Below is my account of our meeting. Inevitably, it might sound different to how others experienced the meeting and Im happy to have this account challenged! It was an excellent meeting and we are very grateful to Tracey for introducing some key moments and themes from Richard Hoggarts long life championing working class culture and cultural studies. And for the interesting stimulus to discussion her handouts gave us. Tracey began by expressing her regret that 2014 has been a year of sadness at the deaths of some of the great champions of working class culture and workers rights. We noted Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall, Tony Benn, Bob Crow and, most recently, Maya Angelou: poets, academics, trade unionists, politicians. She then spoke movingly of her own sense of recognition when reading Hoggarts account of moving out of a working class culture into the alien and alienating world of higher education. This was echoed by others in the group whod had similar experiences. She also drew parallels between Hoggarts mid 20th century critique of the effects of popular culture on working class culture and its values, and todays mass media and mass entertainment: the impoverished values, the lack of high culture, the passive receptivity of viewers to exploitative press reporting and popular tv reality shows. We wondered where the alternative voices could be heard, where traditional working class values and socialist ideals were retained and listened to - and examples were given, including recent TV and radio programmes about the impact of the World Cup preparations on Brazilian communities, as well as comrades local activism, campaigning, protest marches, as well as the great tradition of pamphleteering by the left and the radical that goes back at least to the 18th century. We also talked about the importance of the conversations that comrades had in their workplaces with sceptical work mates, drawing parallels with Frank Owens attempts to win round workmates in Robert Tressels The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - without the ultimate sense of futility that ends that novel. We also discussed where we first got our political education - from our families - parents who were activists in the trade union movement, for example - or from reading, educational impacts or moving into workplaces where trade unionists acted as educators. Some of the group wondered whether Hoggart - who was influential in the introduction of BBC2 as a counter-weight to the new ITV, which he saw as cheapening the culture on offer to the mass audiences of the time - was too concerned to give high culture to working people (whether they wanted it or not), and too dismissive of the roots and energy of some popular culture traditions e.g. music, fashion and the lasting impact of certain groups we favoured on our political and cultural values. We questioned whether Hoggarts position was in fact rather patronising although Tracey reminded us that for Hoggart - becoming a working class academic - rising out of your class (as Maclean described it) - placed a duty on you to take your education and culture back into your working class community. We considered what it meant to assume that high culture - e.g. opera - was out of bounds for working class people. For my part, entering the teaching profession in 1975, Richard Hoggart was indeed an inspiration who influenced who, where and how I taught, and which has never left me. Tracey personalised the discussion by inviting us - through giving us small pieces of paper with thought-provoking statements on them - to consider our own experiences of education. These stimulated an outpouring of memories that raised interesting themes e.g. the institutionalisation of obedience through pointless rules about corridors and the policing of spaces in the school, as well as Jack Commons great litany of being taught English- and obedience; Maths - and obedience; Geography - and obedience etc. as the socialisation of children to become compliant and submissive workers. We noted how quickly we tended to link education to school, having to remind ourselves of all the education we had gained in other ways. Mostly people had put up with school with some ingenious ways of trying to get some good out of it - like convincing teachers to let you join the remedial class - even though you were clever enough to avoid it - where teaching was in smaller groups, better explanations were given, and activities were more interesting. Comrades notes that in their day schools assigned good teachers to good groups and we noted the reality behind this educational economy of not throwing good money after bad by teaching children who were assumed not to profit from the schools expenditure. What did school smell like also generated some interesting discussion - floor polish, school dinners, carbolic soap... We ended by asking ourselves what the aims of a radical and/or socialist education would include - watch this space for your answers!
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 08:12:32 +0000
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