Summerhill School

“No pupil is compelled to attend lessons. But if Jimmy comes to English on Monday and does not make an appearance again until Friday, the others quite rightly object that he is holding back the work, and they may throw him out for impeding progress”
That’s a quote from A S Neill, the late head of a school in Sussex called Summerhill. Ranging from six to seventeen, the students have, effectively, no rules. Or rather, the students propose, discuss and vote on the rules. Think about our school council teams and the role they play in developing Chew Valley – food, décor, environment, and activities. All the aspects that surround school life and make it a rounded experience have some influence from the council. Many things have been accomplished by our school council, but you could hardly claim they have a defining role in the core tenets of school policy.
What if not just the council, but all the students, had the final say in how Chew Valley was run? Summerhill holds tri-weekly meetings where anyone can submit a new rule proposal, bring up an issue or person that needs addressing, or just listen and vote on what other people suggest. Hypothesise briefly that this was the situation here. How many stupid rules would go straight away? How long would it take before those inbuilt ideas we’ve got regarding our education would start to be questioned?
Turning up to lessons on time, regularly or at all, for example. If you don’t fancy turning up today at Summerhill, well, don’t. It’s sheer stupidity to think that every lesson is valued and used productively by students – there’s a lot that can happen at home or wherever that just ruins your ability to concentrate or absorb what you’re studying. That maths lesson, when you’ve had a crap day and just need some peace, how much will you really learn? Well, if we organised like Summerhill, then you’d be free to just go off and do something else. Basically, it’s a school where lessons aren’t compulsory, teachers don’t just fall back on being a teacher to win an argument and everyone involved with the school has an equal say in how it’s run. More schools should follow the idea that, if you treat people like adults, they tend to act like adults.
Which is not to say you’ll get away with anything. If you’re basically being a cretin and holding back other students, then those other students are well within the rules to kick you out of the class. That freedom to decide how the school is run isn’t just your freedom, it’s everyone’s. Otherwise you just end up with the same situation we have now, where students can only fiddle at the edges of school life. Freedom is merely privilege extended unless applied to one and all. Not only that, but Summerhill isn’t just a school, it sees itself as a community. A circle of participation is created, whereby everyone can have a say, so everyone feels part of it, and because they feel part of it, they want a say. See how it works?
And it does work – Summerhill’s results are not exceptional, but they are solid and well above what the government wants. Which, seeing as I cannot think of an education less geared towards passing GCSEs, is pretty damn impressive. Think about it, what’s likely to produce happier, healthier and more rounded people; Rigidly teaching for an exam and skimming over everything else, or a broad, personal and participatory education?
Summerhill relies on students respecting each other and working together. They’re trusted to do this, and it works. It requires adults to believe in young people and young people believing in each other. They should, we do, and let’s see some more Summerhills.

labour cuts article

What is the Labour Party, if not a moral crusade? What are we for, if not to stand up and fight for those who cannot stand for themselves? Without our key causes at heart – fairness, equality and community – there is no point to the Labour Party.

 

Why then, are we not fighting with all our strength to challenge and dispel the Tory narrative? Conservative ideals and values caused this crisis, yet it has been spun into an issue of public spending. By allowing this to happen, Labour has betrayed not only our beliefs, but our backbone too. Every low paid public sector worker, unemployed young person or single parent has had this crash slammed onto their shoulders, and Labour's defence of ordinary people, our core, this country's core, is no where to be seen. Let's ignore briefly the economic injustice of the cutting the debt away, and see the social strife it will foster. I ask you, is it fair, or even true, when low paid and low status people in our society are blamed for not trying, not working, not learning and now somehow being the cause of Britain's economic problems? Hypocrisy that makes you want to get out on the streets and shout at the injustice of it. How can self belief and a confidence to learn or work ever be built if every day another attack against trade unions, young people or job seekers is launched?

 

The debt has got to go, it's fatuous to deny it. Involving such huge sums, it's easy to just panic and start slashing and burning public expenditure. Is this the right way to do it? No. Talk about the risks to economic recovery all you like, the social ills heaped upon us will simply not be worth it. I cannot quite explain how utterly wrong it is for working people to lose their livelihoods, families to be pushed into poverty and young people to lose the education they deserve, purely because a tiny group of international speculators demand some sort of demonstration that the government cares more about credit ratings than community breakdown.

 

Look for one moment at what cutting away our services will do. For every incremental step taken with the last government, we're now waiting for the great stumble backwards. When the Tories came out with the big society, I was as shocked as anyone else that they'd thought up something sensible; community empowerment is more important than ever. But how is the big society supposed to flourish merely by withdrawing the state? A slow retreat is needed to encourage participation and gradually take power out of the hands of the state and put it into the hands of society. Sudden abandonment isn't going to foster engagement, is it? Here in B&NES, as one example, the youth service is being hacked away at, and who's left to foster in young people a desire to help out in their communities? No, really, that's a genuine question, because I have no idea who's supposed to step in.

 

The state is not necessarily a force for good. A vacuum of institutions and stability is necessarily a force for leaving people out in the cold. I almost wrote that my village, me even, will be fine in the face of the cuts – but that's not true. What about the pensioners who rely on government funded workers coming to help, what about my next two years in a sixth form that will be losing money, what about my sisters in the lower school, at a crucial stage of their education? Little cuts hurt a lot.

 

Complaining about the situation is a little therapeutic, but does nothing to change the reality. That's why it's so important for Labour to get campaigning and present an alternative to abandoning the most vulnerable. What should our plan be? In my opinion, a return to full employment. New jobs will have to be created to facilitate this, so government investment in green industries and science is crucial. Manufacturing needs to pick up again. The taxes and consumer spending from this will feed private sector demand, which must be restructured to centre around co-operative business models that are fairer and more productive. Higher tax receipts and lower welfare payments as employment flourishes are the route out of debt, not mindless cutting. We'll do it in our own time, not at the behest of some trader in London, New York or Tokyo. More importantly, we'll do it in a way that's fair for our people, our communities, our families and our lives.

Manifesto draft 28.3.10

Chin up, old boy – Cotterill's Manifesto for Britain

In Britain, things have not being going wonderfully, of late. Not only has the economy realised, after thirty years of bravely keeping its eyes shut and praying, that it was standing on its own shoulders (try it, seriously), but all these unpleasant social problems that we've carelessly left brewing have come to the fore. Unemployment, uncaring, uncouth, unmotivated. An unattractive selection of malaises currently afflict us.  Our country has been systematically abused by a succession of partners; global capitalism, America, politicians – they've all come in late one night, reeking of beer and piss, to take a swing at poor old Britain.

No longer.

There are themes that unite Britons. Fair play, justice, respect for democracy. A knowledge that no matter where you start, you should damn well have the same chance at life as anyone else. The last three decades have seen a string of gits steering us away from these values.

“Sink or swim” - or, alternatively, kick a man when he's down. Twice. Really, is that a value you want to see nurtured in society? I damn well don't. I want to see a society where a hand up, not a look away is the norm. No one gets anywhere without other people helping them. So let's have a government that encourages co-operation, rather than jumping up and down on some poor sod's face.

“There's no such thing as society” - well then, who are those people in the pub, enjoying a refreshing pint and a laugh together? Who are those ladies selling cake in the village hall? Who are those two million men, women and children who marched against an unjust war? I tell you, they are our society. This is our society – the people you see every day, who probably annoy you every other day, but who you know will be around for support when you need it most, and share the same values and basic beliefs that give us the foundation for everything we know and love.

So, Britons, it's time. Time to take the final gallant swig of tea (or other preferred beverage), rediscover that stiff upper lip, make a few self depreciating remarks, then pace purposefully out of the door, to face our brave new world.

Fred Cotterill

Another Article

Hello chaps,


Sorry I haven't posted in a while. To be honest, I shouldn't be posting now, I should be revising. Oh well.


To make matters worse, I can't copy and paste text from Open Office to here. This is an utter pain, because both of the things I planned to post are now trapped forever more in the depths of my computer, having been written whilst my internet connection went off on a little jolly. Free, crowdsourced software like Open Office is really great, but the amount of stuff it doesn't combine with is somewhat irksome.


So I'll talk about something else. Seeing as it's so close, I feel the pending General Election might be good, especially as it's become so much more interesting recently - both with the issues raised and the failing Tory poll ratings.


Now, comparing this to other elections, I haven't got a lot to go on. Seeing as I was..eleven or so, in 2005. However, it does seem that the issues being talked about and in the public mind are so much bigger than last time. Oh, the same old ones come up - crime and immigration. But there's a certain ideological basis now, that was so lacking in 01/05 (or 97, tbh). The Tories want to privatise schools, Labour want to give power to communities, but keep the market out of it. Labour are talking about co-ops, whereas it's "easyCouncils" from the Blue Corner. Labour are aiming for legislation on climate change, a significant minority of Conservative MPs and PPCs don't actually think it exists. Finally, someone's talking about inheritance tax as a means to fund care for the elderly. Even constitutional reform, usually just left in a room to snooze (much like the Lords, actually) is a dividing issue, with Jack Straw wanting a proportionally elected "senate" and the possibility of Alternative Vote for the Commons.


Oh okay, so a lot of that only really excites someone who likes politics on a theoretical level. When the doorstep canvassing begins though, I actually think the general public might pick up on it a bit more. People care about who runs their school, how the council delivers services, who's going to look after them in retirement. Yes, the voting bit is more abstract, but there are so many progressives who want to vote Green without letting the Tories in, or eurosceptics who'd love to vote UKIP but can't face another term of Labour.


Which is why I'll be out on the streets, leafletting and knocking on doors for Labour. Blair's gone somewhere to get a perma-tan now, and it's time his influence began to fade within the Party. I believe the Labour Party can win this election on left wing values and policies, and so what if I'm only one activist at the bottom of a very large pile? So was Blair. So was Brown. It's a labour movement, after all.


What I'm trying to say, is that the last thirty years have been neoliberalism's glory days; inequality, privatisation, deprivation have reigned supreme. Now, at last, the left has cobbled together some sort of credible platform. In a break with tradition, I do actually mean Labour when I speak of the left. Mistakes have been made, and will continue to be - that's just life. But now we've got a vision. It's not about revolt and violence and Trotsky. It's about fairness, equality, keeping Britain green and full of the strange little villages and vibrant cities that make it glow.


I can't, and won't attempt to, deny the uselessness of our Labour government for the last ten years. What I ask, is that you look to the future.


Solidarity
RedFred

Left vs Right (World) | David McCandless & Stefanie Posavec | Information Is Beautiful

Hi comrades,

Just a short one from me -

Left vs Right (World) | David McCandless & Stefanie Posavec | Information Is Beautiful

Have a look at this, definitely. The whole site is fantastic:)

Facebook's done it again

Evening readers,


It's with heavy heart I come to you today, for I have committed the awful crime of letting other's activities on Facebook annoy me. How so? Groups. Namely the ignorant, borderline racist ones that everytime I go on the damn site, which I assure you is far too much, I see young people whom I like and respect, have joined.


Let me paint you a picture. Well actually it's more of a collage, an arrangement of newspaper clippings, but anyway, I digress.


"ENGLAND FOR THE ENGLISH"


Let's play word association. What does that group make you think of? For me, the capitalisation is basically just a bad start, and it gets worse from there.


Click into the group and my fears are confirmed. I won't post the comments, but you can probably guess what they are; the general BNP theme is running strong. A general outpouring of hate and fear at people who suffer from exactly the same concerns and problems as the group members themselves - no jobs, no money, no security.


So why, then, has an intelligent person living a good life joined this group? How can young people be duped into what are effectively lies? Obviously I don't know the answer, or I wouldn't be blogging about it, but I do know that something, somewhere has failed if otherwise well balanced people can fall into this kind of stuff.


It's not a question of just selling multiculturalism differently, that does nothing to address the problems that...oh God let's generalise, white working-class communities face. Clearly there are issues that, well I'm tempted to say politicians, but really it's the communities themselves, need to deal with. What I'm angry about is how groups of people, who are largely blameless, get scapegoated, whilst the media does absolutely nothing to demonstrate the facts, and those in power do fuck all to deal with the problem that, let's use the hated word, CLASS.


Identity politics have an important place - gay rights, women's lib and in an extreme segregation, divide the working class by creating a misplaced "them&us" feeling. A truly free society, or a falsely free one for that matter, cannot be achieved without complete quality for the LGBT community, women, ethnic minorities and everyone else. But that doesn't mean they're the key to doing it. Honestly, I can understand why most people turn away from the class struggle as they get older - it's exhausting and never seems to go anywhere. For every person who listens and is willing to help change the world, there's five who walk on by.


Blaming them would probably be wrong. Grow up in a society where the only escape route from the shit of living is reality TV, and it's understandable why so many just don't give a damn. That doesn't make it any less depressing, it just puts into perspective the size of the challenge.


You know, at the start, where I mentioned digressing...yeah. I think that may have happened. Sorry and all.


So anyway, come on Fred, sum it up into something coherent.


Lots of people, especially young people, join racist groups on facebook. Why? Disillusioned, tired, misled. Society as a whole has been told over and over again for the last thirty years, that class doesn't exist, we're all middle class now, and class warfare has "no place here" by the privileged few who had all the advantages in life and now have fucked off with their money, happily ignoring the rest of us. Ignore something for long enough and maybe it'll go away? I think not. The problems are the same and they filter down to every level of society.


I must go and do something in the real world now, but I do hope that was informative. I almost typed fun, but tbh, I've been a miserable bastard in these last two posts, which is ridiculous, because socially my life is excellent right now. You have my word that I'll start writing about something positive the next time we meet.


I do have one nice message to leave you with though. No matter how many people join the unpleasant facebook groups, it's swamped by how many have joined the Haiti support groups. Or the Anti-Twilight groups, for that matter. There's hope for the world yet ;)


In solidarity
Red-Fred

Education, Education, Edu-oh, I'm such a feckless youth, I can't even be bothered to finish the word.

Good afternoon comrades,


Hope you're all well. I'm going for a meal tonight, so all good:). Really I should be doing some homework, or revision before then. But this is more interesting, so feel privileged whilst you read this.


So Fred, I hear you ask, what are you going to rant about today? Well, readers, education, that's what. I read a seemingly innocuous article on the Graun's site; it raised some interesting points about the state/private divide, the reasons for it and ways to tackle it. That's a pressing issue in itself, but not the reason I'm writing today.


No, what spurred me to take up my typewriter, was the comment section. If you ever frequent the enormous cesspit that is Comment is Free, you'll know that it is utterly dominated, not by lovely, enlightened, muesli eating types, but by horrible right wing trolls who I actually believe may have been transported here from the 1950s, equipped only with a terrible rage and a desire to spoil everything.


Obviously, on an article about schooling, in particular private schooling, there's going to be the standard cries of "dumbing down" and so on. I can handle those, I really can. They might be true - I've never seen an exam paper from before about 2005 - the point is moot.


What gets me, is the sheer, bloody minded, ignorance that the commentists show. Ignorance of what being in a modern school is like, ignorance of how young people feel and think, ignorance of teaching practise. One mindless, fleshy pawn, came out with a real cracker. (S)He, although I'm presuming he from the belligerent tone, attacked the "feminisation" of the classroom, whatever that means, pointing out teaching small groups of pupils at a time as an example of it. As opposed to just standing at the front and dictating to the willing class of young drones. Because obviously, the best way to get kids to learn is to talk at them.


Readership, please do tell me, if you learn better when the teacher stands in front of a board and drones, or when in a smaller, more intimate group. You may, astute as you all are, have already picked up my personal opinion on this little gem of a statement. 


It's so damned indicative of the attitudes around education at the moment. Yes, the schooling system has huge, huge flaws. The curriculum is angled towards exams, not learning, there's too much pressure and not enough time, classes are too big, schools are badly designed. I could go on, and so could any other young person in the English state education system. However, more personalised teaching, socially orientated subjects and letting poor people learn to read and write, are not issues that currently beset schools.


Blaming schools for everything, though, misses the point. The education system is increasingly left to pick up the pieces of fucked up family lives, child poverty and private education institutes that are half full of the best students, and half full of the privileged minority (why is often the same thing is a topic for another blog...)


Maybe, one day, an educational reform board will ask, you know, young people, what they find helpful in a classroom. Until then, I suppose the angry, uninformed comments on places like CiF will have to do...


I should probably stop now, and go do that history homework...*sigh*. Hope you enjoyed reading that - as usual it was interesting and calming to write, hahaa.


Solidarity all
Red-Fred

Speechy Head

Hi comrades,

I wrote this speech for an english debate I may take part in. Just wondering what your views on it are.


Money is the root of all evil is a controversial statement to make in our materialist culture, driven by who has and who has not. What a person possesses very often is taken as a direct reflection of their worth. Why else is it that we spend our entire adult lives, and increasingly our childhood too, being instructed not on how to live as a well balanced person, but how to achieve as a productive economic success story. Capitalism is about competition. Some would say that’s an inevitable result of life on a planet with finite resources. I’d say that it is precisely because of the earth’s limited capacity that we must not compete, but co-operate. Replace greed with generosity, not just to one another but to the planet. Give back some of what you take, or better, take only what you need in the first place. Clawing for more status, more belongings, will not make us happy individuals, or a healthy society.

I recently read The Spirit Level, a study on why more equal societies, who place less importance on money and material, almost always do better. It’s a fascinating book and puts facts behind the arguments many have been making for a long time, that inequality does not drive us to improve, but forces us apart. Unequal societies have less trust, happiness and social mobility, yet far more of a “devil take the hindmost attitude” where the weakest and most vulnerable are abandoned to “market forces” – a de-humanised idea that fails to account for the impact on the people involved.

In my opinion, money is not the root of all evil, but a symptom of it. Yes, I believe that humans can surpass their avarice and achieve through our common endeavour, but I can’t deny that it exists within all of us in the first place. If we didn’t use money, some other means of valuing goods would spring up – money itself is not an inherently bad idea. It is the concepts that create money which are evil

There are of course, many definitions of evil – it’s a subjective term, but for me, something that causes harm to innocent beings is about as close to evil as you can get, this side of Fred Goodwin.

What are those concepts then, behind money? Firstly, the idea that everything has a measureable worth, people included. If things can be worth a value, then others will, by necessity, be worthless. Perhaps this isn’t so harmful for inanimate objects – a used teabag isn’t of great rarity, and opposed to a new teabag it just can’t compare. What causes hurt, what makes this idea of “worth and worthless” so damaging is when it is applied to things that live. Be they animal, plant or human. No one, not one single human on this planet is worthless. And telling someone they are that is probably the most dangerous statement you can make.

As considerate and thoughtful beings, we can of course see this for ourselves. It is blindingly obvious that no matter where you come from, regardless of your preferences, opinions or ideas, you deserve to be treated like an item of incomparable value. In economist-speak, you are the most rarefied commodity there is. Unique and irreplaceable.

Supply and demand, however, is not a considerate and thoughtful being. It is not even a being. It loses out very quickly on a very basic level.

To conclude, I think it’s important to look not at abstract values, but how this affects normal people, every minute of the day. We need a concrete example of how the ideologies behind money and our system of value cause harm to innocents. Well you don’t exactly have to look far. Banking crisis, anyone? I mean, it’s not like the whole profit-greed-move money until it doesn’t look like money anymore system fell apart or anything is it? Only three million people are unemployed! Maggie Thatcher would be proud…

I don’t need to tell you this, about how we risk losing a generation to unemployment again, or how communities are breaking down in the white heat of consumerism – driven apart by jealousy and fear and greed that is forced upon us all, you can read it all over the papers or watch it on the news.

But what I ask you, no beg you, to do, is not just read about it or watch it, or write high minded speeches about it, but to go out and DO something about it. So what if on my own I can’t change the world, we rely on each other to be able to it and maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ve got enough time to start our own revolution.

Violence In Response To Repression

Morning everyone,

I've been trying to devise my personal position on whether violence is acceptable or not and may have finally come up with something I feel happy with.

This won't be exactly a radical innovation in the violence vs pacifism debate but over time my position has flipped from accepting violence as a weapon against oppression, to complete pacifism and back again any number of time.

Firstly I'll detail the flaw I see in extremes of both positions, then speak about my own ideas.

Violence as a reaction on its own, without any other acts supporting it, is not an adequate solution to an oppressive regime. For one thing, it runs the risk of turning into the thing it seeks to end by relying purely on force to achieve its ends. Furthermore, many will be alienated by this approach and the struggle risks turning into a minority group fight instead of the majority revolution it should be. The last point against pure violence is that it is unlikely to be the leaders of the oppression who are injured or killed, much more probable is the ordinary police, soldiers and other 'instruments', thus driving a wedge against co-operation between the revolutionaries and workers in those divisions. This would be a huge setback to any liberation movement and ensure violence creating more violence as the possibility of peaceful change is lost by inciting the oppressor's tools to fight against the movement instead of joining it.

Now pacifism. I feel this is not a suitable response to oppression as it basically ensures that the oppressive regime will always be able to go one better. It also means that you are going to be beaten horribly in demonstrations etc, just look at the Vietnam era demos. To me it basically just seems inadequate in facing up against everything that is thrown at you.

My personal view, is that violence can be used as a tool to fight oppression, but only if it is in the face of violence from the state and it must be directed at the those who are halting the change directly and by choice, and only after the liberation movement is convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that there is no possibility whatsoever of bringing elements or all of the police/army onto their side. Also, there must be almost no danger that civilians not involved (yet) in the struggle will be hurt as this could ruin the perception of the liberation movement. Finally, violence must not be the only tactic used, more conventional means need to be employed to keep a broad front.

In conclusion, violence is the last resort, nearly everything is better than it, but as part of a wider campaign using civil disobedience it can be acceptable.

Wow, that took a while...hope it wasn't too heavy and i'd like to know what you think. Have I got it all wrong?

Thanks

Red-Fred

Well, I'm Home

Firstly, I'M BACK. I've been blogging, just not here, and not regularly, which is, I think, how things will continue. Blogging is for people with something to say, and I have something to say. So here we go again, comrades:).

This is a letter to Obama I wrote. Google "write to Obama" and it's the first option.

Dear President Obama,

I'm Fred Cotterill, I'm 15 and live in the south west of the UK; in a little village called Chew Magna. I'm white and middle class. I just thought I'd write to you, if this ever actually gets to you and doesn't just end up on a civil servant's desk (although, I suppose you are ever so slightly busy, so it can be forgiven), about your healthcare plans, and presidency in general.

With regards to healthcare. Please, please, please be bold. You are the most inspirational international politician in the world and we are all begging you to ignore the illiterate rantings of the vast horde of useless cretins that are, in general, the GOP and create a healthcare system that can be the envy of the world. Screw the right's petty little ravings on 'intrusive government', or whatever the hell it is they're talking about. In all honesty, most of them are rich gits who would be able to afford the ridiculous private system the USA has at the moment anyway. Or just hate poor people. Worry not, we have the in the UK too; see the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail for some examples of the buffoons.

Say what you like about Britain, I sure as hell know it has all the problems of the US and then some more, but our healthcare system is, basically, bloody brilliant. It says to anyone and everyone, "I don't care how rich you are, what you've done in your life, what problems you have, YOU DESERVE TO BE HEALED"

What is it that's inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty?

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

That sends shivers down my spine.

But I think it applies here. The "teeming shore" - the unrelenting tide of compeition and capitalism perhaps?

Yeah, I'm a commy. You probably won't like that but I don't care. I'm sorry for dreaming of a better world.

Let America live up to that inscription, and to the god damn words on your constitution, that the right likes to wave around like some sort of flag proclaiming "I am a rich arse, let me kick some beggars!" Conveniently forgetting the FIRST BIT ON THERE.

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Created equal. Unalienable rights. LIFE.

If the state fails to provide your huddled masses with the means to life, then it fails in everything.

To conclude this long, rambling, not entirely coherent spiel, I shall say this. Damn convention and tradition; if you had kept with that then the USA would never have gotten independance from Britain. Screw the useless insults of those opposed not only to you, but to seeing a better life for their fellow citizens. Finally, a quote from Aneurin Bevan, the man who established our healthcare system:

"When I hear the cacophony of harsh voices trying to intimidate me, I close my eyes and listen to the silent voices of the poor"

Now let's see the skinny kid, with a funny name, from Illinois make a change.

Solidarity and good luck
Fred Cotterill