The Times We Live In-Society Has Gone Soft/Bring Back National Service/Make Prison Tough/It's An Immigrant Thing

I was saddened to read about this Youth Worker Slashed In Wolverhampton it's a pretty grim overview of what appears to be a pointless crime: the assailant got away with a set of earphones.

Social Media is a great way of communicating our thoughts and feelings and the outrage provoked by the above skipped like a flat stone on still water creating the following sentiments as it danced into the emotions of the reader

• They are scum
• Prisons are too soft
• Bring back National Service (in war zones)
• This is what happens when loads of immigrants get into our country.

and it reminded me of this.

A man in his early forties took his seven year old son to see a film. The person concerned was a Site Supervisor at a local school. From time to time he was asked to assist in keeping good order in a sometimes pretty rowdy Youth Club. As he was walking back from the film he and his son were surrounded by a group of teenagers who threatened to "sort him out" because he had been instrumental in removing and banning a couple of them from the club. They were tooled up, it was frightening.

He reached into his pocket and slipped a bunch of school keys onto his fingers. pulled out his hand and said something along the lines of:

"Right, lads, there's a few of you and I'll go down here but before I go down, definitely one of you, possibly two of you and there's a chance that three of you are going to be scarred for life.....now get out my way."  And they did.

At the time this happened, there was National Service, the Borstal regime was a brutalising experience, prison was harsh and there were no obvious immigrants in the group-there wouldn't have been, there was a great measure of anti-immigrant feeling by and large groups of youths stayed "within their own".

This happened in 1960. I was the seven year old in awe at my Dad's handling of the situation.

I understand the anger generated by the attack on the young man in Wolverhampton. I'm saddened by the simplistic, tired and clichéd responses that are no more of our time than is the willingness of some to opportunistically attack others for gain, revenge or fun. 

And here's a photo of him taken around 3 years before the incident, with the F.A Cup, won by Aston Villa. A light, wiry man of purposeful strength and strong purpose whose only short-coming was to support Ast......ah well: It's been almost 22 years since he passed and his legacy grows in my heart, those of his grandchildren and I think many of those who remember this quietly-considered, kind and dignified man as a person of conviction and courage.

He would have found the responses outlined above and present on today's Facebook thread irrelevant, poorly considered and offering little by way of solution or balance.

"I Have A Feeling We're Not in Kansas Any more"

There's something powerful about this time of year. Loss, pain and renewal are never too far away from an internal dialogue that cuts across faith, belief and religion, hopefully re-emphasising something we all know and might not quite understand: that we are part of something bigger. Just how big can be a surprise.
I found out earlier this year that the excellent Red Shoes  http://www.redshoes-music.com/ were due to play at Birmingham's Symphony Hall "Folk for Free" event on the 17th of April.

And here they are sound-checking the set, looking out over Birmingham's Centenary Square. I found out on arrival that this was to be the last one in a series of Folk for Free events that have been held in the reception area.
As the reception area filled the growing audience used the upper tiers to see and hear what turned out to be heart jolting event. The sound check was better than some gigs I've attended and as it tool place old acquaintances were being renewed and people were connecting and smiling and anticipating.
The band honoured the special nature of the event, the last of its kind and I'm guessing, a casualty of what are blandly labelled as "spending cuts". They honoured it because they are exceptionally talented, unfailingly gracious and ever so "unaffected" by their talent teaming socially accessible and fun to be with. And then they play and sing.

.....and something transcendent happens. I looked around the auditorium as the band weaved a collective narrative of powerful imagery, strong emotions and music so technically well crafted it is neither the portrait or the frame of a beautiful sound picture

I watched casual observers become enthralled and felt the unmistakable "vibe" of an audience willing the band on to give them more. Unobtrusive percussion, a violin that has a breath of its own and an always "oh so appropriate" input from two skilled and gifted guitarists who work off each other seamlessly.

Applause didn't happen: it burst! The Red Shoes songs touch painful places, challenge the assumed right of the privileged to ride (sic) over the law of the land and so doing hold an engaged audience in a very special place throughout.
Their encore was a unique event: an ending not only to a great set but a great idea, that music and meeting people are one and the same thing and that this should be allowed and encouraged to happen producing a healing and renewing balm in an increasingly disjointed and fractured society. Without stretching the  Easter metaphor too far, I hope a resurrection of a great idea isn't too far away and wouldn't it be great if Red Shoes could open the next incarnation.

"Nec valet a rat asinam"

Here's a picture of my old school. It was a bit more than a school for me: it was my home too-Dad was the caretaker

The above photo shows the first phase: one of three as the school expanded in a radical growth process that saw other local secondary schools close as the needs of an expanding population were addressed on huge sites. We moved there in 1962 just before a winter of epoch-making weather. Dad retired in 1979 having been part of the fabric of the place for 17 years.

It's tempting to look at Perry Common and assume that this huge enterprise represented everything that went wrong with education. It's tempting and it's inaccurate because far from it being a de-personalised education factory it was held together by a brilliant team of idealistic, inspirational and caring people many of whom would attract some pretty vicious labels in contemporary newspapers, ones I wouldn't use to line a ferret cage.

We had great profile in sport, superb dramatic productions, a high quality school orchestra and a range of outdoor activities, arts and debating societies were run by people who cared and were given space in which to help us develop and challenge. Aspirations were high and all of this was underpinned by a strong sense of identity and belonging. And guess what, it didn't work for everyone; things seldom do. There were pinch points: higher achievers by and large went to grammar schools arguably defeating a truly comprehensive ethos. For the 60's and the main part of the 70's jobs were easy to come by and academic shortfalls didn't remove employability. It was only later that the rapid shifts in the economic prosperity of the area and our City weighed heavily against hopes and aspirations. We had a Latin motto "Quod Possum Perfectium" (To the best ability) and it was chosen on the assumption that everyone had a key strength, a "something" they could develop. We were, although we didn't get it at the time, riding the wave of a post-war culture that had experienced crippling austerity, the re-drawing of nationhood and the re-definition of where power lay in complex societies.

I had a notification on Facebook Today from NewSchoolsNetwork who tell me that they're doing this

"Next week we'll be visiting the #BlackCountry as part of the New Schools Challenge - give us your views on education via our short School Survey."

Here it is:

 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1wnPyCe2p6Y9A7Q__JFjrFLybg0HMcvJEm4hIUVBhPjQ/formResponse

.....and it seems to me at any rate to continue to reinforce that which doesn't work-or more accurately is perceived not to work. Here are some "folk rules" that emerged during the mid eighties onwards:

• If a school changes its name-it's in trouble
• If a school shortens its lunch-break-it's in trouble
• If a school publishes a new Behaviour Policy it's because the old one was perceived not to work-so it's in trouble.
• If a school changes its uniform it's in trouble
• If a school carries out a purging of long-established teachers who know their way around the community it's in trouble-but no where near as much trouble as it's going to be in soon....

The new schools network is, I guess a sad and inevitable outcome of the removal of Local Government as a significant partner in education and it appears that we have lost the inspirational voices that aligned themselves to the quality of the educational experience rather than a tightly focussed series of "run faster/jump higher educational outcomes" that by and large have little to do with generating confidence, flexibility and resilience.

And here's the rub. Our old motto was made to mean something to us-"Do your best, you'll feel better" (The mantra of self-help!) and it could now be replaced by "Nec valet a rat asinam" (Not worth a rat's arse): it's the how a number of my ex-colleague teachers feel (possibly worse) describes how our mercilessly vilified and too often abandoned kids feel about themselves.

A closing observation. I was taught history by the Deputy Head Teacher, Jimmy Conchar-a mercurial mind that was always up for a challenge. Our fierce debates about the outcomes of the Peace Treaty of Versailles and the causal relationship with the rise of Nazi Germany embraced the Scramble for Africa, The socio-economic conditions that inspired Marx, Engels and Dickens and the inevitable recognition that Eastern Europe was the coin to pay for 21 Million plus Soviet dead and at the same time ignored the pre-war Stalinist purges. This man's knowledge and eclectic mind taught us beyond facts: he taught us how to think. He would have no place in our contemporary world of measuring achievement and I'd like to think that he wouldn't want one.