Radical departures

I was at a meeting of community education people today to share information about what we do and to find ways to 'signpost' (vile verb) people to courses. To collaborate. Slowly the talk moved from the Museums Service’s extraordinary elephant tooth, handed round the room, to engagement, to outreach. Who is accessing what? Do workshops on planting edible hanging baskets or making a mosaic lead anywhere or are people just getting involved in a series of diverting activities? What is community education doing now that pursuing any study beyond that is unaffordable? K mentioned setting up learning circles as a means of enabling learners to set the agenda and explore things that affect them. That seemed to go down OK. The word ‘hopelessness’ was said. We looked at each other. No-one was backing off. ‘Zero-hours contracts’, ‘unaffordable rents’, 'food banks, ‘rights’, ‘empowerment’. No flinching. When we got to the agenda item about how we should recruit and use volunteers I wondered carefully about the ethics of doing so when there are no jobs for the volunteers to move on to. No-one quailed. Slowly, carefully, we were brushing the accumulated administrative dust and rubbish off our foundations and discovering that they were shared. The state we’re in? There is little time or tolerance for critical thinking in schools.

We didn’t decide what workshops to put on to use the £3,000 that is available only to the end of July. It seemed much more important to decide how to link with others feeling the same about what is happening. ‘Anti-austerity’. Not even the slightest tremble from the foundations. On our way out, just by the door, we got talking about different approaches to education in the past, about previous assaults on learning, about campaigns and resistance. In the lobby the elders were telling the youngers about Paulo Freire. On the stairs we were talking about how we ourselves will need to work unpaid to achieve some of the things we want to achieve. Of pulling together.

Of optimism.