed by the
r e la t io n s radical Cultural Studies ideas of Stuart Hall,
­ful
d e n t s a n d peers, under whom many of its founders had studied.
st u
d a g a in s t schools, Driven by a commitment to addressing the
in an f a n etwork
intersection of education, culture and social
a r t o justice, it was produced as a means to forge
and as p e it photo- solidarity and share experience between pupils,
r n it y ; b
of frate teachers and schools.

o p y in g p ages for This issue is not a nostalgic project.

c , or giving
s o n p la n
a les
g u a g e t o articulate
lan o s itions
x d is / p
comple
tent.
of dis/con
This year has heralded many significant socio-
political shifts. Visible in all our conversations
towards the production of this journal has been
that the sites of education are not neutral places
but are situated — constructed by council strategy,
government policy, history, migration, austerity
and global trends — and are undergoing political,
social and economic restructuring that are
constantly redefining those sites’ boundaries.
Party politics, austerity, war, Brexit, the refugee
crisis, the education white paper, Prevent,
free market privatisation, late capitalism,
the financial crisis, the state, philanthrocapitalism,
institutional racism, British Values, nationalism,
academisation — this journal, through the
consideration of secondary school education,
sets itself up as a proactive site of resistance.
It is a contemporary reactivation of the intents
and purposes articulated by Stuart Hall and
formative moments of Cultural Studies. It is not
simply a response to a project that ended as
part of Thatcher’s education reforms, but rather,
it is a response to the current state of education
which seems beyond even the wildest of
Thatcher’s reformist dreams. The journal
explores Cultural Studies in secondary schools
as a means of acknowledging issues of social
values within the classroom and in a way
that can cope with restrictive curriculum
regulations. Schooling & Culture will continue
to develop methods and relationships to
overcome being silenced and instrumentalised
by the state and private sector.
Schooling & Culture is made up of first-
hand accounts of teaching, write ups of projects
in and out of the classroom and critiques
of current policy and culture. It is presented
with an ambition to make time for reflexivity,
to allow space for conflict, and to enliven
praxis. The contributors are London-based,
and here we acknowledge the limitations this
brings. We urge you to get in touch, to share

Schooling & Culture 5

I Editorial
practice, strengthen alliances, build affinities
towards an articulate groundswell of solidarity
rooted in experimentation and resistance.
The nature of this inquiry is not to be definitive,
but to have a fluidity which counters the current
state of education we’re in.
The journal in your hands was
purposely printed with an intention to
move in unpredictable ways.
∙ How is it possible to teach
about and encourage
politics in institutions
that exclude and silence
dissenting voices?
∙ What are we doing that
is beyond the means of the
dominant imagination?
∙ How can we subvert the
set practice of controlling
young people’s bodies
(behaviour management
and surveillance) and
minds (profiled monitoring
and elitist curricula)?
Different people expressed a desire for a printed
journal which they could strategically place
on a staffroom coffee table open on a particular
page. Other teachers working in panopti-
con-esque buildings who are denied private
space wanted a printed journal which could
be camouflaged amongst more commonplace
literature. And crucially we recognise increased
isolation experienced by teachers who are
in conflict with their working conditions and
who the journal seeks to support. Whichever
scenario this journal has found itself in we
intend for it to be used towards meaningful
relationships with students and peers, in and
against schools, and as part of a network of
fraternity, be it photocopying pages for a lesson
plan, or giving language to articulate complex
dis/positions of dis/content. The journal is also
made available online, recognising the ease
with which content can be shared across time
and space. We are self-published under
Creative Commons and welcome content being
reproduced freely.
Visual culture as a subject in schools
is increasingly devalued and annexed to after
school activities, the formal organisation
of schooling and the informal organisation
of culture are increasingly separated. We want
to strengthen the work of teachers and young
people to produce situated theory connected
with popular experience, to unsettle sites
of power, politics and economics.
!!!

∙ What would an education Sch

o
a re oling &
system look like that our
al an C
d pr ulture r
wor essi
relates to the way young and k, ng n ecognis
broa develo eed es
the p t
people are experiencing stat den the netwo o expan
So f e d rk d
ar a and me ebates s
the world and supports bee
n
d ozen a ning arou
n
with meetin or so p of edu d
young people to shape t
men heir va when
g e op c ation
ts, b ried pos le have .
it themselves? on n
e
ut th lives
a
s ible,
expe w resp e projec nd com
rien ons t dep mit-
We c es
look es and , input ends
∙ How can we set about forw k
ard nowled ideas,
s,
to h g
resisting without losing earin e.
g fro
m yo
more ground than we u!

started with?

6 Schooling & Culture

 Editorial I

Schooling & Culture 7

 Deconstructing the White Paper
Here is a dialogue
between four teachers
(F, S, D and J) examining
underlying nationalist,
capitalist, colonial and
neoliberal values in the
2016 Education White
Paper ‘Educational
Excellence Everywhere’.
We suggest reading it
as if you were overhearing
someone’s conversation
on a bus, or reading
it aloud like a script.
Footnotes — all excerpts below
are from Education Excellence
Everywhere (2016)
1 We will ensure that the new
school system is dynamic,
responding to success
and failure.
4.28. This approach means
that the size and influence
of MATs will vary according
to performance. The best
MATs will flourish, taking
over and turning around
weak academies; MATs
which are underperforming
will be challenged and, if
necessary, their schools will
be transferred to a stronger
trust. This is essential for the
system to operate effectively
and to serve parents.
2 1.57. An effective accounta-
bility system ensures that
professionals are held
accountable for the
outcomes of their decisions
using fair, intelligent, reliable
and carefully-balanced
measures of success and
failure. These measures must
avoid creating perverse
incentives or unduly
hindering innovation.
They must also recognise
the risk and challenge
teachers and headteachers
take on when relocating to
work in our most challenging
schools. And they should
be proportionate, giving
schools and groups time
to improve while reacting
in time to avoid chronic
failure that irredeemably
damages any child’s
education.
3 1.15. In 2010, we started
an historic devolution of
power from local and central
II
[F] Where in education do we want to resist politically,
rather than just pedagogically? Due to the slippery rhetoric and
language and the vacuity of the white paper it is tricky to identify
what we need to resist. We are under attack, not broken.
Stop rubbing salt in our wounds by ‘fixing’ what’s not broken.
[D] I wouldn’t say it wasn’t broken but I totally agree
that it is an attack.
[S] I agree, the education system was already broken, but
we are not, or if we are then is it because of the (continuous) attack?
[F] Yes, we are not broken, but they are trying to fix us;
fix teachers, students, families — we are not broken, we are under
attack, and it hurts. I feel aggressive. They are aggressive, which
is why it feels so colonial — aggressive attacks under the pretence
of fixing savages/plebs. We want a democratic education system,
not just democratic pedagogy, with real accountability. Not a market
of education provisions, with dubious economic accountability.
[J] The politics of fear which intersects the Prevent agenda
and the academisation proces — ‘we aspire to be completely
non-interventionist / we will leave schools to run themselves’ — 
unless your grades aren’t good enough or Ofsted deems you to
be ‘coasting’ because you fail to drive ever forward and upward
in the quest to be ‘outstanding’,1 so watch your back! Which links
back to the audit culture and dominance of data in the day-to-day
lives of students and teachers.2
[F] The divisive distinction between leaders and teachers
is preparing the education system to be the equivalent ‘new world’
for neoliberalism. Once sufficient numbers of managers are appointed
in every school, it will be ripe for profit making.3 Teachers will
be deskilled minions while the up-skilled leaders will fly in to do
what PWC does for Pearsons: make the systems more efficient.
Education may as well be a mobile phone provider — the same
market based rules apply. Only in this case you can’t get a refund
for poor service or faulty items, cos it’s your kid what’s got faulty
memory capacity and bad connection.
[S] Competitiveness, fear and divide amongst teachers,
students and parents — everyone within a school — clamping down
on any form of resistance by publicly doubting their commitment
to safeguarding, accountability, and wanting a ‘better’ future
for children. So much for a ‘learning community’.
[D] Leaders are detached from teaching (minimal teaching)
re-enforcing the point of delivering education/knowledge as infor-
mation rather than a subject with emotional connection and further
possibilities. Replacing the teacher with leaders could lead to abso-
luteness of subjects rather than questioning prevailing (colonial?)
narratives presented by textbooks/government/curriculum.
The necessity of teacher training is replaced by a neoliberal drive:
to remove status and skills of people with immediacy and connec-
tion with students, instead promoting concepts of higher pay/
authority of others/individualism. Furthermore, detachment of
complex relationships with young people in favour of data/abstract
attainment language/testing!!!
[S] In order to prevail the culture of the coloniser,
teachers have to be removed from any form of relationship
with the (colonised) students.
Schooling & Culture 9
II Deconstructing the White Paper
government to the best school
[J] Also, the various ‘leadership’ CPD ‘gold standards’ leaders. In the words of educa-
certification etc will likely be run and examined by Pearson et al — tional pioneers Sir Michael
 another profit stream. Be aware of the increasing role of the Barber and Joel Klein,
‘Regional School Commissioners’ who again have no community/ “you can mandate adequacy
but you cannot mandate
public accountability (and represent vast sectors!), and explicitly greatness; it has to be
no role in supporting schools, simply telling schools they must unleashed.” Over the next five
improve under the threat of being taken over by a different multi- years, we will continue that
devolution of power, while
academy train. helping to develop a smarter
[F] Picket the profiteers — what lessons have the govern- system in which these
ment/market learnt from dismantling the NHS which they can teachers and leaders can work.
4 8.6. Fair, transparent funding
use to make the dismantling of education even more efficient? is essential for school
What can we learn from the resistance? leaders — but for too long,
[D] Funding for schools. We need to question the need headteachers have struggled
for making profit, the values behind the drive. Outing profit-makers with funding systems which
are both unfair and opaque
in the educational system by making a direct link between students 5 6.36.To further support
/children as generators of this wealth. schools, we will work with
[J] That little sentence about ‘fairer funding’ 4 — does the Behavioural Insights Team
and What Works Centres
that mask some kind of cuts/unfair redistribution plan along the to develop tools that schools
lines of NHS? can use to identify the most
successful approaches to
building character in their

c a n ’t g e t a refund pupils, and to track how well

is case you
those approaches are working.

“Only in th a u lt y it e m s, cos it’s 6 6.37. We will ensure

rvice or f
evidence-based approaches

for poor se lty memory

to character development

t ’s g o t f a u are built into initial teacher

ha
your kid w a d c o n nection.”
training programmes; and

d b work with networks like

capacity an teaching schools to spread

the most effective approaches
to developing character
in schools. Finally, we will
deliver a new round of
[F] Rather than changing the child through character Character Awards, recognising
education, what does each child have that can help them to the schools and organisations
change their conditions? Decolonising our mind — this process which are most successful
can never be completed, given historical and ongoing colonisation. in supporting children to
develop key character traits.
Character education is reminiscent of colonial education: detached, 7 1.54d More great sponsors,
dogmatic and oppressive, towards ideological ends of maintaining where they are needed: in
and expanding power, culture, laws etc of colonisers.5 the new school system, most
school improvement will take
[S] Exclusions on the basis of wearing the wrong shoes/tie/ place within effective MATs.
clothes/haircut — what is an acceptable look in school — is very specific So we will ensure there are
culturally! What is not accepted is also very specific culturally.6 enough strong academy
sponsors from business, chari-
[D] Normalisation. Patriotism. Prevent! Tories! Immigration table organisations and existing
policy. Anti-union laws. National Curriculum focus of White Paper. strong schools available to
All forms of narrowing individuals NOT on an explicit personal transform schools that need
level but on a structural/national/legal/propaganda/discourse level their support, particularly
in the toughest areas. At the
so that the individual (teacher and student) has to fit within the heart of this approach will
structure in order to achieve goals. This of course relates to wider be supporting the strongest
society: behave, get a job, work, buy etc (!!!). Also works on a schools and sponsors to
expand their reach.
very immediate level in teaching, students react to various rules/
ideas and the teacher is left with fewer options for how to deal
with various issues… we should explore further issues of
Behaviour Management.
[J] Boroughs are ‘failing’ and how that maps onto race,
class, is very political — would be interesting to investigate the
maps?7 The traits which are seen as virtuous — ‘being resilient
and knowing how to persevere, how to bounce back if faced with

10 Schooling & Culture

 Deconstructing the White Paper II
8 6.33. A 21st century education failure’ etc — are exactly about becoming flexible members of
should prepare children for adult
life by instilling the character traits a precarious workforce. The way that your school may be taken
and fundamental British values over by new management at any time, and that you must be able
that will help them succeed: being to adapt to that, prepares you for life in the ‘21st century’! 8
resilient and knowing how to
persevere, how to bounce back
if faced with failure, and how To be continued...
to collaborate with others at
work and in their private lives.

1.3 Education is the hallmark of a civilised society, the engine

of social justice and economic growth, the foundation
of our culture and the best investment we can make in the
future of our country. (Education Excellence Everywhere,
White Paper 2016)

∙ Radical Education Forum works to disrupt these ideologies

in the classroom and in solidarity among teachers.

∙ The White Paper is delivered from the same source as

the current austerity budget.

∙ Austerity budgets ostracise the poorest people and

heighten tensions between those in need of jobs, housing,
services, income-support etc.

∙ We need both anti-fascist pedagogies and pedagogies

to teach fascists.

∙ In the likelihood that employment is scarce and income-

support scarcer, education can focus on different ends,
and indeed, different means.

Schooling & Culture 11

II Recovering The State We’re In

12 Schooling & Culture

 Reclaiming our Past: III
Schooling & Culture 1978 – 84

Schooling & Culture (1978 – 84) was a radical education journal

produced for teachers by a range of educators and young people
as a means to support political debate and critical practices
within schools. Established on the eve of a new conservative
government, its title reflects the debate between two pedagog-
ical, but also political, paradigms. On one hand schooling which
by the late 70s had, for progressive educators, become
shorthand for a state apparatus of socially divisive and reproduc-
tive forms of education manifest in traditional disciplinarian
approaches to teaching; and on the other culture, denoting the
space outside the school and the role that popular and youth
cultures would play in a conception of education that was
committed to social justice.

Inner city schools by the late 1970s were often

Schooling & Culture archival materials

over populated and under staffed, with high
rates of truancy paralleled by liberal use of
expulsion to ‘deal with’ bored and frustrated
students. This was a period of high immigration
and mass unemployment and decisions as
to what constituted valuable learning or ‘useful
knowledge’ were subject to contestation
and debate within and outside of the school.
Traditionalist approaches to schooling — many
secondary schools were still driven by church
organisations — lacked relevance and meaning
for many young people and schools were often
unaware of how to respond to, let alone engage,
racially diverse working class kids, many
of whom had been taught by experience that
school meant little more than a step toward
instrumentalist youth training schemes
and unemployment. The subjects in school,
and resources available to support them, only
re-instated this irrelevance, with text books
across the curriculum that depicted white,
nuclear families of mum and dad, two kids
and a dog…in History it was kings and queens,
rote learning in English and in Art two peppers
and a candlestick to be laboriously rendered
in line and tone. across Britain throughout the 1970s. On TV and
The practices of many schools were in newspapers, government enforced narratives
symptomatic of wider structural inequalities of ‘idle black youth’ disguised an increasingly
and systemic racism that underscored tensions authoritarian and violent culture of policing that

Schooling & Culture 13

 Schooling & Culture
Reclaiming our Past

14
III Schooling & Culture work in progress, 1980. Schooling & Culture related exhibition at The Cockpit. Courtesy Andrew Dewdney.
 Reclaiming our Past III
precipitated the race riots in Brixton and Toxteth

Schooling & Culture archival materials

in 1981. And in the school, with free use of the
cane until 1987, this violence was legitimized
where punishment for ‘bad behavior’ was often
enforced with little or no recourse as to what
the school represented for young people and why.
Yet it was the migration to and diversity
of UK cities that led progressive change at this
time. Within schools across the country many,
often younger, teachers rejected the punitive
approach of their forbears in favour of one that
would pay attention to the worlds of the students
they taught. And through the persistence of
dedicated teachers working alongside unions,
gradual change to the range of texts set by
exam boards were made possible. In 1982 left
wing activist and geography schoolteacher
Dawn Gill produced Secondary School Geography
in ILEA: Its Contribution Towards the Creation
of a Racist Society, a report critiquing the well-
meaning but implicitly colonial, imperialist
values conveyed through the teaching of
geography divorced from its social, political
dimension. Initially banned from publication
this report led to the organisation of the sell-
out Racist Society conference at the Institute
of Education in 1983.
Head teachers in particular had the oppor- TRCs also ran professional courses that,
tunity to lead the school as a community in with the support of progressive heads, meant
which commitment to multicultural education, sustained release from school to engage in
parental involvement, pupil democracy, frank specialised training. One such course was ‘The
approaches to sex education, and the outright Inner City Child’, held in 1974 at the Inner London
banning of corporal punishment and, in some Education Authority resource centre in Highbury
cases, expulsion,1 offered an alternative to the Corner, where 20 or so teachers spent six weeks
disciplinarian regime that prevailed elsewhere. learning about the social experiences of working
And whilst such schools were not without their class kids in the city. The ideas released from
problems — the measures of accountability that such courses fed back into the school new
have today become excessive and militaristic thinking that refreshed and often challenged
did, then, guard against significant abuses of prevailing practices within it. Perhaps most
power — at best they reflected a culture of care significantly, the prevalence of such courses
and commitment to understanding the place of reflect how teachers’ individual professional
education within a wider socio-political system. expertise was valued and deemed beneficial
Yet it was often outside of the school that to the community of the school as a whole.
independent initiatives laid claim to radical Teacher Resource Centres were related
new approaches to of teaching and learning. to the many other informal yet organized
In an era before the national curriculum, spaces established in cities in the 1970s;
Teacher Resource Centres, funded by Local youth centres, community darkrooms, motor-
Education Authorities and dotted throughout bike workshops and adventure playgrounds
cities and across the country, were established all offered alternative opportunities for learning,
to develop new resources with and for teachers. play and social life across generations.
For those interested in developing new ideas, Schooling & Culture emerged from one such
an entire support network was available. external site: The Cockpit Arts Workshop in
London. Originally housed in a purpose-built
1 Michael Duane of the infamous Rising Hill school theatre, Cockpit Arts was set up to promote
in Islington deemed expulsion to be illegal within
compulsory education.
drama projects for schools, later with the

Schooling & Culture 15

 III Reclaiming our Past

Schooling & Culture archival materials

addition of music and visual art departments.
Photography was central to the work at Cockpit
Arts, with workshops delivered in schools using
a portable darkroom carried around in a transit
van. Later, when the Cockpit moved to new
premises in Holborn equipped with photo-
graphic darkrooms, teachers could attend with
school groups for specialised workshops
alongside curious itinerant young people
excluded from, or disaffected by, school.
The significance of photography as a tool for
working class education cannot be underesti-
mated; the production of images acted as both
a form of self-representation and vehicle for
critique of the dominant means of production
within mainstream media. This dual function
of self-representation and cultural analysis was
indebted to the work of Stuart Hall and the
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in
Birmingham. ‘Culture’, for Hall, referred not to
high art or ‘elitist culture’, but something that
surrounds and constitutes us all. Cultural
Studies would provide a radical re thinking of
the role of everyday experience alongside
critical analysis of the media as a means to
render visible mechanisms of power and
challenge common sense values and beliefs.2
Such was the influence of Hall that frequent disagreements between Cockpit Arts and
the Art Inspectorate to whom they were respon-
sible led to the re-naming of the ‘Visuals
Schooling & Culture archival materials

Department’ to ‘The Department of Cultural

2 The work at Cockpit attempted to steer a path away from
an emerging orthodoxy of media studies wherein mass
media images reproduced in textbooks were to be criti-
cally analysed from the distance of the classroom desk, to
an approach that was practical, engaging and lived.
Studies’, and re assignment to the Multicultural
Education Inspectorate.
Cockpit Arts also produced exhibitions of
work made by young people. Andrew Dewdney,
one of the founders of Schooling & Culture,
cites the experience of having work looked
at by a ‘real’ audience as key to many young
people’s sense of achievement that was in stark
contrast to the abstract vacuum of examinations
at school. These exhibitions were often
produced in collaboration with photographers
who developed innovative approaches to exhibi-
tion making that forged new space between
artwork and teaching resource, including
‘Who’s Still Holding the Baby?’ by feminist
collective the Hackney Flashers and ‘Beyond
the Family Album: Public and Private Images’
by socialist photographer Jo Spence. Such was
the interest in and popularity of these exhibi-
tions that they became requested on loan
by schools across the country, requiring the
employment of a full time exhibition co-ordinator
and the production of a DIY touring system
of laminated card displays, packed into laundry

16 Schooling & Culture

 Reclaiming our Past
boxes and distributed via courier and National
Rail’s Red Star parcel service. The success
of these exhibitions reflects the sharing of ideas
across, and the porous relationship between,
external sites and the institutional space of
the school.
Schooling & Culture the journal was
a direct manifestation of, and desire to extend,
the work done at the Cockpit. The 1970s was
a high point of independent radical publishing
and advertisements throughout its issues —
 from Radical Science to Teaching London Kids —
 demonstrate the proliferation of these as
III
Reading through the editorials of Schooling
& Culture gives a sense of the rapidly changing
political landscape with which teachers
and young people were faced, but also the
internal negotiation of this by a group of
educators grappling to respond via the relatively
slow process of a publication. For Dewdney
the journal’s evolution can be separated broadly
into three phases. In its first iteration, and
reflecting the education system through which
its founders had come, it was characterised
by a critique of art education, with what they

Schooling & Culture archival materials

‘important platforms and arenas for organisa-
tion, debate and the dissemination of practical
ideas amongst critical and committed teach-
ers.’3 Yet whilst many journals existed,
the Schooling & Culture group felt these to
be either overly academic with little application
for practice, or overly practical with little theo-
retical or political direction. By way of response
Issue One declares that Schooling & Culture
would be committed to ‘practical strategies
for action!’ This bridging of practice and theory
reflected a conscious allegiance with 19th
century workerist conception of ‘really useful
knowledge’ that had been formulated in opposi-
tion to the production-driven education allotted
to working class people during industrialisation.
Importantly, really useful knowledge constituted
a radical alternative to reductive, socially
divisive (and still-prevalent), dichotomies of
‘academic’ versus ‘technical’ or ‘vocational’
education and would become a key theme
thrashed out over its 14 issues.
Through posters, essays, lesson plans,
comic strips, book reviews and teachers
accounts Schooling & Culture articulated
a critical analysis of ‘the ways knowledge is
selected, structured and valued within school…
and the purposes and effects of this social deemed to be its woolly and deeply conser­vative
management of knowledge.’4 Yet whilst critical notions of the ‘inner creativity’ of the individual,
of much orthodox practice within schools, in favour of a concrete and social commitment
Schooling & Culture was committed to working to the analysis and expression of visual culture — 
with schools, recognising that it was within essentially a pouring in of ideas influenced by
compulsory education that young people Stuart Hall and the CCCS. Significantly, it was
as well as energetic and open-minded teachers more often than not the English, Drama,
could be found and made contact with. Social Studies or Geography departments that
In this sense their relationship with the school em­braced new pedagogies of visual culture,
embodied Raymond Williams’ notion of in and and the diverse interests of these subjects are
against, whereby political change necessitated reflected in the following issues.
working within systems of power as a means The second phase from 1980 –1982 was
to enact change. more self-reflective, addressing perceived
issues of exclusion within Schooling & Culture
3 Schooling & Culture editorial Issue 6 p2 itself in terms of who spoke for who; not only
4 Schooling & Culture editorial Issue 6 p3 had the content of the first issues been

Schooling & Culture 17

III Reclaiming our Past

Schooling & Culture archival materials

produced mostly by further and higher education
lecturers, its editorial board were aware that,
as four men and one woman, all white, that the
social organisation of the publication would
need to reflect the concerns of the journal and
its desired audience. Consequently subsequent
issues were offered to different editorial collec-
tives, such as issue 7 on Gender, Class and
Education. With a large editorial of (mostly)
women, many of whom worked directly within
schools, it was this issue that articulated
a much-needed intersectional analysis with
features on the gendered dimension of teaching,
learning and political work, but also the inter-
section of race, class and gender that played
out in and outside the school.

At the cent
re of the
school the
staf
a place of m f room was
utual supp
as well as ort
disagreem
the open d ent;
iscussion o
politics had f
not—yet—
been demo
nised as
against the
grain of the
school bra
nd.
The final phase between 1982 and 1984 marks
Schooling & Culture’s response to what by this
stage had become the palpable threat to the
existence of the Inner London Education
Authority posed by the conservative govern-
ments agenda of ‘back to basics’ schooling
(sold as a means to address rising inequalities
but, arguably, aimed at the creation of a more
compliant and, once again, production-driven
workforce). These later issues are characterised
by an urgency conveyed by a far more graphic
visual style — partly in response to written
feedback from teachers that it had previously
been too academic and dry, but also reflecting
an embrace of the visual languages of main-
stream media (within and against). These issues
exemplify an approach to cultural analysis from
the ground up through an emphasis on the
styles, rituals and meanings of young people’s
cultural heritage, from Russell Newell’s Rasta:
A Way of Life to a feature on Skins, Mods and
Rockabillies. Other experimental contributions
include ‘Keepam Down Comprehensive’,
a serialised fiction co-authored by the
‘Markham Teachers Group’ which narrates
contemporary socio-political issues outside
of the school through the lens of the teachers
and young people within it. In one ‘episode’
the Brixton riots are articulated through various
perspectives of biased media coverage, corridor
encounters with students and after school
conversations in the pub, giving an insight
to the antagonisms and dilemmas faced by
a heterogeneous school population.
It was through a left distribution agency,
Turnaround, as well as the staff room, protests
and the postal system that Schooling & Culture
was distributed, passed around, or copied on
the banda machine. And with calls for back
copies from ‘institutions as differently placed
as the British Council or the single Teachers
Centre in a Midlands city’5 there existed a
regional network of teachers seeking alternative
approaches to an oppressive disciplinarian
regime that had dominated British schooling
since the Victorian era. At the centre of the
school the staff room was a place of mutual
5 Schooling & Culture editorial issue 6 p3

18 Schooling & Culture

 Reclaiming our Past

Schooling & Culture

Schooling & Culture work in progress, 2015. Schooling & Culture research materials and editorial table in progress, 2016.
III

19
 III Reclaiming our Past
support as well as disagreement; the open
discussion of politics had not — yet — been
demonised as against the grain of the school
brand. Yet by the mid-80s, and despite united
and massive opposition from the teaching
profession, the workshops, youth centres,
TRCs and the ILEA that funded them were
subject to unprecedented cuts, with all external
provisions deemed too costly to maintain.
Schooling & Culture archival materials
20 Schooling & Culture
The very notion of a space to which teachers
could go to reflect upon their teaching, engage
in political debate, develop ideas and new
pedagogies with the support of encouraging
staff appears to be the stuff of legend today.
However the legacy of this work is manifest
in the ongoing work of teachers, educators,
youth workers, young people and many others
who continue to resist a punitive and increas-
ingly infantilising culture of performance, meas-
urement and competition. Schooling & Culture 2
seeks to articulate, share and build on this work.
Schooling & Culture was founded and
edited by Andrew Dewdney, Adrian Chappell,
Alan Tompkin and Martin Lister. Amongst the
many organisers and contributors to Schooling
& Culture were Claire Grey, Jo Spence,
Nica Nava, Stephen Miller, David Hampshire,
Gloria Chamers and Eileen-Hooper Greenhill,
David Lusted, Chris Mottishead and Bob Caterrall.
Announcement:
Autonomous Tech Fetish (ATF) is a
feminist and queer technology collective
committed to gathering, sharing and
making. We explore how digital tech-
nology is fetishised and how we can
respond — to defetishise it or refet-
ishise into new forms, new configurations
that serve our needs and desires.
Contact: the Common House, Unit 5E
Pundersons Gardens, Bethnal Green,
London E2 9QG
bettycipher@yandex.com
Reclaiming our Past II

Schooling & Culture 21

 Classroom Do’s & Don’ts IV
For Students & Teachers

Assembly required I is a temporary research project exploring

a theme selected by a group of year 10 school students who
are being educated at an academy school in central London.
Assembly required I invites collective research in formats that
span talking, making, visiting, debating, thinking, reflecting,
eating, learning, and exchanging, in order to create an agreed
collective work. The work made loosely reflects the critical
learning of the students, their lives at this moment in time and
future thinking about themselves.

For one week in the summer of 2016, five of school hours and not being allowed to
students in the capacity of ‘co-researchers’ challenge teaching.
joined a cultural producer in a gallery to explore The intention of the unscripted day was
a theme of their choice in order to collaborate to discover what was occupying the thoughts
in the making of an artwork. of the students, what subjects or themes
On the first day of the project, the cultural they could potentially work on, thus allowing
producer facilitated an unscripted day which students to go from critical thinking to produc-
was a good strategy since the students had very tive action. The action came in the form
limited experience of going to a gallery to make, of students selecting a theme to explore and
think, talk or learn within. This unscripted day research. The group agreed to explore Rules
called for learning about one another in an open & Laws, since school rules affected them
environment by way of exchanging ideas, on a daily basis.
expressing thoughts, asking questions and
challenging one another. An unscripted day can
be challenging, however, the cultural producer Rules the
yw
to follow in ere all required
acted as a soft guide to the conversations.
The conversations ranged in subjects and cluded: no
in class, s s
ignalling t miling
themes, from personal interests to music to
travel. What transpired over the day was how
teacher in o the
conflicted students felt about their educational order to p
setting, especially in relation to the rules they dropped it ick
ems from
had to adhere to in and out of school. Students
clicking fi the floor,
felt limited in how they could behave, converse, ngers to s
learn, debate or just be as young people. There agreemen how
t, not exp
emotions res
in a physic sing
was a sense that some aspects of the school
were enjoyed, but rules seemed to hinder their
capacity to feel satisfied in their environment. way, keep al
ing claps
Rules they were all required to follow included: a limit of to
no smiling in class, signalling to the teacher two, shak
in order to pick dropped items from the floor, the Headm ing
aster’s ha
clicking fingers to show agreement, not every mo nd
expressing emotions in a physical way, keeping rning.
claps to a limit of two, shaking the Headmaster’s
hand every morning, having to work even when
unwell, being reprimanded for activities outside

Schooling & Culture 23

IV Classroom Do’s & Don’ts
For Students & Teachers

Following this decision, the students took the
roles of ‘co-researchers’ in a collaborative
project. Co-research is an approach to balance
the hierarchies between the teacher/educator/
cultural producer and the group they work with,
thus valuing and incorporating everyone’s input
into what is made by the group. To provide
titles so the students can create a sense
of ownership, commitment and respect.
By creating this small action, it challenges the
‘teacher always knows best’ attitude and the
cultural norms of a classroom. It is important
to think of students not just as students but
as colleagues who hold information that is not
accessible to adults or professionals.
At the end of the first day, the first ‘action
research’ was created in the form of a set of
questions to be used by co-researchers to
interview a person in their lives. The questions
consisted of the following: how are rules made,
where are rules made, which rules to follow
and why are they made? The interviews were
conducted at home after the gallery closed.
The next day, they brought their answers in
to discuss and present to one another. After this
session, the co-researchers were invited to take
part in a zine-making workshop with a visual
artist. The intention was to get the co-re-
searchers to think about visualising concepts
through art making. Each co-researcher made
a zine using a series of selected rules and
illustrated them using collage style images.
Many of the rules they visually interpreted were
about creating a fairer society. In particular, one
co-researcher made an interesting point by saying
that rules are made with good intentions.
Following this, co-researchers worked on finding
quotes about rules through online research.
Included here is a loose plan for
conducting a zine making workshop with your
students as a way to begin to explore issues
and ideas around politics, identity, personal
stories and interests.
Zine making supported the students to
develop a productive, critical voice around the
issue of rules in their school. Over the week of
working together and further exploring concepts
of law and order, the students asked who gets
to decide on rules and what are their motivations?
The poster of Classroom Do’s and Don’t’s aims
to start a conversation around the possibility
to questions the rules that govern us at school.

op: Zine Making

Suggested Worksh
The Making:
eets of paper.
Materials: ld have several sh
Each person shou ha lf, to create a book.
be folded in
A4/A3 white pape
r The papers should
∙∙
for ea ch pe rson) n should gather
(seve ral
a range of interests theme, each perso
Magazines (en su re Using the selected gazines provided.
∙∙ ages from the ma
and people are rep
res ented) text/words and im ch pe rso n can start to desig
n
cut out, ea
From the material s on to the pa ge s
∙∙ Scissors g their found piece
their zine by gluein
∙∙ Glue
r pencils str ati on s of their concepts.
Felt tip pens, colou to create illu
∙∙ of
not a book, think
t the group thinking A narrative is not
necessary, this is
of questions to ge red int o one
Start with a series estions can be individual artworks
ga the
lives, suggested qu this as a series of w and fill their
beyond their own co ura ge people to write, dra
booklet. En
found below:
pages with colour.
onate about?
∙ What are you passi mmunity,
ch ange in your life, co
∙ What would you
around the world? k?
ine this might loo
∙ How do you imag
 the environment,
me suggestions —
Select a theme: so sp ort , music etc.
ality, gender,
history, rights, sexu

24 Schooling & Culture

Poster Designed by: Jacob V Joyce / Cultural  — Producer: agency for agency — A London based creative agency:
we collaborate to explore the politics of space, identity, and history to produce contemporary art projects.
 Photo: Amit S. Rai
Photograph: Amit S. Rai
 Accountability, Information, Education V
after the White Paper

What are the politics of the Tory Government’s White Paper,

Educational Excellence Everywhere? Radical initiatives that
deconstruct and resist forms of educational power and control
are actively questioning different kinds of norms naturalised and
obscured by these systems. In the White Paper we can broadly
discern a racist neoliberalism operating through its proposals of
turning all schools into academies. Both teachers and students,
in different ways and with different effects, perform and contest
these managerial norms in pedagogical practices and educa-
tional spaces. But then what makes such managerial norms
racist and classist in the first place?

An important body of research in Cultural as Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall. Radical
Studies and long-standing radical activism initiatives that would resist this racist neoliberal-
in different UK educational contexts has shown isation of basic education urgently ask what our
that these norms are constructed unstably possible responses could be now, and what can
around the naturalised image of the property we anticipate in terms of the state’s response(s)
owning, individualistic Sovereign Subject, and/or backlash?
the utility maximising male hero of Rational Race is always lived in classed social
Calculation. This is the culturally specific practices, through sexualised and gendered
construct that is naturalised as destiny in the performative norms and human-technological
managerial norms and practices celebrated assemblages, and in bodies with definite but
by the White Paper. In turn, these norms and plastic capacities to affect and be affected.
practices produce ‘actionable information’,
accountability systems, ‘interactive’ parent
portals managed by governing bodies, British values are fully
and immeasurable intensities of learning. con­sistent with, even
The White Paper makes the case for Multi-
parasitic upon other ne
Academy Trusts (MAT) in which schools o­
develop mutually profitable collaborations with liberal technologies su
business (e.g. Mossbourne in Hackney, or the ch
as (digital) measure,
Ark Burlington Danes Academy in Hammersmith) risk
and so incorporating neoliberal standards of reduction, privatisatio
failure and success. What is less well known n
of commons, casualis
is how the history and practice of educational ation
data collection has been integrated with old and precarisation (par
and new forms of racial and class profiling, t-
time teachers, overtim
and, more generally, the categorisation e,
of people into discrete races and ethnicities, deadlines), resilience
as
demographics, sexualities and genders. frugal inno­vation, and
An important moment in the history
of resistance to these forms of normalisation, controlled, accountabl
e,
policing, and control was the Cultural Studies ‘supported’ autonom
movement that was founded in England in y.
the early 1950s by such autonomous militants

Schooling & Culture 27

V Accountability, Information, Education
after the White Paper
Race, imbricated in power relations of gender,
ability, sexuality and class, is a volatile site
of social, ecological, and political struggle.
One of the important ongoing legacies of the
work of Cultural Studies is precisely in the
construction of a politics that can be better
understood in order to overcome these imbrica-
tions of power, capital, and domination.
The work bringing Autonomous Tec Fetish
and Radical Education Forum together at the
Common House (a collectively managed space
for radical groups, projects and community
events where these groups meet) is involved
in the construction of this counter-power,
and indeed share the origins of this journal.
In the UK (and Europe far more unevenly),
the scattered and fragmented resistance of
women, ‘blacks’, queers, neuro-non-normatives,
poor communities, and autonomous commoning
ecologies have increasingly been targets of
neoliberal policing and educational strategies
since the Thatcher era. What has accelerated
the intensity of these forms of security, control,
normalisation, and quarantining is the emergence
of actionable Big Data generated through the
affective labour of education. One way to
engage the politics of this emergent connection
between info-technologies and education,
is to ask, What is the role of data gathering,
information tracking, tagging, metadata coding,
student assessment, and performance evaluation
in primary and secondary schooling in the UK
(and the global North more generally)?
The thing to keep in mind is that all data,
and hence all information, is designed in what
could be called ecologies of registration —  In and through this White Paper on academising
wherever and whenever there is a need to
register, that is, keep track of or audit, a student
or a learning event or process, increasingly
large data sets and hence information manage-
ment systems are part of the ecology itself.
This area of enquiry and action is to understand
first of all, how data is generated from the
coded behaviour of students, and how these
protocols, interfaces, systems, and surveillance
and control techniques affect how teachers
teach, and how students learn today.
One important terrain of the ongoing
contestation of racist-neoliberalism is the
proposed set of changes put forth in the White
Paper, ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere.’
What are the general political economic trends
expressed through the White Paper? In keeping
28 Schooling & Culture
with the wider trends of imposed neoliberal
austerity, the paper aims to shift responsibility
from local authorities to MATs in order to
spread expertise and best practice in ‘turning
schools around’. In the White Paper, ‘autonomy
and accountability go together: greater
autonomy in decisions relating to curricula,
assessments and resource allocation tend to
be associated with better student performance,
particularly when schools operate within a
culture of accountability’ (p.42 The White
Paper — Educational Excellence Everywhere).
Digital data and algorithms help run logistics
or infrastructures of cultures of accountability.
Thus, the role of data and information manage-
ment systems is central to these questions.
t
portan e
t h e i m h
One of legacies of t s
g ie
ongoin ultural Stud
fC
work o ly in the
ise tics
is prec tion of a poli nd
uc sta
constr better under ese
n th
that ca to overcome
r r,
in orde ons of powe .
ati on
imbric nd dominati
,a
capital
the UK education system neoliberalisation also
advances its functions. The focus, not sur­pris-
ingly, is on enabling profitable entrepreneurial
competition through technology driven innova-
tion. This is thought to increase efficiencies
through incentivised work. The role of contem-
porary marketing and branding is also clearly
legible in the anticipatory celebration of best
practicing MATs, in which MAT CEOs act
as brand manager through interactive portals,
websites, social networks, apps, etc.
(see www.future-leaders.org.uk/insights-blog/
what-does-it-mean-be-ceo-multi-academy-trust).
The direction of CEO leadership must
always be toward increasing productivity
(raising ‘standards’). Tying this directly with
the capitalist global economy, MAT CEOs are
 Accountability, Information, Education
after the White Paper
encouraged to seek out innovative and sustainable
initiatives and corporate/NGO sponsorships in
order to develop self-development and resilience.
These latter are held to be fundamental British
values that will help students succeed: ‘being
resilient and knowing how to persevere, how
to bounce back if faced with failure, and how
to collaborate with others at work and in their
private lives’ (p.94 The White Paper). British
values are fully consistent with, even parasitic
upon other neoliberal technologies such as
(digital) measure, risk reduction, privatisation
of commons, casualisation and precarisation
(part-time teachers, overtime, deadlines),
resilience as frugal innovation, and controlled,
accountable, ‘supported’ autonomy. The aim
is to address strategically and efficiently the
chronic, persistent underperformance tied to
the organisational conditions for insufficient
capacity for improvement. The academisation
of UK schools will yield some bitter fruit: in the
calculus of the White Paper, intervening in low
performing schools is higher value added and
lower risk paradoxically; low performing schools
are a necessary instrument and target of the MAT
plan. As Cultural Studies shows us, strategically
situating the historical and social contexts in
which low performance is defined and targeted
for intervention is necessary for radical politics
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Schooling & Culture
V
that would actively contest these naturalised
relations of power and exploitation.
The White Paper advances a program
of developing effective accountability systems
throughout academicised schools organised
in differently categorised Multi-Academy Trusts
(MAT). These systems are information systems,
consisting of dynamic real time databases,
and their management and mining involves
aspects of Big Data statistical analysis, and the
strategic management of the information of
these value chain processes. These systems
generate changing norms, mediums (averages
and distributions), and medians (midpoints and
benchmarks), and student performance and
development are judged against these normative
measures, so another effect of data driven
accountability systems is to produce actionable,
that is performed norms. Finally, forms of
resistance and counter-power to the White Paper,
while for the time being it seems have
succeeded in holding back the rising tide
of managerial academisation of UK schools,
the neoliberalisation and digitisation of
education continues to gather momentum.
What practices can help us to understand
critically and develop collective experiments
that exit from these technologies of neo­-
liberal control?
29
 Teachers Don’t Talk About Education

cation?
y a b o ut edu
t to sa d time
Got a lo orked to fin
erw n?
Too ov out educatio staffroom,
a b t e
h
to talk o f stuff in
lo t
Hear a ation? n.
a b o u t educ o u t e ducatio
not lk ab
nt to ta
We wa

Email info@schoolingandculture.org if you We will be discussing the following issues

would like to be part of an e-conversation and more:
about issues in secondary education that will
be anonymised, edited and published in the Prevent
next issue of Schooling & Culture. Academisation
Grammar Schools
The school as a de-politicised site
Your suggestions….?
 VI

This was only meant to be my day job. Being an artist who had previou
sly worked
and studied in alternative educational contexts, I chose one and
a half years
ago to work as a clerk to governing bodies of around 20 primary
and secondary
schools in London. My role in governors’ meetings — where strateg
ic, financial,
procedural, and ethical decisions are scrutinised and debated —
is to listen,
observe, remain neutral, and produce accurate sets of minutes for
each meeting.
I rarely speak; it is like being an audience member at a play for
which I am
writing the script (the minutes) retroactively. This means I have
taken a lot
of notes, and have recorded my own responses, which until now have
existed only
as scribbled notations. The more meetings I have clerked, the more
policies
and directives I have observed being put to every school to adapt
and interpret,
such as the White Paper and all its revisions, the more differences
I have
noticed between each school’s response. In these meetings I have
recorded many
individual moments of resistance and compliance, of democratic and
undemocratic
approaches to implementing these directives. This is the first in
a series of
articles where I will try to make visible the political, as it exists
within the
minutiae of these governors’ meetings, which has given me an unexpec
ted combina-
tion of both hope and horror, depending on the scale on which I
consider the
current state of education in this country. Here I would like to
share one
perspective on these changes and consequent forms of resistance.

In another world I inhabit, we started the Aesthetics Reading Group

for
Schooling & Culture to help develop the design of the first issue.
The group
looked to Ranciere for how he ‘redefined the “aesthetic” nature of
politics
by setting politics not as a specific single world but as a conflict
ive world:
not a world of competing interests or values but a world of competi
ng worlds.’
By adapting the way aesthetics frames certain situations, the conflict
ive,
and therefore political, nature of those situations can be made
visible:

33
VI
‘Political action consists in showing as political what was viewed as
‘social’, ‘economic’ or ‘domestic’. It consists in blurring the boundaries…
It should be clear therefore that there is politics when there is a disa-
greement about what is politics, when the boundary separating the political
from the social or the public from the domestic is put into question.
Politics is a way of re-partitioning the political from the non-political.
This is why it generally occurs ‘out of place’, in a place which was not
supposed to be political’ (p4)

I began to see writing this article for its potential to work aesthetically
by reframing the boundaries between the educational sphere and others — to
create space for new political objects to be looked at, to designate these
instances as lying outside of the usual flow of school proceedings. I started
making separate notations, embedded within my minute-taking notes, when these
moments occurred during meetings, marking them with a special symbol to which
I could later refer, as documentation of something different happening. Through
writing I hope to reframe these moments, however small or subtle, as instances
of the political, subtly occurring in environments where they are not expected
or supposed to happen. The so-called boundaries between two worlds — politics
(Government) and the unexpectedly political (school) are surfaced, entangled
and contested in these school meeting rooms.

As an artist I have experienced many contemporaries take up corporate-ness

in their work; through mimesis of corporate business models to borrowing from
the appearance and style of office culture, the intersection of the contemporary
art world and the corporate world is now a relatively familiar subject of
artists’ interrogations and critique. As I started clerking, I became aware of
similar intersections within schools. The corporate world attempts to disguise
itself as apolitical. It presents itself not as a world at all, but the world —
a ubiquitous backdrop, a metaphysical given which needs to be nurtured and
protected for all other aspects of society to run. The EU’s argument that post-
Brexit Britain should maintain open borders so that everyone can access the free
market, as though this access was what was at stake, rather than the fundamental
principle of free movement, makes apparent this absolute priority of nurturing
the free market; even people’s right to abode — their political status —
is entangled with and contingent on it. ‘The market’ has of course even been
personified into a vengeful deity figure as journalists have reported its tempera-
mental surges and drops in response to Britain’s decision to leave the EU.
The corporate world is the ultimate utopian end-goal, a ubiquitous ecosystem
which schools inhabit, so its intrusion into, and distinction from, the educa-
tional world, is often not visible.

As more and more schools conjoin into Multi-Academy Trusts, it is a given that
executive boards composed of people almost solely from the corporate world,
with no experience in education, employed by big brands such as Acer or HSBC,
are qualified to oversee the strategic direction and financial affairs of up
to 30 schools at a time. The power and authority of school governing bodies,
previously composed of parents, staff, and local community members invested
in the education system, is now being transferred to these executive boards,
with role titles echoing corporate culture, such as Chief Executive Officer
or Corporate Executive. The schools which compose these MATs can be dispersed
across the country, totally geographically disconnected. Instead of the class-
rooms and staffrooms in which governing bodies usually meet, often decorated
with visual evidence of student presence, such as artwork, school newsletters,
or photos, these new executive boards meet in far away conference centres and
stay in business hotels, often with large budgets to fund these events. As much
as politics is denied within the school, it is also denied here, by the bland
decor of the hotel, by the conference rooms in which the finances of the MATs are
discussed against the same backdrop as the finances of Acer or HSBC — understated

34
 VI
the expanse of the
s; uni for m row s of water glasses; catering;
colour sch eme architecture,
The cor por ate sphere — its culture, its
conferenc e tab le. t in school logos,
is sub sum ing tha t of schools. It is presen
its appear anc e, in the slightest,
int erf ace s. It is often not resisted
brochures , web sit es ion, even as far down
ed as the new serious face of educat
but is ins tea d emb rac ch was opening a family
— one pri mar y school I clerked for, whi uest
as nurser y lev el m addressing a budget req
for nur ser y-a ged chi ldren, had an agenda ite a ‘co rpo rat e
centre ablishing
for a reb ran din g of this centre, including est
of £2,000
dress code.’
the educational
equ all y sur rep titious intrusions into
I have notice d oth er n on British Values
one sch ool mee tin g where a training sessio
sphere. I cle rke d y (still composed
pro gra mme was del ive red to the governing bod
and the Preven t vent officer.
ly con nec ted to the school) by a visiting Pre
of people dir ect be implemented,
ove rvi ew of how the Prevent programme would
He presented an tions to rest.
isi ng tha t he was there to lay any misconcep
pre-emptivel y adv as if saying it
phr asi ng of his overview delicately,
He worked thr oug h the such as how it discrim-
way wou ld acc ide ntally reveal a secret,
in an uncomp ose d nations through
cifi c gro ups of peo ple and religious denomi
inates agains t spe would refer to the
Whe nev er the offi cer would get stuck, he
its inverted log ic. rephrase and polish
beh ind him , and play a clip which would
promotional vid eo actor named Isy
was del ive red by a quasi-celebrity, an
the informati on. Thi s edy series Peep
l-k now n for her role as ‘Dobby’ in the com
Suttie, maybe mos t wel ng to a perhaps more
tin g a rem ark abl y strange attempt at relati
Show. Was her cas ore feel more
mig ht rel ate to her comedy and theref
left-wing aud ien ce, who of Prevent profes-
mou th- pie ced eup hem isms, striding past scenes
at ease as she intervening
nd boa rdr oom tab les benignly identifying and
sionals sat rou by walking out
lis ed you th? The last shot ended with Dob
on potential rad ica ming, ‘I like what
men t bui ldi ng, poi nti ng back at it, and exclai
of a govern
they’re doing in there.’
ch was articu-
se of une ase aft er the presentation, whi
There was a genera l sen ld give person-
n as sta ff ask ed what advice the officer wou
lated in the dis cus sio radicalised.
fyi ng pri mar y sch ool students who might become
ally regarding ide nti denly turning
h as cha nge s in moo d, energy levels, or sud
He listed signs suc lised. He also
et, cou ld ind ica te a child was becoming radica
talkative, or qui e should be
stu den ts who nee ded to pray during school tim
suggested that all erstand the
ed to pra y in Eng lis h so that staff could und
monitored and req uir that the school
yer s. Gov ern ors pro tested and firmly stated
content of their pra and practice
all ow stu den ts of all faiths to freely express
would continue to The contestation here was
er language they chose.
their religions in whatev com plete lack of any protes
t I have experi-
aga ins t the
fleeting, but sto od out It was a strange
er mee tin gs whe re Pre vent has been presented.
enced during oth e,’ which was clearly not
t officer offering ‘advic
combination of the Preven e opinion as guided by the
e from his own subjectiv
requisite but instead cam lly , unthinkingly, butted up
against something
, whi ch acc ide nta
Prevent programme ng equality. Suddenly the
ting rights and maintaini and it felt like
so fundamental to protec ld of the governors’ meeting,
d int o the wor
political had ent ere ivered his prede-
to eve n beg in to object as this officer del
an enormous hur dle individually was
he was jus t a mou thp iec e, so responding to him
termined news — s and their
y lon g dis tan ce. Non etheless, the two sphere
protesting at a ver ction. There was
the re, ove rla ppi ng and causing irreconciled fri
boundaries were
the Prevent officer left.
relief and deflation when
working party’s
r sch ool lon g eno ugh to have witnessed their
I clerked for anothe who were
pro ces s reg ard ing whe ther to join a MAT. Staff
entire decision making these meetings to have
NUT had req uested to be present at ty
mem ber s of the isted by the working par
ut in the dec isi on mak ing process. This was res ect to any mov e
inp stantly obj
it was ant ici pat ed tha t the NUT reps would con
as

35
VI
towards academisation. I found this resistance strange, to almost exist in
a procedural void. What would be seen in another political world as a standard
democratic process — to have an open forum for discussion involving all stake-
holders — was rejected outright. Schools are political spaces and should be
recognised as such, yet democratic models are forced out by the creeping depo-
liticisation of the corporate sphere, even in the face of something so monumen-
tally political as academisation. In the transitional space between the creation
of policy on Government level and its implementation at school level, there
are many many different tyrannical processes, interpolations, personal sways,
and casual non-procedures in effect.

Another primary school I clerk for, however, resists depoliticisation by delib-

erately staging politicised activities that work as microcosms of the political
as it exists in the broader world. Teachers staged a protest in which the head-
teacher took an overtly unfair stance on a particular school-wide rule that
directly affected students. Students were encouraged to organise and stage
formal protests if they disagreed with this, marching with placards and
demanding the rule be overturned. The students were eventually successful.
Although entirely pre-orchestrated and contained, the exercise showed young
people the possibility of the political entering the educational world,
and in turn the possibility of it occurring in unexpected places in their lives
beyond school. This same school is also the most active I have experienced
in responding to the migration and refugee crisis by using its governing body
to appeal to local government for funds for refugee students, and teaching
students about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, introducing the
role of a student rights ambassador, and ensuring students know their rights
and the rights of children around the world, such as the right to play and
to education, as well as the responsibility that comes with knowing those
rights. Although a microcosm, a testbed, for the political, at least this
was an education in another way of doing things, coming from another world.

This is a retroactive script for a new staging, a new configuration of highly

subjective observations and experiences. They are of course condensed highlights,
to be expanded on in later issues of Schooling & Culture, distilled from hours
and hours of meetings which have only acquired meaning through the act of
gathering, of writing, of arranging, of an aesthetic reframing. This arrangement
is not necessarily for the purpose of inciting revolt; rather, as Ranciere would
claim as the function of aesthetics, to create a space for ‘freedom and equality
incorporated in living attitudes, in a new relationship between thought and
the sensory world, between the bodies and their environment.’ By identifying
and reframing the anachronisms of educational practice, the confusions,
the exchanges between feeling individuals, the subtle and small interactions
in the face of big Government, the shifts of power, the blurring of political
boundaries, I am hopefully allowing these moments to become visible and
available as political ones.

36
 VI

Schooling & Culture 37

VII Art, Schooling and Contemporary Culture:
Bee Gees and colour wheels
(a reflection on the relevance of the
art room today in response to Martin Lister)
ess and
‘[Students’] listl
… [their]
distracted mood
vance…
sense of… irrele
t room…
being within tha
ertical
Every wall and v
d with
surface… covere
raw n o r p a in te d images…
d
iven over
Much space… g
patterns…
to the display of
xercises
[colour wheel] e
g according
in colour gradin
.’
to hue and tone
Reflecting on the familiarity of this scene, from
the perspective of a teacher of art and design
in secondary school today, is startling. The art
room here is not contemporary — we are in
1978, the extract is by Martin Lister, from issue
1 of Schooling & Culture. Flares have come and
gone and come again, the Bee Gees no longer
dominate the charts with their falsetto disco
sound and Google algorithms now give us what
we want before we know we want it.
Yet teachers (and students) might slot this
extract straight into 2016; culture moves,
politics unfolds, the secondary school art room
seems largely unchanged and so, the thread
of this debate from 1978 and its consequence
can be picked up and carried forward today.
In 1978, the media of the art room (pens,
pencils, brushes, paper) seemed out of touch
with technology (where was photography?
Or film?), far removed from the experience
of youth (why learn about the Still Life?), stuck
in a notion of tradition (painting, painting, more
painting) and out of step with contemporary
experience (what was the impact of a bright,
brash, DIY culture?).
In 1978, Lister also imagines ‘that
Departments of Art within secondary schools
38 Schooling & Culture
might become places where productive social
activity takes place’. Pragmatically, he calls for
collaboration, cross-curricular work, exploration
of technology, a shift away from fine art
towards diversity and an art education based
upon contextual studies.
In 2016, the need to shift secondary art
education away from teaching art skills (the
colour wheel is surely just a tool?) to embracing
cultural education seems still tangible.
Collaboration with other subjects means negoti-
ating many institutional obstacles. Schools are
competitive organisations now. The individual
rules. The social capacity of making art is often
lost when the focus of art production is on indi-
vidual achievement. So far so familiar.
Nevertheless, from a 2016 perspective,
when time and space for conversation about
what goes on in the art room is rapidly dwindling,
squeezed out by ginormous workloads and the
absurdity of bits and bytes, it is also refreshing
to learn, there was once a space for a debate
on art and education and, rather deliciously,
this space was not promptly linked to achieve-
ment and assessment; imagining that this space
of debate about the art room was also supported
by an official body, such as the Inner London
Education Authority (ILEA), is mind-boggling.
It speaks volumes about where secondary art
and design education finds itself today — starved
of space and time and with so many of us
leaving the profession; when and how can we
talk to each other about art and education!
This state then calls for a continuation of the
dialogue. It shouts to create more space.
Because, even though the scene of the
1978 art room seems still familiar, what is
distinctly alien in 2017 is the idea there might
be any space left for conversation about these
matters at all. In a neoliberal climate where
efficiency and productivity is the be all and end
all, finding that space to talk about what goes
on in the art room, is more relevant than ever,
if art and design education is to survive into
the 21st century. Or perhaps as the Bee Gees
might have put it, finding that space is vital
for ‘stayin’ alive’…
Colour(ing) wheel

talk

about
create
pu
rp
l re
d
e

t
ora ar
b lue nge
green

yello
e
mak

w
space

to
VIII Hip Hop Ed

Hip hop education (HipHopEd) is a practice pioneered by many,

in particular Chris Emdin, a professor at Columbia University,
New York. His practice of HipHopEd is informed strongly by
Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire, best known for
his work Pedagogy of the Oppressed which proposes learning
to be a new relationship between teacher, student and society.
Freire argues for pedagogy to treat the learner as a co-creator
of knowledge and not an empty vessel to be filled up with facts!

HipHopEd is a culturally relevant pedagogy My own practice as a hip hop educator

developed through co-investigative dialogue
between teacher and learners; it is an art form
that comes out of youth culture, allowing young
people to express themselves, as a way to
empower their voices—in their homes, schools,
communities and globally. Key to the work
is the principle that there are no experts
in HipHopEd, just relative experience.
Our relationship to hip hop is what
defines us as experts; as each of our individual
experiences (both as educators and as students)
will differ, we cannot talk in terms of some
people knowing more than others. We must
understand HipHopEd as a two-way process
of learning while teaching and vice versa, both
in the classroom setting but also as a tool of
critical analysis on a local and global level.
In line with Freire’s co-investigative dialogue
concept, when one side stops learning it stops
being HipHopEd and becomes conventional
(failing) education. Therefore no style, sub-genre,
language or particular corner of hip hop can
presume superiority. Each journey in hip hop
is valid in its own right. There is no inside and
outside when we begin HipHopEd, we are all
hip hop by our participation.
Hip hop educators’ concrete base
By analysing our own experiences as hip hop
educators and contextualising ourselves and our
surroundings, first in a local and then in a global
setting, we can begin to form the building
blocks for our concrete base. From our concrete
base we can then start to build bridges with
which to engage young people through relevant
cultural capital.
This is established on my own identity and
contextualisation, as an Iranian, a person of
colour, a Muslim, a Londoner and as a member
of the working class, my local experience of
the UK hip hop scene and my global experience
of the Persian hip hop scene.
As mentioned earlier, a very influential
thinker in the field of HiphopEd is Chris Emdin,
whose work often builds on Freire’s Pedagogy
of the Oppressed to form an idea of a ‘reality
pedagogy based on a hip hop understanding’.
In other words, it is a culturally relevant way
to learn that builds on shared knowledge and
hip hop culture, through which it is possible
to form an intertwined social capital with
young people. Emdin’s work talks about
‘neo-indigenous cosmopolitanism’ in reference
to the social exclusion that takes place in
the classroom, comparing formal education’s
attempt to ‘fix’ young people from socially-
deprived backgrounds to colonial attempts
to civilise what they viewed as savage natives.
t h e w o rk is the
“Key to a t t here are
l e t h
princip n H i p HopEd,
t s i
no exper ex p erience.”
t i ve
just rela
I recently came across a paper about hip hop
as youth pedagogy in Bolivia which took the
position that while it endorsed and supported
the inclusion of HipHopEd in formal education,
it was also keen to stress the role of hip hop

40 Schooling & Culture

 Hip Hop Ed
in what the authors termed ‘popular non
institutionalised, public sphere education’.
The paper went on to quote American educa-
tional historian Lawrence Cremin who writes
about Public Pedagogy as that which ‘projects
us beyond the schools to a host of other institu-
tions that educate’. This is exactly where informal
HipHopEd kicks in and becomes effective.
In very real terms for many at-risk young people
one of these other spaces of education is the
street, producing a culture in which hip hop
music is a major and influential part.
Hip hop is something that comes from
and has always been rooted in the street; one
of its longstanding functions is to unify and
attempt to educate. That statement may sound
hypocritical in light of the often misogynistic,
materialistic and violent representations that
comprise much of mainstream hip hop, but
I hold firm to the belief that these are misrep-
resentations of my artf orm and they don’t
represent the true foundations of the culture.
The way in
I’m from Lisson Green Estate in west London,
where I witnessed the aftermath of the 2011
UK riots: 16 young people aged between 15 and
22 years were sent to prison to serve sentences,
varying from 6 months to 9 years. As with many
other court cases connected with the riots there
were multiple controversies and problems
in the way the prosecutions were handled
and this had a major effect on my community.
I approached a local art gallery called
The Showroom to propose a project with some
of the young people who had been released.
We’re now working on a number of videos
uti­lising the CCTV footage that was presented
in court along with audio recorded by the young
people about the whole incident and its aftermath.
This is all outside any organisation,
Pupil Referral Unit or youth club; this is literally
grassroots community outreach beginning with
me talking to some of the local youths using
HipHodEd. Some of the young people I know
through their families, older brothers and
cousins, but the majority know me through my
music. Some of their older brothers or cousins
have some of my old records. I’m still active so
a lot of the young people have seen my videos
on popular Internet music channels like SBTV.
I have a basic home studio and have helped
some young people with recording and writing
raps. There’s a strong show-and-prove element
Schooling & Culture
VIII
that earns me credibility, or at least I optimisti-
cally hope that it does! We also have shared
local history, so in their eyes I’m on the inside.
Hip hop provides a perfect bridge to begin
dialogue in a context the young people are
familiar with and also, more importantly, enthu-
siastic about. If I were to approach young
people head on and ask them for their deepest
thoughts I might not get the same level of
cooperation or even depth of reflection that
writing a song would provide. Even something
as a simple as identifying what type of hip hop
a young person listens to tells me a lot and
opens a lot of doors in terms of dialogue. If a
young person tells me they listen to Immortal
Technique, Dead Prez and Talib Kweli, that’s
very different to one who listens to Chief Keef,
Rick Ross and French Montana. That might not
make sense if you don’t know the artists I just
mentioned but that’s exactly part of my point—
it provides a shared experience and a bridge.
Intersections with other subjects
During the course of working with young people
individually I use a wide range of topics,
and the scope of hip hop music, to introduce
them to new ideas and concepts for discussion.
I also try to learn what may or may not work
with that young person. Once certain subjects
of conversation have been established I build
on their interests and widen the scope to
include different genres of music or perhaps
other media such as books, films and documen-
taries and sometimes even pieces of art that
somehow relate back to a particular hip hop
track or artist. For example talking about
rappers who create new slang words led
to a reading of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’
nonsense poem; a rap video that uses a Piet
Mondrian colour scheme expanded into a look
at modern art; and a discussion about the cover
art of a rap album provoked a new interest
in film studies and film noir.
There really is an amazing scope in hip
hop music, it really does connect to a lot of
subjects. The most obvious link would probably
be to literature and devices such as similes
and metaphors or looking at the themes and
events mentioned in tracks. There are a number
of rappers who have gone on to author books,
both fiction and non-fiction, while retaining the
respect of young people on a street level.
Hip hop comes from the street and it will
always have certain stigmas attached to it,
41
VIII Hip Hop Ed
but a lot of it is simply prejudice, and I mean
that in the purest sense of the word. This
prejudice often takes the form of an outright
refusal to consider hip hop as a resource or
a starting point. This brings us back to the idea
of a pedagogy based in reality and the use
of culturally relevant material. It’s the same
sentiment that exists in the old saying ‘it takes
an entire community to raise a child’. In the
street HipHopEd often can be that community.

Announcement:

The *Radical Education Forum* is a group of people working

in a wide range of educational settings who meet monthly
to discuss radical pedagogical theories and techniques,
and contemporary issues of interest to those involved
in education. We are interested in how these theories and
questions can inform our practice. The Forum supports
social justice in education, linking practitioners within
mainstream educational institutions, community education
initiatives, social movements, arts organisations and
self-organised groups.

Meetings are held on the last Monday of every month at

the Common House from 7.15 – 9.15pm and are open to all.
The Common House, Unit 5E Pundersons Gardens, Bethnal
Green, London E2 9QG, http://commonhouse.org.uk/

For questions or to join the mailing list

email radicaleducationforum@riseup.net
or check http://radicaleducationforum.tumblr.com/

42 Schooling & Culture

 Day one
Overview
: During
asked to the first
start thin half of th
perspec king abo e day th
tives. Th u e studen
a short p e second t what makes a ts will be
given co
iece from h a lf of the song an nfidence
the song a person day will d to con and team
they will al persp be writin tribute to
record a ective. S g based a discus building
nd perfo tudents and stud sion and exercise
rm w il l e n ts thought s and th
Resourc at end o be expec will be a diagram en
es: Chair f worksh ted to em sked to on song
s and ta op. erge from compos writing
bles in s d ay two w e a n d complete
Morning mall gro ith a cle
: ups, pen ar theme
s and pa of
per, boo
mbox
Learning
outcome
thought /content:
diagram Introducti Afternoo
analysis on song ons and n:
skills, co ideas. C aims of w
skills. Pe mmunic reative w o rkshop,
rso ation, co riting an Learning
Leadersh nal perspectives operatio
n and te
d
Determin
outcome
/content:
ip, Resil in writin a m work ation, Co Writing
and Asp ience an g. Relati Problem nfidence session.
iration. G d Determ onships and Asp Res
roup fee
dback.
ination,
Confiden
and
Commu
Solving,
Relation iration, P ilience and
c e n ic ation. s h ip s and Le lanning
Tutor acti adership and
vity: Intr , Creativ
word pie o d uce you S ity,
ce. rself and tu dent acti
rules. Gro Explain aims of perform
short sp piece th vity: Stu
dents w
up thoug sessions oken ey ti ill be ask
ideas. Flo
at aroun
ht diagra
m on so
and cove
r ground groups th tled before lunc ed to co
mplete th
their ide d and w ngwritin an they h and w e
as. Coord ork with g theme piece wit w ere prev ill be pla
inate an groups o s and hin grou iously in ced in d
d offer fe n enhan d ra p . S . S tu d ifferent
cing ft (if the tu dents w ents will
Student edback. y feel co ill be ask rehearse
activity: on other nfident e ed to rec
name on S tu dents in p ie c e s th n o u g h ) a ite first
e artist th troduce ey h ear. n d to offer fee
a person at inspir themselv dback
al favouri es them es. Aske Tutor Ac
are aske te and to , one so d to tivity: Flo
d to con g ive a rea n g th ey consid a n d feedbac a t a ro u nd group
and pers tribute id son why er k. s and off
pectives eas in dis . Studen er sugge
asked to . Studen cussion ts stions
think of ts w il l o n s o n g E n d o f se
compos a title or b e p laced in th e m e s ss io n : W
ing theme a groups a ra p up/fee
Groups w a short solo piec nd then
will begin d
n dback
ill be ask e from a
give a re ed to pre persona
ason wh sent the l perspe
y they c title of th ctive.
hose to eir piece
write it. and

Day two
Overview: First half of day will be theory based and will introduce students to narrative and literary devices
as well as looking at different ‘flows’, harmonies and melodic performance devices through examples, discussion
and practical group activities. The second half of the day will be more practical based and will introduce students
to collaborative songwriting and performance devices and techniques.

Morning: Afternoon:

Learning outcome/content: Warm up and recap: Resilience
and Determination, Confidence and Aspiration, Planning
and Problem Solving, Relationships and Leadership,
Creativity, Communication. Looking at literary and
narrative devices, flows, melodic devices and harmonies.
Group discussion.
Resources: Chairs in circle, pens, paper, whiteboard,
boombox, mics, beats.
Student activity: Students will be asked to participate
in group warm up activities and to offer any reflections
on the past day. Students will be presented with a number
of examples of literary and narrative devices (e.g.: metaphors,
similes etc.) and will be asked to take part in a group
discussion. Students will then be asked to split into pairs
or smaller groups and begin thinking about different
melodies/harmonies on different tempo/swing beats.
Students will be asked to discuss the theme of their composi-
tion, talk about the ideas they have used, perform a part
if they have developed it and feel confident enough to.
Lesson outcome/content: Collaborative writing and
performance techniques discussion and demonstration.
Collaborative writing session.Student activity: Students
will be given examples of collaborative writing and per­
formance techniques (back-to-back rapping, group
harmonies, back up vocals, rapper-singer duos) and will
be asked to contribute to discussion. Students will be split
into groups and asked to develop a song theme or topic
to develop collaboratively. Students will use the techniques
they have learnt thus far and can either take parts of the
earlier pieces they have composed or chose to compose
a new piece to fit into a group performance. Students will
be expected to finish session with a clear theme or title
for their final piece.
Tutor activity: Use examples and demonstrations to
illustrate techniques mentioned and facilitate discussion.
Tutors will float around sessions and offer support
and suggestion
End of session: Wrap up and feedback

Tutor Activity: Coordinate discussion. Play and perform

examples, explain different techniques and provide
practical demonstration. Float around groups to offer
support and feedback.
Day three
Overview: Students will discuss creative writing skills, performance technique, basic technical knowledge (mics,
PA systems, sound levels and speakers), basic musical knowledge (length of bars, time patterns, tempos performance
techniques and song structure) improved confidence, cooperation and teamwork skills. Students will develop their
group song ready for performance and be given a chance to have a mock performance at end of session.

Resources: Boombox, whiteboard, pens and paper, tables and chairs, mics, beats.

Morning: Afternoon:

Learning outcome/content: Discussion on basic song
structure. Song writing session.
Student activity: Students will be given examples and asked
to take part in discussion on song structures, bridges,
counting bars and song form. Students will further develop
and refine their group piece and decide on a final structure.
Tutor activity: Tutors will use examples, demonstrate and
facilitate discussion. Tutors will float around groups offering
support and suggestions.
Learning outcome/content: Discussion and examples
of collaborative performance techniques, back up vocals
and basic recording and stage techniques. Finalising
and rehearsing piece for mock performance.
Student activity: Students will be shown examples of
techniques and asked to contribute to a group discussion.
Students will finalise and arrange their final piece and
will rehearse in group.
Tutor activity: Tutors will show examples and demonstrate
techniques of collaborative performance techniques.
Float around groups offering support and suggestions.

Day Four libs and back up

s) and rehearse
ch niq ue s (vo ca l projection, ad rfo rm an ce based.
de nt s wi ll loo k at recording te tic al exer cis es as it is mainly pe
Overview: On da
y four stu of mainly prac
four will consist
d re co rd th eir final piece. Day tra ck by end of session.
an
e ex pe cte d to record a finished
Students ar
rding equipmen
t. rm ups and float
Resources: Reco tiv ity : Tu to rs wi ll lead vocal wa will
Tutor Ac support. Tutors
en t: Pr ep ar ing to record ou nd of fer ing suggestions and ing an d als o
es and co nt ar nts while reco rd
Learning outcom se ss ion . flo at an d support stude to re co rd .
co rd ing itin g
and afternoon re ose who are wa
rehearse with th
giv en tim e to rehearse
Students will be cises to warm up
.
Student activity: given vocal exer
s an d wi ll be ce s.
their piece gin recording pie
students will be
In the afternoon

Day Five
Overview: Day five will focus on performance (confidence, projection, microphone technique, team coordination
and collaboration and stage presence). Students will be expected to perform final piece.

Resources: Boombox, mics

Learning outcomes and content: Performance preparation. Tutor Activity: Tutors will lead exercises and float around
offering suggestions and support.
Student activity: Students will be given time to rehearse
their pieces and will be given confidence building exercises Final performance and wrap up/final feedback.
and practical advice on projection, microphone technique,
team coordination and collaboration and stage presence.
 IX

Y PHOTO GRAPH S
USING NARRA TIVE, FICTI ON AND INHER ITED FAMIL
TO FACIL ITATE CONFL ICT IN THE CLASS ROOM

harmless enough. After ten years

Last Wednesday I learned a new word. It sounded
grasp of student vernacular.
of teaching in inner London I think I have a good
, but not ‘wasteman’.
I know it’s okay to be addressed as ‘bruv’ or ‘fam’
‘dry’ and ‘moist’ are both
My ‘creps’ are my trainers. ‘Sick’ is good, but
definitely bad. I had never heard the term ‘freshie’.
it turns out, is a derogatory
My year 12 class explained it to me: ‘Freshie’,
and it rates highly amongst
term for recently arrived migrants, as in ‘fresh’,
majority of students in this
teenage insults. I find this surprising — the vast
school are first and second-generation migrants.
gers not only to access their
What opportunities are available to migrant teena
cultural identities? And how
ancestry but to critically examine their developing
ibes as our current state
do they do this in what Nicolas Bourriaud descr
1

writes about an ‘educational turn’

1 French art critic, theoretician and curator who
in the contemporary art world.

49
IX
of creolisation? Providing these
opportunities in school is becoming
complicated. A growing fear of extr more
emism, strategies such as Prevent
government’s insistence that ‘fun and the
damental British values’ must be
encouraged in schools, have plac taught and
ed teachers in a precarious posi
it is often better to play it safe tion where
. The art department is often the
for cultural investigation and inqu chosen site
iries into identity, and why not?
prescribed curriculum than most, With a less
we art teachers have the freedom
students in a range of practices to engage our
that have the potential to grant
one’s heritage while critically access to
engaging with contemporary issues
Unfortunately, the current tension of identity.
between British values and the need
seen to be delivering a ‘multicu to be
ltural’ education often results
enterprises such as Black History in tokenistic
Month or, in the case of the art
drawing stylised cultural artefact department,
s such as an African mask. This
of culture completely misses the crude handling
mark of today’s concept of a fluen
gives credibility to mythologised t identity and
cultural narratives. It ignores
of any given culture in its cont the complexity
emporary context, allowing no room
discourse, criticality or resistan for
ce.
One way of avoiding essentialise
d cultural motifs is to use inhe
photographs as a starting point. rited family
Family photographs grant access
histories on a deeply personal leve to marginalised
l and have been widely used in the
of cultural studies as ‘cultural field
texts’ to be investigated. Using
relevant artefacts from the life culturally
-world of the student places them
of their own inquiry. The narrativ at the centre
es generated through inherited phot
cannot be found in literature or ographs
archives. Their authenticity and
to operate both spatially and temp ability
orally make them powerful pedagogi
to help navigate the limbo space cal tools
occupied by migrant teenagers.
The project discussed here encourag
es students to adopt new concepts
by using family photographs as prom of identity
pts for narrative interviews. By
in an open-ended discursive prac enga ging
tice, the project aims to facilita
for conflict without consensus, wher te a spac e
e students can question, argue and
Working collaboratively, we expl disagree.
ored past/present consistencies
narratives associated with their of the personal
inherited family photographs and
the pedagogical potential in the investigated
sharing and ‘handing over’ of thes
e stories.
A project of this nature can be
difficult to negotiate. It takes
teacher-led, has no pre-defined outc time; it is not
ome and the methods used may not
to the art department. However, be familiar
when presented as a body of work
edges more contemporary practice that acknowl-
s such as narrative, installation
art and clearly shows a student’ and relational
s ability to select, record and
engage with individually generate crit ically
d material, assessment is actually
forward. The final outcome produced very straight
for this project was a sophisticate
publically engaging installation d,
. However, as is the case with many
projects, much of the learning happ education
ened through the conversations in
between.
Each student was asked to present
a family photograph of importance;
they felt held some personal sign one which
ificance and spoke of their identity
or heritage. I conducted intervie , culture
ws with each student, inviting them
the stories they associated with to share
the images. I have taught many of
several years and believed I had them for
a general understanding of each
diasporic backgrounds, yet it was of their
only through this process that I
insights into how they personally first gained
position and articulate themselv
to those backgrounds. es in relation

I co-analysed the transcripts of

the interviews with the students
themes and encouraged further stor . We looked for
ytelling to reveal new layers of
this investigation to agree upon meaning. We used
a set of interview questions to
the student and their parents in be used between
another narrative inquiry conducte
d by them.

50
IX

51
IX
lage floods, blackouts
s wer e ric h and var ied. There were stories of vil
The sto rie memories of family
ani mal s liv ing in the kit chen. There were sharp, vivid
and r, half-finished
and rel igi ous cer emo nies. There were also foggie
wed din gs little contextual
of sto rie s. Whi le some photographs needed very
fra gme nts the owner’s story.
und ing to get a sen se of time and place, others needed
gro
It wasn’t
s use d to own a bar in Sao Paulo before moving to the UK.
My parent around one
but wou ld hav e nea rly 400 people every night. When I was
a big bar ents would keep
rs old , the re was no one to look after me so my par
or two yea mushrooms.
cou nte r of the bar and feed me bowls of olives and
me under the n we left Brazil
er lot s of par tyi ng, and I clearly remember exactly whe
I rememb rd birthday on
my little brother had his thi
and moved to London because
the plane. (Mattheus’ story)
the students
of nar rat ive s, col lec ted from the interviews between
The second set s with signs of
roborated the initial storie
and their parents, largely cor how ever, prove to
tions on both sides. It did,
embellishments and confabula th on an olive under
theus nearly choked to dea
be a revealing experience: Mat ated his birthd ay on the plane because
tab le and his bro the r cel ebr
a customer’s the journey but the
as long as possible to afford
his parents needed to save for so they had to leave
t up if you were over three,
price of the plane ticket wen
it to the very last moment.
n of this kind
that means for an investigatio
The notion of truth and what ers of subjectivity
lisation. Despite the many lay
requires a different conceptua arded as evidence.
photograph itself is often reg
involved in photography, the histories are all
stories and sharing personal
Recalling memories, telling narrative enquiry
is made, it is not given. The
temporal constructs; heritage within their own
ed an awareness of the fiction
the students undertook reveal
family photos.
histories, carried by their

52
 IX
I then asked the students to swap
photographs and construct complete
nalised histories for the images. ly fictio­
They were given the place and date
photographs and were asked to carr of the
y out some historical research.
this as a contextual background They used
on which to hang the new story,
aged to use the themes from thei and were encour-
r initial inquiries for the plot
of the project held the most appr . This stage
ehension. Handing over a photogra
personal significance is a difficult ph of such
proposition and constructing a ficti
heritage for someone requires deli onal
cacy. However, because each stud
a personal stake in the project ent had
they were respectful of each othe
an opportunity for exploration, r, creating
to fracture and reconstruct thei
in a transcultural context. r identities

During the following lessons each

student would rehearse their ficti
tives and present them as their onal narra-
own. This was followed by discussi
students were able to meaningfully on where the
engage with personal and relevant
of heritage, culture and migratio issues
n. A shared, discursive space was
all participants felt safe to ques created where
tion and critique. Conflicts were
and there were regular disagreement able to occur
s concerning reasons for migratio
attitudes towards current statuses n and
. These disagreements, although
helped establish new understandin not resolved,
gs.
This project now has a physical
space in our school. We used the
scripts from the various narrativ printed tran-
e inquiries to create multi-layere
which we used to cover a section d wallpaper,
of a corridor and added furnitur
from home. This domestic space is e and objects
now an on-going permanent installa
people can listen to the audio reco tion where
rdings and share in the unfoldin
These students are now in charge g stories.
of the space and are currently inte
a new group of students in order rviewing
to further develop the project.
The ever-increasing cultural dive
rsity typical of many London scho
issues of identity and heritage ols has made
more pertinent and more complex.
‘multicultural’ practices do litt Many current
le to engage young people in thes
ignoring the real life world of e issues by
those it affects. Individual narr
context-sensitivity are too ofte atives and
n overlooked in favour of neater
of cultural identity. Young peop repr esentations
le need the opportunity to critical
their developing identities and ly examine
feel confident to actively engage
that concern them. As either a rece in the debates
nt migrant with one foot still plan
their homeland or a second-gener ted in
ation migrant still framed by thei
and distant ancestors, these stud r immediate
ents’ footing in their current ‘hos
is a precarious one. What is need t’ country
ed is not so much the negotiation
but making sense of a new one. Inhe of two worlds
rited family photographs are a good
to start. They embody memories, place
myths and cultural histories. By
these narratives, young people beco engaging with
me implicated in their own inquiry.
encouraged to acknowledge the poli They are
tical within the personal and empo
discursively negotiate their own wered
identities.

53
IX

54
X Meeting at the Crossroads

In 1981 Russell Newell, a 15-year-old boy living in Peckham,

disenfranchised from his own schooling experience, got involved
with Schooling & Culture. Schooling & Culture published some
of the photographs he was taking of friends, his estate, his life.
At that time Andrew Dewdney along with Adrian Chappell,
Martin Lister, Erica Matlow and Alan Tompkins ran the ILEA Art
Department (later Cultural Studies) at The Cockpit in North West
London, out of which the original Schooling & Culture journal
was produced. This interview reunites Russell and Andrew
to talk about the work and value of Schooling & Culture at that
time, the politics of such work and how this relates to the state
of education and the political use of the camera now.

Andrew’s questions to Russell curriculum just didn’t respond to this. I had

Andrew Dewdney [AD]. What were
the most liberating or empowering aspects
of your own schooling, or alternatively, why
and how do you think school ‘failed’ you?
Russell Newell (RN). I stopped
enjoying school when I went into secondary
education. My infant and primary education
were the most formative. I went to school in
rural Kent during the 1970s and although my
brother and I were the only black pupils the
teachers were able to engage my sense of
imagination and wonder. I really enjoyed school
at this time and writing about it now actually
makes me realise how important it was to me.
I can’t ever remember not enjoying a day at
school during this time or not wanting to go.
When I started secondary education in
London everything changed massively. I hated
it, I didn’t like being told what to do so I skipped
school at lot and started to find my own way.
Teachers were never able to properly engage
with me. Maybe a couple of my art teachers
or if I found a subject interesting during a parti­
cular term but I was definitely happiest if I was
doing something outside of the curriculum.
[AD] What were the barriers to your
own development and success in the educa-
tional system?
[RN] I would like to have been able
to follow my interests earlier on. The school
a very low boredom threshold and could pick
subjects up very quickly if I was interested
or thought it might be useful. I think if I was
learning about something that I could apply
outside of school I would have been more
engaged. I have no doubt I was a difficult pupil
but once a teacher took the time to have a
proper conversation with me I was easy to
engage and inspire. I think this came partly from
time spent with my mum’s friends, I went to
quite a lot of political events and was used
to having a more open and conversational rela-
tionship with adults. This kind of open relation-
ship didn’t exist when I came into contact
with teachers.
[AD] What was it about the Cockpit
experience that wasn’t available to you at school?
[RN] A key part of this was related
to the way Cockpit recognised my identity
and class as being important and its need for
a voice. There were also practical reasons — 
I didn’t like the school regime and the didactic
approach to teaching. At the Cockpit I could
turn up when it suited me, and my interaction
with the Cockpit tutors was more conversational.
I felt there was some authenticity and sincerity;
that the tutors were genuinely interested in
what I had to say and helped me articulate it.
In school I felt that my task was simply to
repeat and understand what I was being taught,
something I instinctively rebelled against.

56 Schooling & Culture

Looking east, North Peckham Estate, London 1985. Russell Newell, Self-portrait, North Peckham Estate, London, 1983.
 My mother and grand mother, North Peckham Estate, London 1985.
Photography and poetry by Russell Newell published in Architects Journal, 1987
 Meeting at the Crossroads
Then on a basic level from the age of 11–12
I was obsessed with photography. I practically
thought about nothing else save a few diver-
sions into various obscure topics such as
building my own plane, becoming an explorer,
building my own self sufficient house and living
on a remote island. Nothing in school could
respond to this but Cockpit was all about my
specialism—photography.
[AD] Would you describe your experi-
ence of working at The Cockpit as ‘political’?
[RN] I think yes, at that time I was
living in Peckham and I had just been arrested
and charged for taking part in the 1981 riots —  in which liberation could flourish. The Cockpit
my involvement with the Cockpit stemmed
from this. My mum was (and still is) politically
active on the left and I felt that Cockpit was
responding to and supporting the aspects
of my life and thinking that were politicised —  and find a public means to communicate that
race and identity. Politics were definitely part
of surviving as a young working class, racially
diverse Londoner and I felt that Cockpit under-
stood and actively encouraged and supported
that — I interpreted that as a political position
because it was outside of the mainstream
promoting voices like mine from the margins.
[AD] Do you think a politics of
education is possible within state schooling?
[RN] Yes, I think it is an issue that
needs to be forced though, and needs to come
from pupils as well as teachers. I think it needs
to grow from the margins where dissident
voices usually make themselves heard. We are
in a political environment that is oriented to
what Tariq Ali calls the ‘Extreme Centre’. I think
this translates as a politics of mediocrity and a
kind of frightened conservatism. We are seeing
the reaction to that position now with an
explosion of support for corporate fundamen-
talism from the right. The left is yet to recover
a position but I think that thinkers like Paul
Mason and his ‘post-capitalism’ are beginning
to signpost ways to reimagine its relationship
with capitalism. New technology and the world
of open source are key to this and will ulti-
mately change how and where young people
‘learn’ and what they are ‘taught’. Within all
this there is an opportunity for a new politics
of education as knowledge becomes decentral-
ised and young people develop a social
consciousness much earlier in life.
Schooling & Culture
X
Russell’s questions to Andrew
[RN] Partly through my involvement
with S&C my photography became politicised,
is this an outcome you were hoping for and
could it happen today?
[AD] The politics of cultural studies
at the Cockpit was based upon understanding
the central contradiction that whilst state schooling
was an apparatus designed to produce struc-
tural social disadvantage, genuine education
was liberating for young people. The problem
was how to create the conditions in schools
based its work on the belief that young people
should be taken seriously and that they had
important things to say. We saw our role as
enabling them to formulate their experience
experience to a meaningful audience. Education,
then as now is a struggle for personal liberation
and fulfilment, but in a structurally unequal
society. I guess the distinction between
schooling and education helped us articulate
the state’s role in reproducing inequality.
[RN] Is there a place for politics
in schools?
[AD] Well of course schooling is by
its very nature deeply political, not only in how
it is organised, distributed and accessed, but
in the curriculum choices of what knowledge
to include and exclude as well as approaches
to learning. Britain’s public education system
was founded in the 1870s upon the need
to create discipline and instil loyalty into the
emerging organised working class which capi-
talism needed. Today global capitalism needs
consumers, a highly skilled flexible workforce
as well as an increasing army of semi and
unskilled labour in the service economy.
Schooling is designed to deliver a differentiated
and adjusted workforce.
There is an unwritten curriculum in all
schools, an example being religious schools,
but also and probably more powerfully schools
based upon wealth and privilege. The unwritten
curriculum of working class schools presents
young people with the impossible choice
of individual betterment or collective failure.
New Labour enshrined this contradiction
by sloganising ‘equality of opportunity’, whilst
accepting the Tory’s conservative national
curriculum and a competitive system of
learning. So yes schooling is political through
and through in that it is a social mechanism
59
X Meeting at the Crossroads
for reproducing the division of labour and
in­­creasing the division between individuals.
Schooling is a giant sorting factory in which the
majority of children are destined for structural
failure, whilst a minority are selected for privilege.
Currently there is no place for politics
in schools but there is a real and urgent need
for political education in order to make connec-
tions between the problems facing humanity
and how schools might change to challenge
inequalities. Political education is a creative
journey of self-discovery and social connection.
It’s about questioning received cultural identi-
ties and embracing difference. It’s about taking
risks and empowering young people to do good
in the world. Most of what officially passes
for politics in Britain today fails to meet the
demands of a democratic progressive education
and because of this it fails all children.
[RN] Is there still a place for story-
telling using photography with young people
today in the school context?
[AD] Over the last two decades
photography has been massively extended
by digital technologies and the Internet to the
point where young people have powerful tools
of communication at their fingertips. But having
powerful tools isn’t the same thing as exercising
power. Today the networked image, as I now
think of photography, has the potential to be
a social, creative and political tool for progres-
sive change and collective liberation.
60 Schooling & Culture
However, under the control of corporate
providers of services and commercial media,
we can see that the Internet is also a new type
of social conformity, which limits young
people’s capacity to change their circum-
stances, or reach their full potential. This was
also true of photography as it was used in the
mainstream media in the 1970s. At the Cockpit
we saw the need to set up projects whereby
young people might be enabled to use media
to counter dominant ideas. Photography was
a popular and accessible media, through which
young people could discover and express
important truths within and about their lives.
Photography, allied to exhibition and publication
allowed young people to produce their own
media to a professional standard for public
interest. More than ever in our media saturated
world, young people need creative and critical
practices to discover their own truths and
understand the contradictions of the world
they live in. The problem now is that the old
politics of the Left are singularly unsuited to
an understanding of the new global forces
which shape our lives and hence can not
connect with, nor organise a progressive
response. Power has already moved elsewhere
and we need new collective forms to deal
with it. The old national boundaries of
community and cultural identities are dissolving
fast. Critical thinking and creative activity
remain the best ways I know of moving forward.
Images: Russell Newell, Martin B Peckham Boys School, London, 1983
XI Power, Structures, Language, People
This collaboration explored source materials
within and around the Schooling & Culture
archive, to run a student-led project towards
the production of two posters for secondary
school classrooms around the UK directly
questioning topics decided on by the students;
the politics of power and patriarchy. The experi-
mental collaboration took part between
members of Schooling & Culture and students
and teachers from Welling School, London.
Introductory lecture at Welling School
Schooling & Culture invited Munira Mohamed
from the Black Cultural Archives and Dr. Kate
Random Love a feminist art historian to each
give a twenty minute lecture at the school
about power, patriarchy and resistance through
grassroots organising and visual culture.
Students were invited to attend the after-school
lecture and there was a good turnout of about
thirty students from across the school years.
Guest lectures are something the school is
experimenting with and despite being dubious
about referring to it as a ‘lecture’, students
came along and were engaged for the whole
two hours! The purpose of beginning in this
format was to set a critically engaged tone
from which to develop out from.
ducation
ts fo r higher e
g stude n iting
Preparin m a t and inv
a lectur e fo r icular
xtracurr
by using to speak as an e xpecta-
academ
ics
it h s tu dent’s e
ither fits
w school’s
lesson e e s ts o r with the
d inter
tions an d-to rem
it.
a d a p te
well
!!!
Trip to MayDay Rooms
Off-site visit to an archive of social movements,
experimental and marginal cultures: Below is
the introduction given to the group of twenty
Welling School students from all year groups
on a visit to MayDay Rooms, an educational
charity on Fleet Street; London, that houses
radical archives, including Schooling & Culture.
We are here to examine language,
image, politics, power and related issues brought
to light by our conversations. Please raise your
hand whenever you want to clarify or ask
anything — we’ll detour and discuss altogether.
62 Schooling & Culture
These concepts and ideas are
constantly evolving — they evolve by people
critically questioning, discussing, learning
and acting. This project is about you, your
experiences and ideas.
Now some background on the reference
points to inform the work we will do together:
Schooling & Culture was a journal made by
teachers for teachers who shared a particular
view of the world; that there are injustices
experienced by people due to an imbalance
of power, and that through particular kinds
of education people can choose to change these
imbalances and live in a more fair and mean-
ingful way. Maybe they’d have called themselves
socialists, leftists, communists, radical peda-
gogues; any other terms you can think of?
What do these terms mean to you?
Cultural Studies turned the power
imbalance upside down by putting those who
are typically left out of mainstream discourses
in the centre rather than the sidelines; the centre
is typically dominated by those who are — 
white, male, heterosexual, financially advan-
taged, highly educated, English speaking
and Christian. They used creative techniques
to document, research, and celebrate everything
that was ‘other’.
MayDay Rooms is a refuge for historical
archives of these sorts of projects, campaigns
and protest groups such as Wages for
Housework, The Angry Brigade, S&C and Poster
Film Collective. There are notes from meetings,
posters, flyers, films and reports etc — these
make up the archives.
A group called the Poster Film Collective
made these posters for classrooms in 1983 and
they describe them as ‘a contribution to discus-
sions within the women’s movement on history,
culture and visual representation … The posters
through the juxtaposition of image and text,
look at aspects of the ideological, social and
economic structures of oppression’. Let’s break
this down — ideological / social / economic — 
and collectively discuss and clarify our under-
standing and experience of these concepts…
to begin with, what do you know about the 80s?!
The discussion meandered through topics
such as housework, democracy, politicians,
parliamentary parties, left, right, taxation,
waged-labour, gender, bullying, student power,
un/equal division of reproductive labour,
sexism in school, rules in school, the hierarchy
in a school and stories from lived experience.
 Power, Structures, Language, People XI
Using the issues raised during this
Welling School is a state funded specialist day-long discussion we worked with
art school, the students had been invited the teachers to choose the most
to partake in a ‘Special Project’ which pertinent topics raised by the students
meant they were taken out of their regular to design a process that fulfilled the
timetable with parental permission school’s requirements for ‘special

admitted to having had the poster from Aida’s workshop

framed and put up on the kitchen wall.” (see centrefold)
lifted them in many different ways. One student quietly
to participate. This is common practice projects’, the student’s experience

Teacher: “The students got a lot from the project and it

in the school. Three teachers attended and interests, and the development
the trip, and three members of S&C hosted of content for two classroom posters.
the workshops. Over two full days at the school and
a visit to an East London screen-
printing studio run by Aida Wilde,
the student’s ideas and visuals were
then worked into the final layout
define
a n yo n e w ant to help by artist Cristina Lina.
“So, does dent raises
’? ” A y e ar eight stu In many ways the hardest part
‘patriarc hy men,
sy st e m designed by is distilling all this energy and work
her hand, “A s go
s m e n .” (A ll other hand remotely, away from the site of the
that privileg
e this
e rs ’ e ye b ro ws raise… if workshops and the students into just
ch
down… tea is anything to
go by, two posters. The final design and the
m in u te s deep!
first ten re going to be necessary technical design work was
ss io n s a
the discu handled by Cristina with feedback
from everyone else involved.
Collaboration can be difficult to resolve
into final objects and form, but the
Our use of challenging process and the work is often more
language and unfamiliar ambitious in what it can produce.
concepts was presented in We hope that this experience of
a friendly questioning way creating visual culture for/with the

Teacher: “I loved the fact that it really looked at the idea of

so that students were students situates itself in resistance

how we challenge and question those ‘accepted’ values.”

values at a time when we are told in schools to promote
stretched but were also able to the dominant art practices we are

‘British Values’ . It subverted that idea and asked about

development. I think the project ticked every box of this.”
of the students spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC)
an education in our specialist subjects but also to be aware
TEACHER: “The curriculum asks for us not just to provide

to be confused and often, shown at school, taught to love and

able to engage in dialogue
on a level of understanding
overlooked in the classroom
for fear of excluded some
students. We had genuine
dialogue across different
ages and including teachers
in efforts to define termi-
nology such as ‘socialist’.
aspire to. Where reputation economies,
theory hierarchies, commodity,
privilege and the successful practice
of the solo, male, white artist are the
value systems that prevail.
Power, Structures, Language,
People works to develop new ideas and
fresh perspectives on particular issues
at stake within school, youth culture
and the world at large. The project
has produced two classroom posters,
which, along with this write up, we
hope will be used in class-rooms around
the UK to encourage students and staff
to question the status quo.
Included here are some of the
exercises we developed through the
process, we encourage you to use,
develop and adapt these exercises
in order to activate the posters and
create your own collaborative work
and new perspectives and opinions
on the issues at stake.

Schooling & Culture 63

XI Power, Structures, Language, People

Activity: The Great Game
of Power — From Augusto
Boal’s Games for Actors
and Non Actors (1992)*
A table, six chairs and a bottle. First of all,
participants are asked to come up one at a time
and arrange the objects so as to make one chair
become the most powerful object, in relation
to the other chairs, the table and the bottle.
Any of the objects can be moved or placed on
top of each other, or on their sides, or whatever,
but none of the objects can be removed alto-
gether from the space. The group will run
through a great number of variations in the
arrangement. Then, when a suitable arrange-
ment has been arrived at, an arrangement in
which, by group consensus, one chair is clearly
the most powerful object, a participant is asked
to enter the space and take up the most
powerful position, without moving anything.
Once someone is in place, the other members
of the group can enter the space in succession
and try to place themselves in an even more
powerful position, and take away the power
the first person established.
*Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre director, writer and
politician. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed,
a theatrical form originally used in radical popular education
movements [http://www.theatreoftheoppressed.org/)
“Without students the sch
ool is nothing,
the student body has the
“The problem with this is
most power”
that most
powerful position is invisib
le, surveillance,
undercover, how do we sho
w that?”
“Does being a girl affect
my position
of power in this game, or
for this game
is my gender invisible?”
“Is a large mass of people
more powerful
than one almighty power?”
“x is the oldest so he is au
tomatically
the most powerful”
Activity: Spectrums
An imaginary line the length of the room runs
between strongly agree to strongly disagree
and all inbetween. One member of the group
asks a question and the rest of the group position
themselves somewhere between agree and
disagree depending on their opinion. Members
will be asking each other about their opinions
in order to position themselves accordingly
along the line. Once all members have settled
in their positions, a facilitator can ask individ-
uals to explain why they are stood where they
are. Participants are encouraged to move
if someone else’s opinions affects their own.
Do you agree or disagree that...
∙ The headteacher is the most powerful
person at school
∙ The students are the most powerful body
in the school
∙ Students should be paid to come to come
∙ A poster can affect change in the classroom
∙ Men are stronger than women
∙ Women are more caring than men
∙ Girls prefer the colour pink to blue
∙ Knowledge is power
∙ Money is power
∙ I feel safe at school
∙ I can express my opinions whatever they
are at school
∙ I have the power to affect change in
∙ my school
∙ Working as a group is the best way
to succeed
∙ A boy can be a feminist
∙ Alone we are powerless together we
are strong
∙ Being a refugee is not a choice
!!!
Year 8 female student whispers
in my ear. “Can you ask if footballers
should be paid more than nurses?”
The Spectrum game was useful for us
as ‘outsiders’ to learn from the group
and for the group to learn from each
other through various complex provoca-
tions and physical demonstrations of
difference/togetherness. It expands
people’s positions, affirms them,
questions them and creates productive,
albeit temporary, sites of alliance and
conflict, which can or cannot be
followed up on further at later stages.

64 Schooling & Culture

 Power, Structures, Language, People XI

ities for the

uc ed th ro ug h the various activ

targets based on their progress in eight areas of which art can only count for one. Everything is averaged
out and the expectation is that everyone does something measurable and comparable. This is so far from
images pr od enarios.
Some of the best st ud en ts enacting the sc

that poisonous idea. Sadly the situation has really hit home with the exam boards looking for ever more
the photog ra ph s of y

at the moment. The idea of a big cross curricula multi-agency project is something of an anti-venom to
e near impossibilit

Teacher: The climate is so unfriendly towards Art being anything but a decorative hobby in schools
poster series were int to raise was th

The pressure is increasing on schools to be grey uniform exam factories with students now receiving
an in te re st in g po ec te d
An important and the classroom. Prot
be in g us ed/seen outside of r intentions
of these im ag es
io n, tru st , sa fe-guarding, unclea

conservative approaches, ones that are so far away from what you or I would recognise as Art.
s, perm iss raises
for various reason us ed fo r th e po ster — regardless it
from us, as to wha
t could be young people,
ou t th e re pr es en tation (or lack of) of
urgent questions ab a message they be
lieve in and have
an d st an di ng by
unstaged
lves.
developed themse

reality where everyone has a very different idea of how the world works. “
Learning complex concepts

The posters are the fruits of hours and hours of discussions with students
about very complex political and social issues. As cultural practitioners
we guided the conversations away from abstract theoretical definitions
or macro political discourse and towards resounding experiences of the
students’ themselves, however banal or unimportant they may initially feel
that it is. We recommend using the text in the posters as discussion points
for exploring and developing opinions and understandings within the
context of a particular issue or concept such as ‘power’. Particularly when
learning the meanings of complex terminology, we emphasise the necessity
of inviting students to define and redefine words and ideas according
to their own experiences rather than factually what does this mean
according to the book. While this process of learning takes longer and
requires teachers to engage with what can potentially drift into uneasy
waters, we are committed to accepting that potential conflict is healthy
and as qualified teachers and experienced practitioners we can protect our
students in moments of difference or conflict rather than protecting them
from difference or conflict, as a means of authentic meaningful learning.

Youth-led / Student-led projects

There is much debate about youth-led learning and whether or not authentic
youth-led projects are even possible within the school context and can only
ever be tokenistic given the immoveable hierarchies that govern schools,
teachers and students.
What defines Libertarian education from Anarchist education, for example
and in simplistic terms, is the difference between a structure which prioritises !!!
individual children’s desires as the lead for their individual learning, timings
moments of being what a truly

I’m extremely pleased to have

challenging and open minded

and content (Libertarian), as different from providing a particular process

Teacher: The project had

of learning with particular content that upholds particular politics within

education should offer and

which children can chose their activities from what is valued and thus
provided (Anarchist).
This project was as youth led as it could be within the restrictions
of time, space and resources. By maintaining the focus of our work and
been part of it.”

discussions on the student’s own experiences all students developed

sound understandings individually of concepts such as ‘patriarchy’,
as well as meaningful understandings of their peer’s interpretations
and opinions of the same concepts.

Schooling & Culture 65

Schooling & Culture issue 11, Spring 1982
 Recovering The State We’re In XII

The past thirty years or so have witnessed some quite profound

social and cultural changes. That is not particularly surprising,
is it? Things change! Change is inevitable, perhaps, but not
so predictable. To be sure, the inevitability of change should be
no excuse for complacency. Things change, yes. But how they
really change, and according to what, who and why, should not
be taken lightly or allowed to pass without careful attention.

The specific changes which will be addressed
here relate to how we perceive the welfare state
and its public services, especially education.
More fundamentally, what concerns me is the
political agenda—pursued since the late 1970s
by governments from both the political left and
right, and usually presented as if there is no
alternative—which has attempted to instil,
install and incite a new ‘common-sense’ within
public consciousness regarding the necessary
or proper relationship between government,
society and the economy.
The crystallisation of the welfare state in
Britain, in the years after the Second World War,
signalled an earlier and significant change in
this relationship. It was the outcome, at least
in part, of a hard fought political struggle over
the inevitable contradictions of capitalism and
its tendency, evident no less (if not more so)
today, to produce inequality. The welfare state
at this time was founded and premised on ideas
of collective responsibility, mutualisation of
social risk, egalitarianism and wealth redistri­
bution (partially in the form of social or public
property, such as the provision of universal
and free education). Society benefited from
the contributions made by capitalism and the
national citizenry in the form of progressive
taxation, helping to fund things like education,
healthcare and social security. Capitalism
benefited from the healthy, happy, educated
and secure citizen as worker.
The welfare state was not a perfect change.
It may have been a little ambitious, and arguably
too presumptuous, in taking upon itself the task
of caring for each and all ‘from cradle to the grave’.
But it marked a moment in history where the
chance circumstances of the individual could
and would be mitigated by the social actions
of democratically elected and accountable
governments, in partnership with social profes-
sionals and their expertise, including teachers.
Since the late 1970s, however, there has
been a change in sentiment towards the welfare
state. This has and continues to be underpinned
by a powerful master narrative propagated
by the political class and especially those with
vested interests: that the welfare state and
its public services are necessarily ‘bad’—that is,
dysfunctional, captured by self-interested
professionals, and financially and morally
bankrupt—and that they must be reformed and
re-cultured by and in the image of the private
sector (read capitalism) in order to be more
‘effective’ and ‘efficient’—terms which, while
empty and ambiguous, reflect the political
attempt to de-politicise public and social issues,
including education.
The spe
cifi
will be a c changes wh
ddresse ic
d here r h
to how el
we perc
welfare eive the ate
sta
services te and its pub
, especi lic
educati ally
on.
One outcome of this change in sentiment
and approach has been that the relatively long-
standing boundary maintained between the
public sector—a democratic and collective
space of universal provision, open to and for
the benefit of all, and whereby citizens can

Schooling & Culture 67

XII Recovering The State We’re In
voice concerns to, demand action from,
and hold to account their political representa-
tives; and the private sector—a domain of
exchange relations characterised by the profit
incentive and individual gain—has been
dissolved. What we see is less a replacement
of the social state than a militant-like appropria-
tion of the state’s social institutions and spaces,
including schools. This is, moreover, a more
or less conscious attempt to erase the public
sphere—its specificity, virtues and achieve-
ments—by promoting ways of thinking,
living and being which are commensurate
with the market.
Following this logic, education reform
has been enacted via two structuring and moral
imperatives. On the one hand, marketisation
and privatisation—the introduction of choice,
competition, high-stakes testing, performance
management and diversity of provision, all in
order to satisfy the demands of global capi-
talism, and to nourish and cultivate the ‘free,
possessive individual’ who is taken as natural.1
On the other hand, and somewhat paradoxi-
cally, centralisation—of knowledge, values
and decision-making.2 Within this settlement,
amongst other things, rests a particular distrust
of the teacher and their professional expertise,
alongside a suffocating and ill-informed under-
standing of knowledge and learning.
Whether we agree or disagree with
the form and direction of educational change
and welfare reform since the late 1970s, this
master narrative and the reforms it has inspired
have had worrying implications for democracy,
understood in the simple but perhaps most
effective sense of ‘power of the people’,
and is itself underpinned by an acute and
persistent market-orientated anti-statism.
This particular form of ‘state phobia’, to put
it another way, refers to the idea that the
(welfare) state and its social institutions and
aims are not only ill-suited to tackling the
problems of today, but more fundamentally
that the social state and its redistributive
and caring sensibilities are in fact anathema
to progress, are tyrannical and opposed
to freedom and the private interests of
1 For further reading on this, see: Hall, S. (2011)
‘The neo-liberal revolution’. Cultural Studies, 25:6, 705 – 728.
2 For further reading on the dual processes of centralisation
and marketisation in educational reform, see:
Ball, S.J. (2013) The education debate (second edition).
Policy Press: Bristol.
68 Schooling & Culture
the individual.3 Make of that what you will.
We can in fact see two very evident examples
of ‘state phobia’ in education today, both
of which divide opinion: the introduction of
academy schools into the educational landscape,
and the influence of the social enterprise Teach
First as an alternative provider of teacher education.
Within this settlement,
amongst other things, rests
a particular distrust of the
teacher and their profes-
sional expertise, alongside a
suffocating and ill-informed
understanding of knowledge
and learning.
Academies are an instance of ‘state phobia’
because they are often supported, sponsored
and/or run by private trusts and foundations,
or have their management out-sourced to
private sector companies which run them under
contract from the state for profit. These institu-
tions operate outside local government
oversight—and hence are not subject to any
form of democratic process or accountability—
and are afforded certain ‘freedoms’ over, for
instance, the curriculum they teach, admissions
and the length of the school day. They can
opt out of national agreements on pay and
working conditions, and can also employ
non-qualified teaching staff. Schools considered
‘coasting’ or ‘failing’ can be forcibly converted
into academies without any local consultation,
the idea being, again, that the market is
on hand to transform these schools and raise
their ‘performance’.
In a similar way, Teach First is state-subsi-
dised and receives significant financial support
from private sector companies, philanthropic
foundations and global corporations. Perhaps
more importantly, Teach First draws heavily
on the culture, values and methods of business
3 For further reading on ‘state-phobia’, see:
Dean, M. (2016) ‘Neoliberalism and our demons’.
Contribution to Review Symposium on Wendy Brown’s
Undoing the Demos. European Political Science.
doi:10.1057/eps.2016.11. See also: Villadsen, K. & Dean,
M. (2012) ‘State-Phobia, Civil Society, and a
Certain Vitalism’. Constellations, 19(3), pp. 401 – 420.
Schooling & Culture issue 11, Spring 1982
XII Recovering The State We’re In
in its mission to transform education and
teacher professionalism. More or less implicit
within the official rhetoric of Teach First is
the idea that teachers and schools have failed
young people, and that by attracting new
and energised people into the profession,
with guidance from its private sector partners,
who undertake some of the teacher or ‘leader-
ship development’ training, these people will
be able to ‘save’ the most disadvantaged in our
society by raising their aspirations and
improving their test scores. The emotive claim
here—well-meaning but dangerous—is that
inequality is no barrier to ‘success’, so long
as the entrepreneurial spirit is unlocked within
the individual, no matter their chance circum-
stances and conditions of inequality and
disadvantagement.
Both academies and Teach First, then,
reflect the ongoing reform and appropriation
of the social state by the private sector.
Together, they enable what is sometimes
termed the ‘economisation’ of education—
the transformation of education from a public
good to a private good. However, it should
be added with some emphasis that there
is no intention here to undermine the work,
commitments and dedication of teachers
in academies or those who have entered the
profession through Teach First. That would be
unfair, short-sighted and unfounded. Indeed,
life is always in excess of the dominant ways
of seeing, being and doing at any given
moment. But it is possible, and it is argued
here necessary, to recover the social state
which we have inherited today and the often
derided public institutions and professionals
who continue, notwithstanding the political
agenda noted above, to undertake and enable
its vital work on a daily basis. We can use
the examples of academies and Teach First
to help make this case.
Firstly, and to reluctantly use the termi-
nology of the mainstream political class today,
many academies are ‘under-performing’ and
failing to meet the ‘standards’ they are suppos-
edly best-equipped to raise. There have also been
some well-documented controversies over the
dubious practices of academy trusts, particu-
larly in terms of financial transparency, corrup-
tion and accountability. The moral superiority
of the market can and should hence continue
to be questioned and held to public account.
Secondly, Teach First has no doubt
attracted many highly capable and committed
people into the teaching profession, but some
70 Schooling & Culture
of the experiences of Teach First teachers them-
selves indicate the dangers in appealing to and
promoting ideas of ‘individual responsibility’
and ‘success against the odds’—linked as they
are, in part at least, to the politically and
economically motivated fears of the social state
discussed above, and which fit a little too easily
with the ongoing politics of austerity. To
conclude, we might reflect on the following
account by a Teach First teacher which, whilst
referring to the lack of support this person felt
they had received from Teach First whilst under-
taking the programme, perhaps says something
more fundamental about the perils and demons
lurking in popular narratives regarding the
primacy of the individual and the market over
the supportive and collective structures of the
social state:
Once you come into the school you’re
not really… you don’t really have Teach First’s
support. So you come into a school and you
have to fight your own battles and I suppose
in a way that’s positive because that’s life and
you should be able to do that, but in other ways
you’d expect maybe to be given some advice
from Teach First and maybe kind of directed
and inspired a little bit more, but you don’t get
that at all.4
Perhaps we can glimpse here one
of the central impasses of our current social,
economic, cultural and political conjuncture,
and one which portends acute social justice
implications for a potential future where
education and other public services are fully
privatised. Moving beyond this impasse,
I suggest, demands not only ongoing critical
engagements with our definitions, conceptions
and practices of ‘freedom’, but also a sensitivity
(and desensitisation) towards the social and
political possibilities, potentials and achieve-
ments of the state, as well as its pitfalls. Is it
the state that we should be averse to, or those
forms of political organisation and representa-
tion which intentionally and cynically attempt
to undermine its democratic, redistributive
and inclusive potential?
4 This interview extract is taken from a research study
which in part explored the experiences, perspectives
and professional identities of Teach First teachers.
For further reading, see: Bailey, P. (2015) ‘”Teach First”
as a dispositif: towards a critical ontology of policy and
power’. UCL Institute of Education (PhD Thesis), London.
 The Desire to Decolonise Education XIII
in the name of social and cultural justice

by Anni Movsisyan

Britain and France created the borders of the Middle East about
a hundred years ago, hence the straight, plotted edges of nations
including Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, visible on a political map.
This was one of a number of British imperial projects that I never
learnt about as a part of the British history curriculum at
secondary school. We learnt about the ancient Roman invasion,
conflicts between European kingdoms, the evolution of the
Church and Monarchy, the feudal system and World War II.
We merely glanced over the Slave Trade. We were not taught
about the extent of colonialism and its impacts on those colonised.
Apart from what we study at school, there are his/herstories that
are not brought to the surface for society to learn from — stories
told by marginalised voices about their lives, their struggles and
their oppressors. Are those (her)stories less worthy of being
listened to or less useful to learn from? Why is it that in main-
stream education, we hear almost nothing — if anything — about
the experiences of colonised people, how they felt about their
oppressors and the injustices committed upon them, from their
perspective? Why aren’t we taught about how the borders
of many of the world’s nation states were created by the West?

These thoughts of mine were prompted through
research that led me to begin a small series of
‘Decolonising Education’ workshops. They took
place at InIVA (Institute of International Visual
Arts) in 2014 within the project Baldwin’s
Nigger Reloaded, led by artists and curators
Barby Asante and Teresa Cisneros. The name
of the project references Black-British filmmaker
Horace Ové’s film Baldwin’s Nigger. In this
piece of film-verité, James Baldwin speaks
about the importance of questioning ‘white
power’ and the ‘histories’ that a nation
prescribes to its citizens. Baldwin also discusses
these issues in his 1963 speech, A Talk to
Teachers: The Negro Child- His Self Image,
describing how the ‘Negro’ in America pledges
allegiance to his country, a nation that promises
‘liberty and justice for all‘, while simultaneously,
the ‘Negro’ is ‘assured‘ through his White
American education and society that no ‘Negro’
has ever contributed to progress, to America.
Over the last two years I have been privi-
leged to witness actions carried out by institu-
tions and discussions through the media whilst
realising that they completely ignore the
legacies of colonialism, genocide and slavery
within our lives today. #BlackLivesMatter;
rampant Islamophobia; post-Brexit hatred
extending its racist reach to Eastern Europeans
who are conventionally racialised as white,

Schooling & Culture 73

XIII The Desire to Decolonise Education
which raises the question of who is considered
‘white’ in various contexts; continual appropria-
tion of non-white cultures for largely white
consumption, from Black music to bindis to
features of the Black female body. Where does
education play a part in both nurturing and
unlearning both explicit and implicit racism,
xenophobia, nationalism and white supremacy?
“In recent years,
the policing of cultural
characteristics that pose
no threat of harm, but
which do not conform
to a certain white,
western image, have
taken place in schools.”
How Colonial Education Affected the Cultural
Identity of the Colonised
Processes of colonisation included cultural
and philosophical forms of oppression, like
forbidding indigenous languages or religions to
be spoken or practiced, as well as physical
forms of oppression, such as enforced labour
and control over the land and its resources.
Gauri Viswanathan wrote that forcing colonial
subjects to assimilate into European culture
is an effective way of ruling them. How does
schooling impact the colonised? Ngug wa
Thiong’o, a writer raised in Kenya under British
rule, writes that colonial education
“…annihilate[s] a people’s belief in their
names, in their languages, in their
en­vironment, in their heritage of struggle,
in their unity, in their capacities and
ultimately in themselves. It makes them
see their past as one wasteland of non-
achievement and it makes them want
to distance themselves from that
wasteland. It makes them want to identify
with that which is furthest removed
from themselves.”
In recent years, the policing of cultural charac-
teristics that pose no threat of harm, but which
do not conform to a certain white, western
74 Schooling & Culture
image, have taken place in schools. The contro-
versy in France over girls wearing headscarves
in schools, a ban on the use of ‘street slang‘
in a London schools, and children of African
descent both suspended from schools in the
UK and in the United States for wearing natural
hairstyles are the legacies of colonial educa-
tional practices, such as banning students’
native languages from being spoken in school.
The late Palestinian-American public intellectual
Edward Said, experienced this practice while
attending the British-run Victoria College
in Egypt, in the late forties. He cites that the
school handbook’s first page read: ‘English
is the language of the school; students caught
speaking any other language will be punished.‘
History Education in ‘Postcolonial‘ Britain
The United Kingdom has a compulsory curric-
ulum for 11 – 14 year olds (‘Key Stage 3’), within
which it is allowed for individual schools or
teachers to choose the specifics of what their
pupils study. Some of the topics that pupils
are taught in the history curriculum include
the Church and Medieval Britain; British society
from 1509 – 1745; ideas, political power,
industry and empire in Britain from 1745 – 1901;
a local history study; a theme in British history
before 1066; and a significant society or issue
in world history. I remember a predominantly
white, European cast starring in the compulsory
history education at my school. People of
African descent came up only within the topic
of slavery; we covered their suffering and
the West’s profits from a distance. I don’t
remember learning much about abolition
and I can’t remember if my class learnt about
William Wilberforce.
Colonialism — Taking other land and its native inhabitants
without asking
 The Desire to Decolonise Education XIII
However, during a recent exploration of the about what that would do... if we had an
BBC Bitesize website, a primary and secondary education system... which actually focused
curriculum revision tool endorsed by schools on what’s happening right now.’
nationwide and by the British government,
I found the website’s section on the abolition
of slavery, but its resources mostly present the
stories of white abolitionists. The glorification
of Wilberforce seems to go unquestioned and
it is difficult to find further information online,
although sources such as personal blogs,
bring up the issue of Wilberforce’s oppor-
tunism, as he called for the ‘gradual emancipa-
tion‘ of slaves. But I only learnt in this moment
that a significant factor in white support of
abolition was for reasons of profit rather than
genuine liberatory ones; for Wilberforce,
abolition and the fall of the cotton industry
The British Empire — Exploitation of non-white labour
would bring better fortune to his family’s and resources for white profit
wool industry.

De-linking from the White Curriculum

I have only very briskly introduced what pupils

study in ‘Key Stage 3’ history, but now I would !!!
like to introduce points here that interest me
in terms of the relationship between history
education, identity and power dynamics.
ric,
I have opinions on these points, but perhaps d e u rocent
phol
I have not collected enough satisfactory
s s o n plan u ist values?
e c
evidence to present a strong argument your l te suprema
Does h i
list, w
in front of the most privileged of capita w? xes’
‘devil’s advocates’. I mostly have my f s o, ho t i c k t he bo
I ‘
ching o ‘ensure’
own and others’ memories and expe- o u ’re tea et ,
riences as anecdotes that I have yet e s w hat y
s c h o ols us .g. women
Do t h a t e s ( e )
ersity entiti colour
to record. Personally I would like to of div a l ised id people of
ar g i n le, tart at
further investigate the stories that are that m class peop s, that’s a s tion
not told of the marginalised, from o r k i ng d ? I f ye
t r e p r esenta
w te u
presen tion. B easily
family histories to significant yet are re ising educa utions can
n tit ages
invisible narratives involving the British decolo mits, as ins ectable im genda
l i s p a
Empire that are kept quiet within has its alatable, re oice fits the otable
t p
marke ities whose
v s, n
schooling. t storie
or .W h a to the
To voice my main concerns of min rganisation n you bring ctives
to
of tha ideas (etc.)
ca rspe
through Yusuf Musse’s words, British/
, o n s t r ate pe hich
e ose w
Western, mainstream education treats peopl m that dem
s s r o o u t s i d e of th refers to
the subject of colonialism ‘like an event, cla o p
x p e r i ences tion system d it have
not a process’. The events would be or e ca oul
B r i t i sh edu t impact w h at wo
uld
Colonisation, Decolonisation and the h a  —  w
And w arning pand
Progress, all the while privileging the teach? students’ le would it ex
r w
supposed history of progress. I seems on you from it, ho
e t /s?
that many, of my generation for sure, they g erstanding
n d
feel the lack of stories or accounts their u
presented by colonised people about
their colonisers, of which if more were
heard, could be used to ‘actually critically
engage with that [decolonisation] — think

Schooling & Culture 75

XIII Young Worker’s Camera

76 Schooling & Culture

Young Worker’s Camera XIII

Schooling & Culture 77

 Young Worker’s Camera
Customised disposable cameras become a tool to make young
people’s relation to work visible. Images of their underrepre-
sented daily chores can build an international archive of young
people and labour for self-publishing purposes.
By replacing the technical instructions at
the back of the camera with the guidelines
of the project, the social function of the camera
is highlighted. The Young Worker’s Camera
(YWC) challenges the conventions of what
is commonly perceived as a photographic
practice, inviting young people to photograph
invisible aspects of their daily life.
Even though the YWC is a tool to work
autonomously, without the need of further
coaching, it can also be used in the context
of pre-organised workshops. We have already
worked with groups of young people in Fez,
Amsterdam, London, Blackburn, Móstoles,
Havana, Teheran and Rotterdam. A YWC
workshop consists of 3 parts as follows.
1. Introduction and handing of the YWC
Asking the participants to describe their daily
use of photography is a good way to discuss
which situations they perceive as a suitable
subjects for a photograph. This conversation
often leads to an acknowledgement that the
common use of photography serves to
document moments of celebration and leisure
rather than everyday, ordinary activities such
as going to school or working, the daily
domestic chores are left out of the picture.
It might be relevant to introduce the
Worker Photography Movement as a historical
UFIL Pablo Neruda, Móstoles.
Young Worker’s Camera workshop, 2015.
Schooling & Culture
XIV
exception to our current understanding of
amateur photography. For this purpose we
have designed a so-called ‘Ten Minute Photography
Course’ which consists of a set of didactic
posters in 3 bilingual versions: English/Spanish,
Italian/Dutch, French/Arabic (for further infor-
mation email: info@werkermagazine.org).
After the theoretical and historical intro-
duction, the participants are invited to go through
the YWC archive, choose an image and present
it to the group. The international character
of the archive with images from North Africa,
the Middle East, Latin America and Europe,
makes the YWC archive an appealing collection
of images for young people.
Finally, the YWC are distributed to
all participants. On the premises of the motto
‘Photograph Things That Matter!’ they will have
one week to photograph their invisible routines
before handing in the exposed cameras in order
to be developed.
2. Writing captions
Prior to the second part of the workshop all
the cameras have been developed. A template
identifying them as part of the YWC archive is
printed with a domestic laser printer at the back
of every image. The template contains the
following fields: Name, age, location, date,
image description (if you would like to receive
the design of the template you can email us).
To write on the back of the images some
indelible pens are needed.
The meaning of an image is somehow
elastic. Images have the capacity to signify
one thing or its opposite. It is often the accom-
panying text that clarifies the intention of the
photographer. At the same time, if an image is
too dark or un-focused we shouldn’t discard it,
the YWC is not about making beautiful images
(whatever that means) but about the intention
behind every image. The description text can
also be used to reveal what is not visible in
the picture, what took place out of the frame,
79
 XIV Young Worker’s Camera
before or after the instant where the photo-
graph was taken. Once all captions have been
written, each participant selects their favourite
picture and presents it to the group as a way
of sharing their experiences and findings.
3. Self-publishing
Since photography is a mass communication
technology, in order to reach the outside world,
we invite the participants to edit and design
a publication. They can use their own images
but also combine them with images from
the YWC archive or any other materials they
might find relevant to support their concept.
Typography can be hand-drawn or quickly
printed from a computer.
A collaborative editing and design
process is achieved through analogue layout
making (paper, glue and scissors). This allows
the participants to work simultaneously on
a design rather than a digital process where
only one person is in control of the computer.
This process results in the making of
one master poster or fanzine that has to be
reproduced, printed and distributed between
their peers and community.
The Showroom, London
Schooling & Culture workshop, 2016.
’You Only Live Once’ — or YOLO.
A phrase used frequently by not only my
generation, but by all, as a reminder to
have a bit of fun. So why is it that in our
teenage years, a time before we venture
out into the working world, that instead
of having fun, we have to face relentless
sets of testing — GCSEs, A Levels?
We live in a society, who base learning
on results, with results defining your ability.
At The Showroom, my group and I collec-
tively tried to define what is: ‘learning’
and ‘success’.  With my group, finishing
our GCSEs , we felt it was time to give a
youth perspective on the matter of exams
and the pressure on us now. We felt that
regardless of where we are or what we are
doing we are constantly learning. Not only
through the traditional technique of a
pen and paper in a classroom but through
various methods: music, social media
or being outside of being in some way!
Learning shouldn’t have to be stressful
or feared but we should all remember try
to enjoy our life (and have fun) instead of
letting learning and exams control us. 
In the following posters we tried to express

that there isn’t a definition of learning or

success, every individual should have their
own goals for example: for us learning how
to use a camera was a huge achievement!

—Lee Fernandes
photography and social networks.
Darkroom model in today’s era of digital
and actualising the Community
porary context and looks into reactivating
of social photography within a contem-

today, as we are producing and consuming

is open to anyone, is still very rele­vant
media education and image analysis that
become redundant, a physical space for
most elements of the darkroom to have
and share photography, which leaves
changed the way in which we practice

politics/economics.
a framework of power, institutions and
of language-use as operating within
influenced by Stuart Hall’s regards
photography movement of the 1970s,
played a key role in the community
Darkroom (NPCD) in London, which
of the North Paddington Community
of radical documentary taking the example
Community Darkroom, an itinerant school

dominant media.
hegemony of imagery spread by the
and to build an alternative against the
the 1920s, to document everyday life
to use the camera politically back in
first group of amateur photographers
Worker Photographer Movement, the
in Amsterdam in 2009 inspired by the
Werker is an art collective initiated
tive instigated by werker magazine.
The Young Worker’s Camera is an initia-
more images than ever before.
Werker 10 explores the possibilities

Even though technology has

In 2014 they started Werker 10 — 

80 Schooling & Culture

Young Worker’s Camera XIV

Schooling & Culture 81

XV

82
XV

83
84
XVI Reading Recommendations
Schooling & Culture
1978 – 1984, ILEA
The Education Debate
Stephen J. Ball
2008, Policy Press
Foucault, Power, and Education
Stephen J. Ball
2013, Routledge
Games for Actors and
Non-actors
Augusto Boal
2002, Psychology Press
Reading Ranciere
Edited by Paul Bowman and  Youth Subcultures in Post-War
Richard Stamp
2011, Continuum
Undoing the Demos: Neoliberal-
ism’s Stealth Revolution
Wendy Brown, 2015
Can the Subaltern Speak?
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
abahlali.org/files/Can_the_
subaltern_speak.pdf
MIT Press
86 Schooling & Culture
Youth, Culture and Photography
Andrew Dewdney  
and Martin Lister
1988, Palgrave
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paulo Freire
1996, Penguin Education
Teaching Art in the Neo Liberal
Realm — Idealism Versus
Cynicism Antennae
Pascal Gielen and  
Paul de Bruyne
2011, Valiz
Educating for Insurgency — 
The Roles of Young People
in Schools of Poverty
Jay Gillen
2014, AK Press
Resistance Through Rituals:
Britain (Cultural Studies
Birmingham)
Stuart Hall
1975, HarperCollinsAcademic
The Neo-Liberal Revolution in
Cultural Studies, 25:6, 705 –728.
Stuart Hall
2011
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502
386.2011.619886
The Phantom of
Liberty — Contemporary Art
and the Pedagogical Paradox
Edited by Tone Hansen  
and Lars Bang Larsen
2013, Sternberg Press
 Reading Recommendations XVI
Teaching to Transgress: Anarchism and Education:
Education as the Practice A Philosophical Perspective
of Freedom Judith Suissa
bell hooks 2010, PM Press
1994, Routledge

In Defense of the School: Artist-Teachers in Context:

A Public Issue
Jan Masschelein and Maarten
Simons, Trans J. McMartin
2013, Leuven, E-ducation,
Culture and Society Publishers,
International Dialogues
Raphael Vella,
2016, Sense Publishers

Feminism without Borders: Talking Schools

Decolonizing Theory, Colin Ward
Practicing Solidarity 1995, Freedom Press
Chandra Talpade Mohanty
2003, Duke Press

Do the Right Thing —  ACT ESOL: A Theatre of the

a manual from MFK
Lisa Nyberg, Johanna
Gustavsson
2011
www.studio-sm.se/MFK_
Do-the-right-thing_ENG.pdf
Oppressed Language Project
Becky Winstanley
2016
www.serpentinegalleries.org/
sites/default/files/downloads/
act_esol_280616.pdf

Radical Education Workbook Capitalist Realism: Is There

2010 No Alternative?
Radical Education Forum Mark Fisher
www.dropbox.com/s/kslnn5l- 2009
l14atih6/ref%20workbook.pdf

The Ignorant Schoolmaster: What Being Black is and

Five Lessons in Intellectual What Being Black Isn’t
Emancipation Jacob Whittingham
Jacques Rancière 2010
(1987 translation. Kristin Ross)
1991, Stanford: Stanford
University Press

A Pedagogy for Liberation:

Dialogues on Transforming
Education
Ira Shor and Paulo Freire
1986, Praeger

Schooling & Culture 87

XVII Afterword — Looking Forward
If you are reading this afterword, firstly thank Another key stage in our development that
you for the time spent with this journal. It is a we wanted to acknowledge here is our usage
crucial part of the work we are doing to develop of anonymity for contributors, we do this for
a network, turn corners, reveal blind-spots and the very real need of protecting teachers’
create alliances from the now often isolated identities.  Additionally, we propose anonymity
and pressured task of teaching. as a constructive collective power, as a critique
At present the working group for of the competitive tendencies of individuals
Schooling & Culture is a loosely affiliated auton- who utilise political interests in ways that inad-
omous body of ten individuals, from teaching, vertently (or otherwise) benefit individual
youth work and arts backgrounds. For the last careers. Our anonymity is positioned as radical,
two years we have been meeting, sharing work not as shrinking or passive. We are denying
and ideas towards an energised commitment self-promotion, but not preventing a network.
to reactivating Schooling & Culture. It is a journal
that we all feel an affinity with, through its Looking to the future
politics, its practice of being a practical manual
for productive resistance and an invitation to Schooling & Culture recognises a critical need
organise collectively against state oppression. for collective action towards models of avant-
Schooling & Culture is now an unfunded, garde political methodologies in the classroom.
precarious project, unlike the original which Schooling & Culture supports future genera-
was housed and paid for by the ILEA. tions to develop powerful, self-led practices
This journal was made during unpaid and after- of resistance and alternatives to those imposed
hours time and relied on in-kind support from by the state and the private sector.
London based organisation MayDay Rooms
and the Communal Knowledge programme. Schooling & Culture seeks to:
Much time has been spent orienting our internal
workings from an outward critique of the ∙∙ Strengthen networks against isolation and
increasing economy of non-payment and anti- towards invigorating imaginative teaching
thetical crediting. Developing these thoughts and learning.
has been a process worked out in part through ∙∙ Support Teachers, parents, youth workers,
a conversation with New York based activist young people and those organising both
organisation W.A.G.E. structures and pedagogies against racism
In this afterword you will see the inclusion and fascism in light of Brexit and the
of our budget, hopefully presented as a useful refugee crisis.
guide for the cost of such work, but also for ∙∙ Work Against hegemony sustained by
honest contextualisation. Here we expose the exams, league tables, leadership, payment
project’s ‘workings-out’ as a way to publicly by results, and the threat of increasing
critique an economic situation where central selective schooling and privatisation.
government has; sold off much of the education ∙∙ Continue the depth of cultural studies and
sector and gerrymandered local budgets; expand on the breadth of radical and alter-
cut funding for community arts/youth centres; native educational practices and movements.
centralised funds for the arts which are
controlled by an ‘elite’ ordained with deciding
what is and what is not valuable (e.g. Arts Council We are
calling
England); and where the urgency of exiled utors, t for
o develo more contrib
political work is such that we squeeze it into board, p our a -
to deve dvisory
our evenings and lunch breaks, jeopardising nationa lo p a bro
l focus, ader
our political positions of work without pay. and to to find
connec stockis
In the absence of funding, we have estab- organis t to gro ts
ations a ups,
lished ourselves on voluntary labour and in allian nd indiv
ce. iduals
non-monetary exchange. Nobody (or funding
body) should unduly profit from our work To get in
volved,
tions or of
(despite their best efforts). However, Schooling feedbac fer sugges-
& Culture continues to seek funds in order k conta
ct us:
to establish a fully sustainable labour relation info@sc
hooling
without compromising our position. andcult
ure.org

88 Schooling & Culture

 Afterword — Looking Forward XVII

INCOME DETAIL AMOUNT IN £

John Lyon's Charity Print (journal & welling poster), 6.750,00

design, contributors fees,
launch and postage

Mondriaan Fonds werker — travel, expense, accommo- 1.730,00

dation and fee contribution

Welling School Contribution to poster printing 284,00

TOTAL 8.764,00

EXPENDITURE DETAIL AMOUNT IN £

werker design fee 2.500,00

Contributors fees All contributors were offered a fee 640,00

of £80 nine of these were claimed

werker London editorial & design Flights, accommodation, expenses 1.105,50

week meeting / workshops

Printing costs 500 copies 3150,00

Printing costs Poster insert made with Welling 484,00

School — ‘Power, Structures,
Language, People’

Launch event Still to be spent: Costs associated 300,00

with five launch events across
London

Postage costs Still to be spent: 125 x large 2nd 100,00

class letter stamps plus envelopes

TOTAL 8279,50

Schooling & Culture 89

XVII Volume 2, Issue 1, Spring 2017
Schooling & Culture Additional thanks to our Licensed under Creative
The state we’re in advisors and supporters Commons Attribution-
Issue 1, Volume 2. NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
Spring 2017 Adrian Chappell International.
Phil Cohen
Design Andee Collard ISSN 0262-1045
werker magazine, Christine Halsall 2016
Amsterdam Tony Hall
Mayday Rooms schoolingandculture.org 
Print Munira Mohamed info@schoolingandculture.org
Calverts Co-operative: Alex Parry
Design and Print, London Kate Random Love
Chris Reeves
Contributors Lise Soskolne
The Showroom
nelly alfandari Sarah Vanderpump !!!
patrick bailey
tim birtwistle The full archive of 1978 –1984
olivia chessell Schooling & Culture journals
teresa cisneros and related materials are
alan cusack accessible to the public at
annie davey MayDay Rooms in London:
andrew dewdney maydayrooms.org
cristina fraser
rity
mehrak golestan
r a c ti c e of solida
“The p unities
johanna komaroff
e g ro u n ds comm hosen
for ec
anni movsisyan who hav
ali mussell of people figh t to gether.
r k a n d
russell newell to wo ity is
e solidar
Reflectiv ction
laura quick
ft e d b y an intera s:
cr a rson
amit rai
o lv in g three pe me
louise shelley inv stand by
y o u to
‘I as k ird.”
christiane shepherd
n d a g a inst a th
werker magazine over a
ty,
Ta lp a d e Mohan
Chandra Borders:
in is m without
Fem ory,
izing The
Decolon rity
g Solida
Practicin
Working Group.
the Schooling & Culture
from May Day Rooms and
In-kind support received

by the Mondriaan Fund.

werker magazine is supported
Editorial and design work with

The Showroom is supported by

www.theshowroom.org

The Showroom’s neighbourhood.

local collaborative work in
ongoing programme of
Communal Knowledge is an

programme at The Showroom.

the Communal Knowledge
John Lyon’s Charity through

Support

90 Schooling & Culture

Afterword — Looking Forward XVII

Schooling & Culture 91

Do you teach Citizenship, Humanities or Social Sciences? starting points, and provocations about wealth, class, inequality Please email: mail@alternativeschoolofeconomics.org The Rich
Purchase a set of four A2 teaching posters for group work, and status, and can be used in many different subject areas as a Minority Group is a project developed by artist collaboration
discussion in the classroom, or longer in-depth study. including history, geography and media studies. Price: £5 each The Alternative School of Economics and students from Little Ilford
These posters outline a series of questions, Secondary School, Newham.