Transformative and Inspirational Education Ticks no Boxes

Chapter Thirteen
A Week of Slow Breakthroughs


A week of slow breakthroughs, subtle changes, and confusion.

“Richard, Richard, I’ve got something for you.” Dean’s slow, loud and hesitant voice greets me on Tuesday morning as I walk through the student common room. My mind wonders what he has for me. I expect little, maybe some joke, or am I being too dismissive? Something in his voice is urgent, imploring me to stop and take notice. No, I convince myself, he can’t surprise me.

“Right, mister, let’s take my coat off and put my bag in the staff room. I’ll only be a minute Dean.”
“Yes, yes, that’s no problem Richard.”

The students are gathering in the base room when I walk in. The computer is on, pinging sounds and shimmering screens of print images and games. Dean approaches me and from his pocket pulls out a scrap of paper. “Here you are Richard, homework. I did it last night.” I open the paper, standard letter size in blue, and read what he’s written in black biro, details of radio and television programmes copied from the Radio Times. “I did it last night, I had nothing to do.”
“Did you show your parents?”
“No I did not!”, he says adamantly, “I went upstairs to my bedroom and did it there. Do you think it’s good?”
“I’m really impressed Dean, it’s first class.” I’m somewhere over the moon. Dean’s actually produced work and handed it to me without asking.
“Richard, show the others what I’ve done.” So I did. This small young man, having his nightly shot of growth hormone, the student most likely not to work, is beaming with unalloyed pride. I tell staff who teach Dean and they, too, are pleasantly surprised. The question now is how to maintain his interest, how to maintain momentum, how to encourage him to produce more and better, work. He’s achieved and I’m elated. For the rest of the week he stops me asking if the work’s good.

Computers were a surprise to me too. Dean on the keyboard doing a word building task where he has to key in missing letters to create words. I ask him to say the word he’s spelt, but he refuses, insisting that he knows the word and therefore doesn’t have to say it.
“Go, on Dean, say it for me.”
“I’ve forgotten. Look, I’m on the next word now.”
I leave it having taken the hint, though I won’t let it ride.

Tricia sitting pensively is suddenly blooming, deep red lipstick, subtle if a little, as yet, amateurish, and eye make up, all adding to her natural beauty. “I don’t know why you don’t do this Sarah. It would make you feel better to have pride in your appearance” Tricia says, then continues, “people would sit up and take notice of you.” Sarah, standing at the back of the room simply shrugs her shoulders then adds bitingly, “You’re terrible, I don’t want to. Thanks.”

I want more from Tricia than flashing eyes and sarcastic comments. She’s well able to complete the tasks I give her. I want her, though, to move faster, to be on a hill where she can build up her own momentum and coast along without my assistance. Maybe Buddha will help me, a long forgotten world where peace bells rang and self sacrificing monks immolated themselves against invaders violations. Tricia’s sitting next to me, separated by distance from Chung, the bin overfull with empty drink cans
and the inevitable Chandra graffiti on the white board: Tongs, Triads and Mafia. I ask her to get out the work she did on Buddhism last week. She scoots towards her bag dumped on the floor, bends over and pulls a file from within it. She shoots back to me, “There you are Richard.”

True to her promise a finely word processed piece of work, copied, more or less, from the library book she borrowed last week. I want more. We talked about Buddhism both admitting our ignorance, me probing, wanting to know if anything she’s read has effected her thoughts, begun to influence her. I want to know her feeling and thoughts on what she’s read. I write a couple of questions for her to research.

2


During his tutorial I tell Dean how he’s maturing and improving, how pleasant and agreeable he’s becoming. Many times Dean’s said he’d produce written work for “next week” but never has and tomorrow never comes. However, he’s given me the perfect reason to stretch him now his self esteem is developing. I tell him I’ll talk to his literacy teacher and give him a list of tasks including word building and perfect copying passages from a book he must complete for next week. I make an official profile note of his Christmas film list and tell him how pleased I am with his progress.

Chung shows me his ‘Dream of Emrhys’, very short and like Chung himself, very much to the point with no waffle. Paddy’s as elusive as ever even when’s he sitting in front of me blank eyed and expressionless. He’s forgotten his material on the Beatles though he did, as I discover later, answer the research questions I’d set him. He sits vacant, staring out, full of naiveté, his pale and piercing eyes set close together, “Oh, I forgot Richard.” I want to pin him down, to respond, to show passion but most of all to give his own opinions. “Paddy, for Friday I want you to do more work on the Beatles. Do you know why you like them?”
“Yes, their music.”
“What does their music do to you?”
“What do you mean Richard?”
“Does it make you feel happy, does it make you sad?”
“It makes me feel happy.”
“I wonder what other people feel about their music, the same as you perhaps?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it before.”
“Do you know what they did to fashion?”
“Hair.” Precisely and much else besides. He’s not expressing himself. His movements a bundle of nerves, fearful, on the lookout for something to happen, a predator, perhaps, to devour him and does nothing to avoid his fate. Always an “excuse me, I need the toilet”, hiding in the loo and skipping college, though I have no proof.

Annabel my mentor on my teacher training course, comes to see me in action in my computer class. Dean’s the first to see her, “Cor! She’s nice, isn’t she Richard, I don’t half fancy her.” Moments before Annabel arrived there was a near meltdown as Chung flared up almost creaming Sunil over a remark he’d made to Tricia. A little comment, some dirt tipped needle I wasn’t party to. Comments lost to my ears and Sunil slinking off to his work station. Chung’s setting the agenda once more, though it only gradually dawns on me as the week develops. Annabel goes around the students in turn, looking at their work and asking what they’re doing. Paul shows her the press headlines he’s working on, the Cup Final of 1923. “Paul, look at the price on the entrance gates, look at the police, look at those men gate crashing and climbing over the barriers to avoid paying.”

I try to establish rapport with Sunil, but Lazarus is of the mythical variety today, and fail. I repeat, but there’s resistance and Annabel looks on, her thoughts private as she professionally reflects on what’s happening. I need to think a great deal more on what work he’s capable of. He’s far from dumb but has never been stretched. Later, during our tutorial, he expresses an interest in weight lifting so I ask him to get a book from the library, which he does without question. When he returns I ask him to answer the following question, ‘Why I need to do weightlifting and keep myself fit’. When I see him later in the week I ask him to do something more demanding and personal, ‘My religion’.

I discuss Chrissie’s stories with her, emphasising the importance of collecting and re-writing her stories to get them printed in the college magazine. Likewise with Sarah who hasn’t completed her ‘My Home’ yet.

3

Thursday begins with confusion, I’ve prepared nothing in advance, as Julie was to arrive at nine, whilst the students, of course, hadn’t prepared any written work to discuss. It’s an absolute mess and the eager first years are becoming restless at the non-appearance of Julie with her assertion training. I tell them she’ll be along shortly but they keep insisting, “when can we start Richard?” Nine thirty clocks along, Mike pops his head around the door and assures us she’ll arrive by ten. The group are beginning to break up, wondering around the room shouting and alehouse talking each other - and education civilises? I’m frustrated, it’s getting closer to ten past ten and no sign of her. Mike rings Julie at home, but no answer, “Maybe she’s on her way”, he suggests limply.

Ticking to quarter past ten I apologise to the group for Julie’s non-appearance - what can I do? - accepting the inevitable. Thinking of power a vague idea comes to me to split the group in two with each writing down what they think government does, but they’re vague and uninterested, and so am I, it’s too general. I need to start from the smaller, the specific, the familiar, before attempting large statements. “Do you know how college works?”
“You mean who’s boss?” replies Dean immediately.
“Yes, that type of thing.”
“Is that horrible man Emrhys the boss?”, ventures Tricia.
I laugh.
“Is it Tim?”
“Richard, are you a boss?”
I laugh again, only much, much louder. “Paddy, can you get me a large sheet of paper and dark felt tips. Thanks.”

On the bottom of the sheet I write ‘students’. “That’s you horrible lot in the gutter”, faking haughty disgust, “now, above you, only just with fingers clutching onto the pavement, is me and most of the staff.”
“Where’s Mike?”
“Where’s Hamish?”
“Is Graham with you?”
They identify staff they know.
“Well, is Emrhys like you then?”
“Yes, he’s just a lecturer as well. Does that surprise you? Shall I tell you the big boss is?”
“Yes”, the reply in unison.
I write up the names of the senior lecturers. They’re surprised to learn that Kevin is Tim’s boss and dark mutterings take place, though I don’t know why this should be.
“Where’s Bev?”

“She’s here”, drawing a parallel line next to the lecturers names, adding, “she’s in a different union and doesn’t get the same holidays as teaching staff.”
“Well, tell us where Alan is.”
“You mean the counsellor?”
“Yes.”
“He’s a senior lecturer.”
“Oh, higher than you then?”
“Yep”, I nonchalantly reply knowing full well I’ll never achieve promotion - it’s simply not my karma.

We proceed through the hierarchy. Each level bossing the level beneath it, right up to faculty director level, to vice principal and then finally to the principal, she of the smart power suits and doggy affections. I decide to shift the discussion to them as they seem to be comprehending the whole concept of power and bossness very clearly even asking how much pay each level receives. “Is that all you get paid Richard?”, says Chung who’s family own clothing factories in Malaysia, “it’s not much.”

“Right”, I ask, lets take the bird by its beak, “who’s the boss in this group?” .
Silence, pensive, uncertain of what to say until Tricia raises her eyes and smiles, “Sarah is. Well, she likes to think she is”.
“Is she the person who everyone listens to, that people do things for?”
“No, Chung’s the other boss.”
He sits there, narrow smile, full of satisfaction.
“Is there anybody else?”
“No”.
“Why is Chung the boss together with Sarah?”
Silence.
I go around the group.

“Lee, do you do what Chung says?”
“Sometimes. Yes, I do.”
They all answer the same, and the same for Sarah too, though with back answers pregnant with factitiousness.
“She interferes.”
“Sometimes we laugh at her.”
Sarah smiles with the same expression of silent satisfaction as Chung.

“At home who dominates, who controls the house?”
Paul the odd one out, says, “Me!”, whilst others shout, “My dad!” apart from Sarah who affirmatively answers, “My mum”. The mum she calls “cow” in her, ‘My Family’ assignment. Chung asserts “My uncle”.
“So Sarah and Chung are top of the pecking order are they?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they rule the roost, you know the meaning of that, don’t you?”
They laugh when I tell them.

It’s past eleven and an hour and twenty minutes to prepare for the science lesson on Aids. Still no sign of Julie, “not like her” says Mike, “she’s always so reliable. Maybe she’s forgotten”

4

“Are you coming Richard?”, Dean bellows through the door.
“Yes”, I echo back, “let me get my papers.”
I split the group in two, four students in each, though Sarah sits on a lone desk between the two groupings unsure who to give her allegiance. When it’s time to read out their written material she wants to interfere with the groups and is told, in no uncertain terms not to poke her nose in. Such is the price paid of a leader standing aloof from the masses. Each has a piece of paper, “Write down”, I tell them, “what you think Aids is. You must have some ideas about it, from the press, television, whatever, and remember we had that video before Christmas.”

I move between the two groups. There’s much tittering from Sunil, but the rest are serious and working well. Dean surprises once again, taking the felt tips to write for his table. I talk to them.
“Doctor,” he tells me.
“What do you mean Dean?”
“Well, you see a doctor first if you’ve got Aids.”
“Is there anything you can do about Aids?”
“Yes”, shouts Doc Sarah, “you can get cured.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yes you can”, reaffirms the goodly Doc.
“What do others think?”
“No you can’t”, several voice cry out.
“Do you know what terminal means?”
“No.”
I explain.
Dean continues adding comments to his table’s paper.
“Men and women can get it.”
“No one’s safe from it.”
“You can get it from sharing needles.”
“Babies can get it too.”

Sarah, joining the other table, have their thoughts scribed by Tricia. She’s a good level of literacy and the first statement on their paper is, “you can catch Aids from sexual intercourse”, then other points similar to Dean’s table.

“Can you get Aids from touching?”
“Yes”, shouts Sunil.
“What about from drinking glasses?”
“Yes, I think so” says Paul.
“Can you get it from kissing?”
“No”, the group answers.
“Is there a cure?”
“No!”
I write their points on the whiteboard.

We focus on blood and the immune system because they don’t know. We also go further discussing immunisation, the jabs they received as children and how they assisted the immune system to defend itself. I repeat and ask each in turn to review what we’ve discussed, I also ask why sharing needles is dangerous.

“What gets passed on if you share needles?”
“What do you mean?”, asks Paddy.
“If you don’t clean needles something may be left on them. What do needles do?”
“Inject you.”
“Yes, but what does it stick into?
“Your skin.”
“True, what happens when you cut yourself?”
“You bleed.”
“And if you share needles you pass on small blobs of blood which may contain the Aids virus.”
“Babies can be born with Aids, can’t they Richard?”
“Yes, remember the video we watched, ‘The Miracle of Life’, the umbilical cord, what does it do?”
“It’s stuck on the baby inside the mum.
“But what does it do?”
“Oh, Richard,” utters Sarah in desperation, strangely quiet until this outburst, then sinks into silence.
“What does it do?”
“It passes things into the baby from its mum.”
“And that’s how the virus can get into the baby.”

“Besides blood, what other fluids are there?”
“Brain fluid”, says Lee without embarrassment.
“What else?”
“Blood!”
“Yes, that’s right Dean, but we’ve mentioned that”.
Silence.
“The video mentioned seminal fluid.”
“It’s sticky!”, shouts Sunil.
“Well, at least we know you’re normal”.
The group laughs, Paddy smiles his silly smirk and begs leave to the loo.

“What about vaginal fluid?”
“Yes, I know all about that”, says Chung.
“Chung”, shouts Tricia very obviously.

“Yes, semen, vaginal fluid and blood are the major means the Aids virus is passed on.”
One final exercise before we break for lunch.
“Can you go to student services and get some leaflets on Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases.”

They scarper, arriving back in dribs and drabs ten minutes later with a wadge of information that we strew across the tables now pushed together so we sit facing each other. I select a leaflet published by the Health Council on, ‘What is Aids?’ and ask each student to read out a paragraph to reinforce what we’ve learnt. They do, though it’s not easy for some of them, Dean and Sunil especially who miss out large chunks of paragraphs.

It’s Sarah’s birthday on Friday so Lee and Dean are organising a party for her. It’s meant to be secret but the two can’t refrain from threatening her with a “surprise”, which induces her to wallow in paranoia giving her another reason to search me out. “Richard, I’m not coming in on Friday. I can’t take it. Something’s happening behind my back”
“Tough”, I tell her, “it’s a full time course and I’m not giving you time off. Simple as that.”

They bought her a lovely card, white and feminine, flowery verse and scrolled, ‘Happy Birthday’ - I wonder whether she had such sentiments for her own child I saw her pushing years later - though it became a mad panic to get it signed by all the group. Preparing the surprise food, chocolate rolls, crisps and coke, was no less easy to accomplish. Sarah’s sent away whilst the spread’s prepared for her. She seeks me in the canteen where I’m eating and wants to know when she can use the base room again. “Soon”, I tell her. “It’s twelve thirty now. I’ll join you in ten minutes”

5

The Second Years are getting ready for their photo expedition. I get the Pentax and camcorder from Geoff, though in the event we didn’t use it. I picked up the wide angle zoom and spread the equipment out before the group including my old trusty Nikon with an array of lenses. The numbers are down to the usual stalwart dependable, Nish, Harry, Chrissy, who has her own automatic. Jools who’s suddenly attending and Chandra, who’ll surprise me before the day’s out, arrive late. They appear uncertain, intimidated by the equipment lying in front of them, yet fascinated by its shiny complexities. I take them through the basic functions, explain the difference between the lenses and focal lengths, then let them handle the equipment.

“Look over there by the building site. Try this standard lens, now use the zoom and see the difference.”
“Wow”.
“Jools, look through this, practise winding the film on and pressing the shutter.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah, that’s great, ok.”
Chandra holds back, he doesn’t want to be part of the group, I ask him what’s wrong.
“Nothing, I’m alright Richard, honest I am”, in his wheedling tone which says, “I’m lying, but prove it.” I leave it.

We have thirty minutes to practice using the equipment. Nish is very keen and even Harry has a camera slung around his neck, though he resolutely refuses to move it to his eyes. Jools is showing interest, “Look at me”, she says as the long lens of the Nikon hangs over her small frame.
“Shall we go then?”, I ask. Now we have to decide where.
“I fancy the estate.”
“What, with all this expensive equipment, it’ll get nicked.”

“Mill Hill!”
After a rapid round robin we follow our feet to the fifteen minute walk to the suppurating affluence of Mill Hill High Street.

We leave the college sliding over mud churned by contractor’s vehicles servicing its new extension. Chandra sees a train high on the embankment and asks if we can take a photo of it, he’s fast becoming his usual fussy and domineering self. A Pentax around his neck, his stooped walk and suspicious shuffling along the pavement add to his image of a sleazy ‘glamour’ snapper on his way to another suburban assignment. We’re confronted by a sign post proclaiming it’s the footpath to Mill Hill. I ask them if they know where the sign’s pointing to, “Of course we do”, they tell me. We walk beneath the subway, up the steel steps over the walkway and peer down over the motorised tarmac of the A1. God, it’s busy, and the wind, I have to foghorn my voice to get heard. In the distance cowers Harry unwilling to join us, shaking his head with his funny little twisted expression of disdain. I can’t hear a word he says.

Nish’s feeling the strain. One hand holds the camera ready to photograph the traffic and the other hand clings to the metal rail from grim death’s awesome power. “Nish, you alright?”, I holler.
“Yeah”, comes his reply.
“You look a little nervous. Look I’ll support you.”
He’s so nervous he thinks the bridge will collapse onto the road with bits of Nish splashed every ungainly place. As I hold him he’s able to use his hand and snaps away.
“Phew, let’s go Richard.”
We return across the bridge and follow closely Harry who’s now a small huddled blob shape all bent over, his blue nylon parka, with its strip of mock fur, keeping him warm. We collectively breath a sigh of relief as we reach pavement leading to our destination, the sign pointing the wrong way for as long as I taught at Hendon. Now together and survived, we idly chatter as the assignment looms.

“Can we go out next week as well to take photographs?”
“Richard, can Paul McCartney open the exhibition we’re going to do?”
“Why don’t you write him a letter, I’ve his address somewhere.”
“Richard, I’ve got an idea.”
“What is it Chandra?”
“Could we do a cardboard city?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been thinking”, and here comes Chandra at his best, “we could make a cardboard city like in London and invite people to see it, then give money to the homeless. Could you invite somebody really famous to open it?”
“You mean Paul McCartney?”, shouts Harry.
“No dummy, someone really famous!”
“Who?”
“Richard, I don’t know. Help me someone!”
“Chandra, can I give you a task?”
“Oh gawd, go on, what is it?”
“Go and see the vice principal, he’s got loads of contacts in theatre and film. Can you do that?”
“I will Richard, I promise.”

We arrive at the Broadway, suburban genteelness, dissected by the bus terminus, a motorway flyover, an enormous traffic island and low flying Thames Link trains. Despite modern intrusions it still retains Edwardian charm. Reminding the group to keep their college identity cards handy they’re unleashed, and totally surprise me with their panache and gusto. Not content to take nice pleasant snaps they push into banks and shops, barging in front of shoppers thrusting lenses up their noses. “Thank you”, they mutter pressing the shutter amidst a few refusals but more yeses. One dancing and singing man waltzes out of the florist to pose even more bizarrely for Chandra who’s totally fazed by his antics.

Nish’s discovered the advantages of the wide angle Nikon and decides he wants to use it all the time. It’s the easiest and most spontaneous of lenses and doesn’t require focussing beyond two metres. I keep checking they’re are using the equipment correctly, everyone appears to be. Chrissy’s been using the Pentax permanently and in her own quiet manner thoroughly enjoying being out, snapping people unawares. If they behave as they are now on the homeless assignment it could be a great term’s work and achievement for them. I have some spare cash with me, “Fancy going into the café for a cup of tea?” Chorused approval, so we stroll in. I remember last year’s trip to Golders Hill Park café and the ensuing mayhem. Good job I’m a regular customer there and knew the staff, I kept thinking as ice cream and cappuccino, Chandra’s loud voice and Jools hysterical laughter, kept things bubbling to madness. It’s refreshingly different this time. This café’s salubrious, mainly elderly and Jewish patrons, all very quite, sedate and agreeable. The waitress takes our orders, “If you want anymore boiling water please let me know” And we do, three times in total.

Wasn’t Jools the darling of the piece. “Here”, she spoke, “let me be mum, I’ll pour”, each cup topped with milk added in such a caring and methodical manner. I’m too impressed for words. Nish talks business, laying out ideas for our elderly project and continuing discussions as Jools replenishes our cups. We could interview the elderly and photograph them we decide whilst sipping.

“There are a number of day centres for elderly Caribbean and Jewish people in Brent and Barnet, we could travel around to them.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“Remember the café we went to last year, a lot of old people from Europe fleeing Hitler, go there. They must have interesting stories to tell, if they’re willing to share them.”
“Yeah, maybe we could that.”

An old friend from my prison days has invited me to one of the project’s he’s managing - a home for recovering alcoholics in Surrey’s stock broker belt. He’s also gave me an idea for fund raising: a homeless meal, soup and rolls, inviting as many people as possible to donate. The group’s idea for a cardboard city, replete with musty sleeping bags, could be a great promotional idea, all capped by a photo exhibition. We’ll see - it’s early days. I tell the group of my friend’s offer, they in turn remind me of my promise amidst the clinking of cups and slurping of tea, to contact the Peel Centre about the sponsored pool game. I saw one of the police tutors on my teaching course and gave the details to him. I await his response.

“Nish, you have Danny for catering, can you sound him out about the soup kitchen idea? Tell him what it’s for and let me know.”
“Will do Richard.”

We return just before midday and a note on my desk reminds me to contact the National Association of Voluntary Hostels.

Chung’s gone angry - again - and during break in the bakery class threw an ash tray at Dean hitting him on the head. Dean’s shocked, though not seriously hurt. I find him in the coffee bar, head slumped forward on a table being comforted by Tricia. Dean’s also calmed by one of the counsellors who, opportunely was in the coffee bar.
I take over.

“I’m still shaking Richard, I’m upset.”
“I’ll bet you are mister. Dean, come to the staff room for a few minutes and tell me what happened.”
“I did nothing, honest. I wanted to talk to Tricia and he told me to go away, so I did. Then he threw it at me.”
I feel his head for bruises, luckily Dean’s got a thick skull.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am, Richard. I’m shaken and upset, but I’ll be ok soon.”
“OK, sit down for a while and rest, I’ll go and tell Mike.”

Mike and I chat about the seriousness of the violence and after the break decide to talk to Hamish and find out if he can shed light on the fracas. On the way there I see Tricia. “Yes, Chung was really annoyed. Sarah’s trying to split us apart.”
“How?”
“She just comes over and makes comments.”
“So, what happened this time?”
“Dean came in at the wrong moment. Chung didn’t throw the ash tray at Dean, he threw it in his direction.”

Subtle difference, though it’s lost on me. Mike sees Dean and Chung and tells me Chung’s apologised. Later, as I’m ready to go, Chung looked into my eyes, smiled and said, “No I didn’t!” I know what he means. I’ll see him next week in tutorial.

Transformative and Inspirational Education Ticks no Boxes

Chapter Twelve
Back Again: Finally Eloped?


Back again, a quiet day slow to start. Tricia and Chung are missing, I wonder if they’ve finally eloped? Sarah, now fully committed to her new name, black beret, rakishly angled, though bereft of an enamel broach to add distinction, is seeking me. Exoceted through the corridor needing someone to confer with begs “listen to me”, imploring, “you’d never guess what happened to me over the holiday.” I tell her to see me later. Gradually the old faces turn up. Sunil promising to be as disruptive as ever, longer haired, and not happy to be back in England. “It’s too dirty here”, he informs the rest of the class, “my mum and dad are going back to live in India soon.” Paddy’s absent too. I wonder if he’ll begin to work this year. Lee, clutching a flash new leather briefcase, is looking smarter and tells me he’s getting his hair cut to co-ordinate his new image.

I’m none too sure what I’m supposed to be doing this term. I have a few ideas, did work over the holiday to clarify my own thoughts but I’m a little in the dark as how to apply my embryonic plans. Plus I’m unsure how my ideas will grab student interests and enthusiasms.

Dean, scruffy as ever, though never messy or grubby, more the scrubbed school boy in a permanent year ten, peers in the open staff room door, with Lee. Leering forward, his confidence bobbing and weaving within himself, moving towards the tide pressing against him, shouts, “Richard”, in a voice to wake the dead, “can we see you for a minute?”
“You mean right now?”, I ask stupidly.
“Yes, you heard us mister.”
“Richard”, joins in Lee, “will we be doing what we did last term?”
“The assertion training and the Thursday talks?”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
“We liked them.”
“That’s right”, added Dean.

I’m amazed, dumbfounded! I’m seeing changes occur within the group and so have other staff, but now students, oops the customers in management speak, are demanding more of the same! I have to think. Julie has one more session to do, but not until next Tuesday. I’d considered using the Thursday class to boost the students’ confidence by getting them to read their material to discuss it. Each standing in front of the others to express themselves, maximum abilities to maximise effectiveness, reading their word processed thoughts. I’d arranged to see Alan at student services on Monday, but find a message on my desk informing me he’s ill and won’t be in until Wednesday, damn, and other curses. I’d hoped to pick his brains to organise a tutorial programme for the second years, this’ll now have to wait.

Computers, personal development as it transmogrifies, begins on Monday so I have little time to think through my long term plans. The students are in laid back mood and in no great hurry to work in earnest. Lee wants to log into a games package then explores the net to create images to include in his folder. Dean’s already started on his game and is soon increasing his score to that of second highest, but he’s stuck on 14,000 points and has to reach 15,000 to have his name recorded as first. He tries and tries, but his reaction time is too slow, because he can’t touch the keys quick enough.

“Watch this Richard”, he shouts in a loud voice successfully hiding the remains of a stutter that must have held him back as a child. However, each time he turns around to catch my attention he loses a fraction of a second which limits his score.

“Dean”, I tell him just as he’s ready to turn around, “do one only thing at a time and keep looking at the screen. Now”, I shout, “press the key!” His score reaches the magical 15,000 and his name tapped into the winner’s place.

“Dean, what did you do there?”, I ask. He glances toward me blankly as if in shell shock. “You concentrated, you put all your efforts into getting the top score and you did!” Dean’s jumping up and down for joy, but then Lee, whose short term memory worries me, indicates he’s ready to challenge him.

“Watch it Dean, I’m catching up”, he shouts as his long, skinny fingers, his ability to concentrate, pushes hard on Dean’s score. Each game played by Lee sees his score increase and now fourth place has Lee’s name on it. Third place, then second place fall to the relentless cowboy, turned Mounty desperate to get his score. Finally, like a remorseless tide, first falls to him in one burst of energy and concentrated brain fibre and Dean’s kicked from his short lived pedestal.

“I’ll get you!”, he blurts out, walking to Lee’s station in good natured mock aggression. Sunil, too, wants action, but his score falls as well as rises. Much front but his swagger fails at the crucial moment and he’s thrashed by the less able, the two physically underdeveloped. There’s justice in this world I privately incant. Lee, the oft abused cripple, is ecstatic, though he moderates it in a quiet and dignified manner.

Paul’s working on his Christmas and word processing meeting his cousin in Luton and the difficulties landing in an overworked flying space in a plane struck by lightening. He has extreme difficulties word processing but persists, concentrates and follows his task through methodically. Sarah, however, is unsure what to do and does word games. I ask her what each four lettered word means and only to get stuck on slay. “Look it up in the dictionary.”

“Oh, Richard, do I have to?”
“Yes you do”.

The white board Kilroy continues. “The New Year”, I write, “will be one of hope and life”. Will anybody get the message? Sarah wonders what it means writing underneath, “did you all make a New Year’s resolution?” Those watching deride and laugh at her - she storms out. Returning, seeking a calm sea of validation, she approaches me after the class’s finished. I’ve my own New Year resolution I plan to implement immediately. I’m not a therapist, nor a counsellor and I’ve decided not to succumb to be the ever patient listener, nor to bite my tongue and not give my opinions. I need to express feelings and not just quietly sit and talk.

“Richard, I’ve been thinking. I need to settle, get tied down.”
“Pardon?”
“Yes, I’ve decided, I have to settle down.”
“I don’t understand.”
“To get married.”
“What”.
I don’t want to talk at the moment, the time’s not right, I’ll see her later. Sarah surprisingly accepts my decision without a quibble.

I’ve a tutorial with Chrissy in which she shows me a new story. I ask questions encouraging her to explore what she really wants to say. She corrects two sentences running into each that are likely to confuse the reader, and corrects some minor spelling errors. The story, one page of simplicity and truth, is about a developing love affair, meeting over a drink and the warm feelings that develop as the couple walk home. I reflect after she’s gone that her collected stories could be bound and presented together as the culmination of a long assignment, I’ll talk to Mike about this. Other ideas spin around my mind as week one of the New Year begins to take shape as I see, once more, students in their developing complexity, and begin to plan. If, as last term, I emphasized college is about getting a better life this term’s focus will be, ‘how to get what you want’.

I see Chung who informs me he’s dreamt about Emrhys. I’m sure there’s poetry there somewhere, but need time to fathom it. I ask him to word process the dream, “and include how and why you think he’s changed towards you and Tricia. You know, the sudden friendliness you got from him.” We chatter on about Christmas, passing the time of day and he tells me he’s still keen to learn French. “Tell you what”, I reply, “you teach me Chinese in return for me teaching you French.” However, I detect some unease when he informs me, “I can only count to ten in Chinese, but I speak Malay fine”.

Lee’s forgotten his French book fortunately I produce a new French language book and we refresh our memories and use the tape recorder. Lee’s keen to be back in college and, like Dean, glad to be amongst friends. However, there’s still no sign of Paddy. Sarah arrives worried about taking tranquillisers desperate to come off them. I suggest she talks to the student counsellor and ask what group support is available for ending dependency.

“The pills make me feel awful”, she tells me.
“I’ll bet they do.”
“When things get me down I take them.”
“Like now?”
“Yes, like now. Nobody understands. I do want to settle down.”
“Yes, you said earlier.”
“Should I?”
“Don’t know. What do you think?”
There’s no reply.

“Is your family giving you pressure?”, I gently prod.
“Yes”.
“Sarah, I have an idea. Why don’t you write a little something on your family. You could call it ‘My Family’.”
“Yes, I’ll do that,” she agrees.

2

It’s the second years today, starting at nine for three mad hours and I’m feeling uneasy: where am I get my ideas? I’ll let students bid topics and projects, follow through whatever arises. Pleasantries exchanged, lots of presents, great Christmas, fine times - or so it seems. Chandra’s sitting there, a little uneasy, unsure. Mark’s in orbit on a laser beam of his own Star Wars episode, throwing down the gauntlet of disjointed comments and bits of knowledge beyond the range of the group who’ve no idea what he’s talking about.

Nish is the first to open, “What are we going to do this year? What charity are we going to raise money for?”
“I know”, shouts Chandra, “we can open a video club.”
“Will you explain?”, I ask.
“We can write to businesses and get videos off them for free, then hire them to students.”
I think he’s crazy; his tangential brain beams off where white shadows dance independently their own life laced with impossibility so nothing needs to be achieved.

“How much does a video cost?”
“About £15.”
“How many videos does and average video hire shop have?”
“About 3,000.”
“What’s 3,000 times £15?”
Harry comes in with the answer, “£45,000”, lightening quick, striking dead wood without smoldering dying hiss.

“Do people want to raise money like last year?”
Yes rings unanimously around the room. Since Monday I’ve been thinking mounting a photo exhibition on a subject of their choosing. I’d brought several old photo-journalism books to stimulate discussion, but hold back for now.
“We can raise money for Amnesty International”, shouts Mark.
“Or old people.”
“Or for children being beaten.”
“Or for cancer.”
“What about Africa?”
“What’s Amnesty International?”, a belated voice chimes.

We begin a discussion on prisoners of conscience when Socorina walks in, so Mark, patiently, begins his explanation again. We talk about prisons and they ask me what I want them to do. “Let’s sort this out first, maybe we can combine two ideas in one.”

“Let’s do something on the homeless”, adds Chandra.
“Yeah, like cardboard city.”
“Like Centrepoint”, says Mark sitting down after coming out of orbit when he needs a break to recharge his batteries by stretching his body and yawning. Chrissie’s restless and tick-tack bookie style waves her notebook wanting to write something: anything.

“OK” says Nish, “you can be our secretary.”

“Yes, but last year everyone had different jobs and no one stuck to them”, replies Mark casting doubts on individual commitment. We now seem to have a number of ideas. I open up. “How about an exhibition? Do some photographs, learn about photography, produce large prints, have trips out, visit exhibitions in the West End. Get work mounted to display in reception.”

I pass the picture books around and ad lib as they flip through the pictures. I sense a keen interest in the varied topics I’ve brought in, abattoir workers in thirties Chicago, people at war, people hanging around street corners in the inner city, farmers working the land, old photos of London. None of them talk for ten minutes so enraptured have they become. We have a break.

“We need to look at what we’ve discussed so far”, I tell them. We flip chart suggestions producing two serious contenders. and I ask the group if we can take a vote, but first I tell them they have to do a little exercise. Harry and Mark approach the whiteboard and I ask them to write down the advantages of the ideas raised, the homeless and the aged. I declare my interest: I’ve worked with the homeless and have several contacts we could use.

“Last year we went to Hatfield”, says Nish.
“Yes we did”, I answer, “remember, it was the hostel for young people.”
“That was really great. But don’t get lost this time Richard.”

The group shouts out their reasons for the project and Harry writes them down, first for the homeless, then for the aged. “Shall we take a vote?” The group numbers ten and I state I won’t be voting. Slowly the hands rise indicating their choices. The homeless gets five, the elderly gets four. Harry asks if he should write the results down in figures or in letters. “Please yourself”, I tell him. So he does and it becomes five and 4.

“Who abstained?” I ask.
No one owns up, so the homeless it is. We draw up an action plan, things to do, like learning to use the cameras and decide on locations to photograph and places to visit.

“What about fund raising?”, I ask.
“I know”, says Chandra, “a football match between us and the police college.”
“I’ll check with them.”
“Samuel’s a great footballer.”
“And Tony”.
“And who else?”, I ask.
“Can we think of something else?”
“A pool game.”
“That sounds great, shall we do it?”
“Right.”
“I’ll book the cameras for next week.”
“Can you book the camcorder”, asks Peter.
“Why?”
“Well, we could interview people on trains and ask why they think people are homeless.”
“Brilliant idea but we needn’t restrict ourselves only to trains. I’ll check with media”.

3

The first year’s are eager on Thursday, but I’m not. Julie, who did the assertion training last term doesn’t start teaching till next week and I spoke to Alan who’s willing to take some sessions, but only occasionally. In our exchange of ideas he suggested students reading and writing from prepared material is also an essential element of assertion, but I’m skeptical.

The base room now has another message from Sarah, “Richard I took notice of you and I am coming off the tablets even though it will be hard.” I don’t want to sit passively with the group searching for ideas. Nobody’s any written material, other than Sarah, who’s given me a word processed piece dense with details about her family.

“Let’s go upstairs for a coffee.”
I write on the board that we’re in the canteen and move out. We sit around a few tables, drink tea and idly gossip.
“What are we going to do Richard?”
“I don’t know. Have you any suggestions?”
“Let’s go to my place for a drink”, asserts Dean.
“What and get burnt food!”
The group splits with laughter.
Sunil arrives.
“Hi, have you seen Paul, he’s downstairs.”
“Right, shall we bring him up?”
“I’ll help you”, offers Dean.
“Chung, can you help us please?”
“Oh, I suppose so.”

Paul’s in his chair, smiling as usual with his bag balanced on his lap. “Paul, how heavy are you?”
“About eight stone I think.”
“How do you normally get upstairs?”
We do what he says as his eight stones feel more like thirteen as we huff and puff up two flights of stairs.

“Come and join us Paul.”
“Richard, what are we doing?”
“Umm, observation exercise”, I fumble out of my mouth.
“What?
“I’ll explain.”

Back in the base room, refreshed and inquisitive I ask Sarah to leave the room. When she slams the door behind her I ask the group to describe what she’s wearing, her ring, and the colour of her coat lining. They can’t. Sarah’s beckoned in, frumpish and disturbed looking. “You see her everyday and can’t describe what she’s wearing! OK, let’s take some paper and pens and we’ll go across the estate. It’s sunny and not too cold, so we’ll open our eyes and observe what’s going on in the concrete.” Actually, there’s a bitter wind whipping around the flats and those that come to college by car, the majority in fact, aren’t adequately dressed for it, but their enthusiasm brooks all objections. Chung looks remarkably concentrated on his task. Lee and Paddy run off together and I begin the questions.

“Where’s the empty flat? How do you know it’s empty? Can you see the dental surgery? How many children over there with their teacher? What’s the object next to the discarded phone card?”
“Shit actually”, comes the instant response from Chung.
“Describe the clothes of the next person walking past. How many cans of drink did that man have? How much headroom is there in the car park? How many satellite dishes can you see? What’s the name on the side of the cement mixer?”

Students who normally don’t listen zap off to discover milk bottles, lift shafts and graffiti. The wind increases, blueness takes over fingers and red daubs noses, we need warmth so retreat to the base room. We push the tables together to create one big space and read out the list of observations, dozens and dozens of them all in different styles of scrawl and definitely non-standard English spelling patterns!

“Tricia, can you leave the room.”
Bang, clatter, push, crunch.
“Can you describe what she’s wearing, the jewellery, the shape of the watch she has?”
“Blue.”
“It’s round.”
“Big earrings.”
“A thin bracelet.”

3

Science was held in the base room, tables still pushed together from the previous day. Geoff, the media technician, for some reason had placed the TV-VCR in room 57, thinking of varieties I suppose and had to be reminded we need it in room 31. I’m continuing our sex education sessions. We’ve already looked at AIDS last term but I want to develop this further. I’ve suggested to staff and students we should design a brief questionnaire on people’s knowledge of this sexually transmitted disease, but that’s for the future. Today I have a copy of ‘The Miracle of Life’, the classic BBC Horizon programme I’d last seen on my back in Dumfries general having been knocked off my big Yamaha and losing bits and pieces of my body in the process. I briefly summarise what the video’s about and ignored their titters. I don’t think the students had ever imagined that their own bodies could be so active, so alive with movement and so focussed on its own independence in the moments leading to the creation of a new identity. I get a few asides across, “we’re the sperm that made it, we beat the other millions to get there - we’re all winners in that respect. We swam and thrust like crazy to get there and be born. Look, inside of us, the genetic coding, the colour, the beauty of our inner space, the self never at rest, the miracle spirit of something so minute being us and developing”.

Dean’s head falls on the table half way through the video, perhaps some prescient intuition that his life will end prematurely and never be fulfilled. Tricia hugs Chung especially close whilst the others watch avidly gawped mouth. Finally, the child is born and shown crying and screaming.

“Do you think its natural for a child to cry when it’s born?”
“Of course it is Richard”, asserts Sarah.
“No it isn’t, dummy”, argues Sunil.
“Why do you cry?”
“When you are hurt and are unhappy.”
“So, the child is unhappy to be born? Umm. What went wrong in the film then?”
“Well, I cried when I was born”, says Chung.
“And how do you remember”, replies Tricia.
“I just do!”
“My daughter didn’t cry, she just looked happy.”

I beg their leave telling them I won’t be a mo and bring back Frederick Leboyer’s Birth Without Violence. We go though the volume’s many photographs discussing them individually, looking at one photo comparing the classical image of Buddha and that of the serene newly born child. I ask them if they know anything about Buddha, but the Christians, Muslims and Hindus in the room know nothing. They respond in the negative, so we talk, gently meandering over what we’ve done and the themes we’ve explored. The groups become contemplative having observed the outer world we live in and the inner world we came from, and with hope and faith, the twain shall never part.

4

I catch up with Tricia in her tutorial and express my concern that when she and Chung are together in the Monday session they achieve very little. I’d like her, and Chung, whom I’ve already seen, to provide more work. “Tricia”, I ask, “would you find something about Buddhism and word process it for me?” But Tricia has other things on her mind: her health. She’s been laid low by a persistent bug in the gut. The doctor told her to cut down on junk food and change her diet, but, according to Tricia, offered little advice and insight as to what the bug is.
“You smile when you tell me there’s something wrong. Why?”, I inquire.
“You know me, that’s my front”
“Let’s be serious shall we?”
But we never got beyond food.

Paddy is next and I tell him how unhappy I am with last term’s his performance. He’s produced no work for me and inform him I’ll have to speak to Mike to arrange a meeting for the three of us. He then launches into his leather briefcase and produces a pristine piece of paper with a list of questions he’d to answer, “I forgot, sorry.”
“You’ve forgot a few times according to my tutorial notes.”

Sarah’s hovering around, late Friday wanting to talk.
“I’ll have to settle down and get married.”
“Do you have a boyfriend? Do you go out often?”
“Yes, I do. I don’t go out much.”
“Why do you want to get married?”
“I just can’t stand this life.”
“And marriage with some pig of a man who’ll want kids every year and knock you around if you disagree with him, is going to be better?”
“Richard, be fair.”
“I am. You’re twenty in a few weeks and you think now’s the time to terminate your life by getting tied down. If I tied your hands and feet together what would you do?”
“Try to escape.”
“Right, of course you would. So why after you’ve just started a two year course do you want to cop out, get strangled and bondaged?”
“I just want to!”
“Rubbish. It’s your mother, isn’t it?”
“Yes!”
“Is your mum happily married?”
“Yes.”
“Why then does she want to control you? Why does she want to force some man on you? Where’s your life and sense of freedom? In this country after the age of eighteen you can do what you want within the law. No parent can tell you who to marry. Christ Almighty,” I’m getting exasperated, “you have to stand up for yourself otherwise you’ll be swept away. Listen, Sarah, you were the sperm that made it, that heaved and swam, that fought to be the whole person, and now look at yourself. You want to get tied down. My opinion is that you’re crazy and demented.”
“Richard, you’re right, but life isn’t easy for me.”
“I know. When you’re twenty you think the world will end when you’re thirty. When you’re thirty you think nothing exists after forty but when you’re forty you think the whole world is beginning again.”

Inspirational and Transformative Education Ticks no Boxes

Chapter Eleven
Gradually Winding Down


The final week of term and I’m gradually winding down. I’ve persuaded staff a slow withdrawal is preferable to rapid cut off. However, winding down to the last day means the damn disco and wondering how many will attend. What the consequences might be I dread to think.

Peter and I eventually collected all the money from the sponsored table tennis marathon taking it to the local Guide Dogs for the Blind Association committee. This meant me waiting in Cricklewood sleaze, walking around the station, peering into the damp, dark distance, searching for Peter’s stooped shouldered shape. At the appointed time he arrives, we climb into the Volvo and drive to Hendon. A welcome greets us and our ₤216. 91p valued, though the ₤50,000 they have raised this year alone seems unreal. I ask Peter to tell the committee how he came about the idea and what the students did to realise it. He does. A few questions are asked and the meeting dissolves, which gives me the opportunity to shoot a couple of photos of the handshaking and him handing over the cash. The break also gives Peter a chance to eat, rather, exhibit his voracious gluttony.

Peter’s Jewish and seems surprised at Jewish symbols adorning the house asking the owner, the secretary of the committee, who herself is Jewish, if “there are any other Jewish people here?” “Why, most of us”, she asserts and proceeds to name the committee members.

“Mmmm…” he utters devouring more food before elaborating on his background, the special schools he’s attended, his salubrious Finchley flat and his parents separation. It becomes obvious why he’s stuffing his face so furiously, he can’t cook and with a rent like his it’s a wonder he can afford to eat - it’s more than I pick up in a week. Still, make hay whilst the sun shines I guess.

“Richard”, he says, as we leave the house, “would you like to see my flat?”
“Sure, but I can’t stay long.”

We drive through Finchley, past Conservative headquarters and turn left into a leafy avenue. His flat mate is in and we pass idle chatter for ten minutes after which Peter gives me a guided tour of the cavernous accommodation to the sound of his dad bought CD thumping Tchaikovsky’s 1812.

My white board messages are becoming more bizarre. Students have realized the world didn’t end in the small hours, otherwise they’d be far from Hendon and I doubt if staff would have turned up anyhow, no matter how conscientious. Nor am I certain if I’d have time to initiate the discussion I want on students powers to influence events. Nevertheless, I write another message to drop a hint what’s written isn’t necessarily true: “Yesterday I said the world was coming to an end. It didn’t. Why not? Who is to blame?” The response was unexpected. Anne, fixed on these pearls of esoteric wisdom, wrote underneath, clearly, if a little untidily, “yesterday my life came to an end for me. I think it’s me to blame for everything I do. It’s not working for me.” However, despite her protestations of severe depression she’s beginning to smile and even engaged Dean with a passing, erratic game of ‘catch me if you can’. I enquire of her if she died yesterday who wrote the message and to whom I’m talking. I get no reply other than, “Oh, Richard!”

We’re continuing our assertion training sessions with Julia who has a video for us to watch. The group manifests as much interest as a condemned man at dawn other than restlessness. I suggest we stop the film at key points to discuss its contents. This preferred approach produces unexpected results. The film highlights the importance of group support, believing in oneself and how low self esteem is more pronounced when negative responses come from somebody close and important. They begin to talk.

“I don’t like being talked about”, says Chung, “especially when people say nasty things about me.”
“Yes, but what do you do when a certain member of staff makes comments to you and Tricia?”
“Well, I tell him to keep his comments to himself.”
“That’s being assertive, isn’t it? It’s saying they’ve no rights to poke their nose into your affairs.”

We view more of the film discussing the effects and consequences of not sharing thoughts and feelings.

“It gives me stress and makes me feel like I’m dying,” chips in Anne. I ask her what it means to initiate things in her life, but they don’t understand the meaning of initiate. I explain. “It means doing things for yourself and not slavishly copying others. It means thinking how you can change the world, even just a little piece of it.”
“What’s that got to do with stress?”
“Why do you get stressed?,” I retort.
“Because others order us around and make us do what they want, even if we don’t agree with what we’re being told to do.”
“It’s denying yourself, isn’t it?”, says Tricia.
“And being assertive and initiating is not denying yourself,” I add.

Cowboy Lee begins to get restless, he’s being needled by Sunil and is ready to explode. “Lee, why don’t you say what’s making you mad?”

“I’m trying to ignore him. I don’t want to hit him, anyway, he can hit me if he wants, it’s OK, I won’t feel it”
Loud laughs and jeers.
“Of course you will, silly!”, yells Tricia.
“I don’t know,” adds Paul with exasperation, “he’ll never learn.”
“Lee, why don’t you tell him to leave you alone?”
“I can’t!”
“Why don’t you try.”
“Say, ‘Sunil will you leave me alone and stop insulting me.’”
“Lee, stand up and say it”, says Tricia.

Slowly, with encouragement from the class, Lee bucks up courage and Sunil begins to look sheepish.
“Sunil, will you stop annoying me!”
“Lee, can you say it louder?”
“No, I can’t,” he bellows, “I’ve got a sore throat”, as students fall about laughing at his thunderclap voice shaking metal window frames. Not content to say it once he intones again, and again, until the pitch and tenor are serious and just right, before sitting down in the saddle. After the break Julia asks us to make positive comments about ourselves by saying “I’m not …”

They find this difficult needing several attempts to master the negative sounding way of asserting themselves. Dean rolls off first because he’s nearest to Julia loudly exclaiming, “I’m not fat!”
“I’m not a cripple”, shouts Lee dismounting from his horse.
“I’m not stuck”, smiled Paul from his chair.
“I’m not stupid, or thick”, asserted Chung as his voice cracked.
“I’m not a freak”, laughed Tricia.
“I’m not stupid either”, said me.
“Wannabet!” came the chorus.
“I’m not frightened”, said Anne.
“I’m not stupid either”, shouted Sunil.

2

The second years have sold the 23 sets of Christmas cards they silk screened in their art class and have decided to donate the money to the Oxfam shop on Mill Hill Broadway. Christmas spirit bubbling away nicely. The group is preparing for the end of term disco but with Hamish off ill and missing their bakery lessons they’re short on comestibles. A quick chat with student services produces enough cash to purchase necessary goodies; three chocolate Christmas Logs and masses of macaroons. My request for Sage Derby, however, isn’t met. By 11.30 we’re in the community centre getting the food organized, much of it donated by the students’ parents, on two extremely large tables in the quiet space just off the main hall where the disco equipment is stage mounted.

Nish has come incredibly well dressed designating himself doorman and bouncer. Some of the students’ mill around excitedly to see how Nish handles the expected trouble from the estate triads as he refers to the local youths. Peter, ever useful, helps get the disco equipment set up and I go looking for the dimmer switches for the main lights. Most of the rest congregate around the floor unsure how to dance, embarrassed about letting themselves go in public. All we need now are the students who’ve bought the tickets. Some of the older special needs students, those with severe learning difficulties troop in first and immediately commence to bop in strange gyratory movements to music that leaves me stone cold and not a little deaf from its thumping roar. More students arrive from various other groups, as do Mike and Carol.

The entrance is getting busy and as people enter Nish collects their ticket or their one pound fifty pence entrance fee. The food is rapidly disappearing as are the contents of numerous spirit bottles. Mike has a word with them; the centre isn’t licensed therefore we can’t drink alcohol. However, as there’s no sign of law enforcement we dutifully collect the bottles as they’re drained dropping them surreptitiously into a rubbish bin. I try to teach the first year laggards to rock n ’roll, and much else besides, but they mock me. Tricia and Chung remain aloof from the festivities standing outside the centre despite the cold wind. I ask them what’s going on, but receive no reply. I suspect it’s a biggy, but I’ll have to wait for the New Year to discover what.

Transformative and Inspirational Eduction Ticks no Boxes

Chapter Ten
Ascending the Clouds Skywards



Ruhuna Michelle Mary Anne is nose diving fast, until, at the final second, sensing great disaster, ascends through clouds to safety. She requests a list of feminine names to choose from to provide her with a new identity. She pops her head into the staff room letting go a continuous stream of verbal harassment. Puppy dog following its master, continuous questions, each time gaining in cheeky confidence. I can’t object to that, but the boundary into my personal life is getting a little pushed.

“But you called me honey. You did Richard, I heard you!” Tricia’s close by and say to her, “Anna Michelle Nadine Maxine Yvonne says I called her honey.” All mellifluous and sticky tacky words through her dirty teeth, “and Tricia it’s not true. I don’t like the use of such names.” She’s moved from the ambition of becoming a policewoman, “I’d be good at that”, to becoming an “Olympic athlete. I’ve made up my mind Richard. I’ve taken notice of what you’ve said. I’ll apply myself.”
“What type of athlete?”
“Juggling!”
“But juggling isn’t in the Olympics yet.”
“Yes it is”, she insists.
“You’d have to train every day and dedicate your life to your chosen sport. You’d have to live like a nun, none of your messing about, nothing but total dedication, getting fit and taking hormones, probably worse.”

“That’s right”, she replies, “I can’t win. You always knock me down.”

The mountains of her Himalayan homeland matter greatly to Lucy, especially now she’s changed her name - definitely. Each time the students talk to her they have to think carefully how to address her. It’s helluva subtle strategy to stop them calling her Ribena. After two years they’ll be so confused, or programmed, they’ll simply refer to her by number. During her computer lesson she works on her Himalayas project and in caring detail captivates flowered fragrances and rushing wild clouds obscuring massive peaks. Her imagery of colours, and of her family, come alive, albeit briefly for she wipes the damn work off the computer. I can’t help thinking it’s symbolic of the remains of her own life, tattered someplace where Buddhist bells jangle and tinkle in the breeze and Mill Hill suburbia. I’m completely uncertain what to do with her. I talk to the counsellors about Jonanna Anna Danella’s request for a psychotherapist who suggest we leave the issue on hold until we see how her counselling progresses. It may be sensible to take the slower, moderate route, only time will tell. Katerina Xotial Zandra Beverley is getting more assertive - she’s pushing against other students as much as possible, testing what they can take. Probing how much she can get away with, sometimes successfully, sometimes with a rebuffel. Rightly so.

Dean has taken to Katerina Dvina Mary because she allows him to shake a fist at her with impunity, rather than getting a slap across the mouth as others might do. He’s also developing a sense of dawning strength from within. His laughter’s becoming deeper and his sense of fun more involved and sophisticated. Minute, but significant, movements. Anna Michaela Christina Flora running along the corridor, chasing Dean, childish games relived, hide and seek, catch me if you can. Then the Buddhist bells ring, the wind howls and the snow smothers summer shadows.

“Richard can you tell them to stop laughing at me”, she pleads, “can you tell them to stop calling me names. Richard, please tell them to leave me alone.” My answer is, increasingly, “No, I can’t help you. You need to learn to fight your own battles.”
“But I can’t win with you.”
“Yes, but you can learn not to lose, which is more important.”
“You don’t listen to me. I’m going home”, and she duly walks off, only to return a few minutes later, lost and apologetic, throwing out the same words as usual. “I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking, I must do something. I’ve decided.”
“Ah yes”, I reply, “but what have you decided?”

I’m infuriated by her lack of desire to focus on what she’s chosen to do. By the caretaker’s office, where it’s relatively quiet, we lean on some upturned boxes conspiratorially chatting whilst staff, with their own concerns, drift past. I throw everything back at her, emphasising her life’s her own and everything her choice. She’s two years at college to learn how to better her life, to gain confidence.
“I know”, she says, immediately reprising “but I can’t win with you”, as her do nothing mantra.

She personalises everything, refusing to talk details and facts, hiding her life as the great clouds of the Himalayas obscure peaks ready to be conquered if only they were visible. Confidence boosting chats and frenetic discussions are one thing, but silence when questioned hemorrhages will as her life force drains away. Snow melted into streams and rushed somewhere else. “I can’t go on. I’ve had enough”, she mantras withdrawing in her habitual manner. Her voice is subtly different, slippery, cold, a child sliding across ice, deprecating and self-loathing. I listen to each new intonation, quicksilver moving through numerous topics in the time it takes to change words betwixt brain and mouth. Avoiding college to feeling persecuted because of her name, joining the police or becoming a famous film star. Each a subtle dynamic cast from a rod fly fishing to catch salmon. I’ve been caught, I’m trapped, now listen to me. Her complexities foxing and bedazzling. I try to ignore her, suggest we talk some other time and I turn my back on her. She glares at me saying loudly in front of Mike and a group of students he’s with, “You always ignore me. Always!”

I turn it on her. “Always means forever, on each and every occasion. Am I doing it now? I’m not, I am listening to you, aren’t I? But what I am saying to you is I can’t give my time exclusively to one student, I have others. We talk when necessary and I never turn away a student in need.”
“I can’t win!”
“Yes you can, but first you have to think you won’t lose.”

2

All in Monday’s work, the weekend little remembered as students wind up for the week ahead. A small team of the less able, kicked sideways and rejected, becoming more able and willing to tackle what they should have done, encouraged to do, years ago - work. An infectious enthusiasm is slowly building. It must be the effects of the end of the first term, a time to reflect and feel reasonably pleased about progress made. Students taking more control of their lives, yet Paddy, the doe eyed lost child still gives me cause for concern. I speak to him during a computer lesson. “You can’t keep messing about and changing floppies every few minutes, especially when you’ve not checked your work with me. I want you to work, not prat around!”
“OK, Richard!”

That’s the standard response, but I’m not going to let the little bugger get away with it. The Microspecial has a ‘Paper-round’ programme where the player has to plot the most efficient way to deliver four newspapers in a maze using co-ordinates and estimating the number of steps required to navigate the route. I hear his voice call out, “I can’t do it!”
“I can hear, honest I can, but I’ve something more pressing at the moment. Read the instructions, think and do it again”, I shout over.

Every one’s working. Paul’s taking an interest in green politics and we discuss a few points he wants to insert into an already developing article. Annie Mai-Lise Gabriella Marsha is working hard on the Himalayas. Sunil’s working on a trip he did last year to Delhi and Lee’s conquering the Dart programme to produce some amazing shapes. Paddy’s still shouting, louder now, cursing the world. I guess he still can’t master the paper-round and must be stuck in the maze figuring co-ordinates. Chung and Tricia are deep in thought in the corner. They seldom do much in this session other than
ruminate in dark conclave which disappoints me. I walk up to them. “Can I join you? What’s going on?”
“We slept with each other at the weekend”.
“Well, nothing like honesty”, I reply.

I’m taken aback by their candour. I’m thinking of something deep and meaningful to say. Maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t want to risk stupid questions. Was it nice? Did you enjoy it? Gordon Bennett - did you take precautions? We had a pregnancy last year. Please mother of God not another one this year.

“You must have supportive parents if they let you sleep together.”
“I have”, replies Tricia.
“I got shouted at”, says Chung and see fear in his face. When they speak each sentence, each utterance, appears thought out. Each word seeking consciousness. They hold each other tight.
“Tell you what”, I say, “why don’t you write about it”.
Tricia, ever the enthusiastic one, jumps at the suggestions.
“Right, c’mon Chung, let’s get started.”

Paddy’s getting fidget mode ready to leave his chair.
“Shall we start the programme now?”, I ask, moving towards his station.
“I don’t understand it”, he repeats.
Some papers fall from his briefcase and he stretches to pick them up.

“Let’s go through it together”, I reassure him. We do, but not before I go to the staff room and collect an old compass. We then examine the screen, reading carefully the instructions. I can see his mistake, he’s gone the long way around the maze and given incorrect compass bearings. We spend fifteen minutes going over the instructions. The mood of concentration persists, just as when I left the room to collect the compass - that of work and effort.

“Look, Richard, I’ve done it!” screams Paddy, looking at me, ecstatic, achieving something he thought he never would.

I check on Chung and Tricia. Words are appearing on their screen. “We spent the night together,” Tricia tells me, “Chung was very good. He told me he learnt it watching blue movies.” I leave them to it.

3

The assertion training, cancelled last Thursday, because of Julia’s illness, is about to take place. We’ve been able to slot an extra session in next term, but right now the group looks apprehensive; what’s assertion written large over their faces. Julia takes control, aided and abetted by Mike and myself. She takes a whiteboard marker and throws it at a student. “Tell me who you are and write your name on the board.”

She throws until all the students have their names displayed. Each does a nervous fumble, a cack handed catch, before moving awkwardly to the front. Chung’s signature is no longer the tiny “I can’t see it myself so I don’t have to write big scrawl”, rather a complex flourish that shouts, “I’m getting to be special.” Sunil no longer turns his back to the group, but straight forwardly introduces himself. We discuss the meaning of assertion and grapple with how to apply it to our lives. More than a few vague and lost expressions. Paddy begins to tap his briefcase. We split into twos, each pair taking a sheet of flip chart paper and a felt tip. Chung and Tricia, Sunil and Elizabeth Regine Rose Ulla Anna, Dean and Lee, Paul and Paddy and Mike and myself.

Julia begins to write on the white board, ready to remove what’s already on it.
“Oh my God, don’t!”, I shout, “can you leave this morning’s message on.”
“Pardon?”, she enquires.
I explain I’m doing a project on the power of words. It started when I wrote my first message, “Today the world will end at 3 p.m.” Of course, it didn’t. Then I wrote, “The world will end tomorrow at 8 a.m.” Ditto. Now the message simply reads, “The world ended this morning at dawn. Who’s to blame?” I write first thing in the morning and students are beginning to think I’m a little strange.

“It’s OK, Julia, just leave the ‘who’s to blame’ bit on please. Thanks.”
Julia’s headings, ‘submissive’, ‘dishonesty’, ‘aggressive’ ‘assertive’, writ large and bold, vie with my words. She explains we’re to brain storm in pairs. Nods of approval as they fathom out their words to write beneath the headings. After five minutes of contemplation we commence and soon the flip chart paper is filled.

Under ‘submissive’ is written:
It’s like being angry
I want to fight or hit them
You can’t tell them how you are feeling
Being quite shy
Having headaches
Hanging your head and hiding your body
Not being yourself
Not wanting to show who you really are
Not wanting to say or do what you want

Under ‘dishonesty’ is written by various hand styles in gloomy colours:
Pains
Pain in the neck
Headaches
Breakdown
Cowardly
Sneaky
Half-hearted
Lacking in confidence
Letting others do and say what you should do and say yourself
When you don’t want to come out and with it
Because it’s too hard to say

Responses continue as they read the comments pinned on the wall. Sabine Paloma Gertude Dolly Anne refuses to work any longer with Sunil and the group’s angry with her. She’s broken the mood and momentum of the others and begins to pace up and down the room, walking out, to quickly return. For ‘aggression’ Shelley Nadine Mabel Mary Anne wrote in her own fair hand, “when you’re feeling aggressive you want to cry and you feel under the weather. Sometimes you want to tell them you are down because they don’t know how you are feeling.”

One liners continue in a tidal wave of special needs consciousness: punching, bullying, angry, breakdown, happy, depression, smacking, upset, violent, rage inside, lacking in love, feeling weak and angry without knowing why, pushing people around and telling others what to do and think. Assertive was the least responded to and only Madelaine Odine Marlene Alice Anne adds anything of substance, “when you want to speak out how you are feeling and don’t want to bottle it up inside.” In small yellow felt tip writing she adds, “fed up”.

We take a break. Reconvened we discuss the comments in turn beginning with ‘aggression’. Lee, in his soft spoken voice begins, “I know how to stop being aggressive.”
“Tell us Lee.”
“Instead of me hitting people and getting angry I should let them hit me. I’m strong and don’t feel pain”.
“Don’t be a wally, that just hurts you”, shouts Tricia.
“But I feel myself getting mad and I shouldn’t hit anyone, should I?”

“Aren’t there other ways of showing aggression?”
“Yes!” shouts Dean, “smacking them.”
“Do people think that’s right?” I ask.
“No!”, intervenes Sunil in full scream force.

“Lee”, I continue, “remember last week when you came into the room and told Eunice Henrietta Sarah Ursula Violet about her taxi?”
“Yes, when I burst in.”
“That’s the word,” I continue, “but can you remember how you said it?”
“I told her about the taxi,” he repeats.
“Yes, but how did you say it?”
“Oh, I shouted.”
“Yes you did, didn’t you?”
“And what happened?”, I turn and ask the group.
“People listened to him.”
“Yes they did, didn’t they,” continuing, “sometimes just talking firmly and with authority gets people to take you seriously and not think you’re a push over.”

“I always carry an alarm,” pipes up Angela Marilyn Aurelia Matilda Sara.”
“Why?”
“As a protection.”
“What does it do?”
“It keeps people off.”
“How?”

“It just does.” The great unspecific speaker sowing confusion on her slushy syntax is getting rattled.
“Explain”, I demand.
“Oh, Richard!”
“Yes, come on Sarah,” the group replies, “tell us how it keeps people away.”
No response.

I try a different tack. “O.K., what precisely does it do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I begin, “how can an alarm protect you? It can’t biff to the ground a mob of raging lunatics. It can’t say, stop, I am an alarm you must obey me and go away, can it?”
“No, it can’t.”
“It makes a loud noise though, doesn’t it? It wakes the dead and makes the living take notice. It was the same when Lee came looking for you. He took a deep confident breath and told you your mini-cab had arrived. Sometimes speaking like that is good protection.”

Dean’s head is hanging low on the table, slumped, dough like, flesh flattened on the melamine, thinking of all the reasons he wrote ‘smacking’ on the sheet. I wonder how many of the group bears the temporal scars of smacking. Lee’s already decided he can take the pain of thumpings because he’s had to. He’s never fought back to express anger, preferring the security of self-effacement. The small words of day to day aggression directed at them, bullied, beaten and kicked, a holy triumvirate of the meek and the weak, magnifying into self loathing. And Lee thinks he can cope with such inflicted pain? And the rest? Weaknesses, long suffered headaches, being submissive. Accepting fate, prolapsed consciousness knowing to fight means rebuke, knowing to express feeling is to scorned and mocked. We raise the subject of our ‘inner-selves’ and what it means to possess one. Paddy assertively declares he hasn’t got one, whilst Paul, beneath his thick spectacles, declares he has. Chung’s uncertain, and Dean still slumped upon the table, is barely breathing.

Ruhina Samantha Amanda Venus informs the group these mighty topics are not easy to discuss. We listen to her but can’t understand what she’s trying to say. The more she continues the more the group appears to respect her, but the substance passes jumbled through her mouth. She drones on not being able to cope and we studiously listen, though the central meaning of her monologue has slipped from our grasp. She abandons ship at this point, by which time lifeboats have disappeared over the horizon and class ends.

Thursday’s our next session with Julia, but she arrives twenty minutes late. She tells us to walk around the room - prevents us from asking her why she’s late I guess - and mingle. Ordering us to walk submissively, to walk assertively, greeting people in these moods. This is difficult, they complain of being tense when they walk assertively and complain of doing nothing out of the ordinary when they stroll and mingle submissively. Warmed up we split into twos and write down situations where they’ve felt aggressive and angry about something, I work with Paul who complains about his mini-cab being late this morning. “But it wasn’t his fault,” he continues, “he got caught in the traffic.”
“But Paul, what would you have liked to have done?”
“Phone up the town hall and make a complaint.”
“How did you feel about it?”
“Angry, upset and frustrated.”

Sunil joins forces with Adelaide Marylou Diane Yvonne who, after a few minutes, leaves the room. He joins Paul and myself to describe the traumas at school in Wembley; beatings, robberies, racial abuse, continuous threats, feeling powerless. “It was no good telling the teachers,” he informs us, “they’d did nothing. Anyway, the kids would only beat me more than ever.” We write this down on flip chart paper.

We report back. Lee’s first, talking about his incident with Max, Sunil and Dean. He reveals his feelings of anger and weakness, his lack of power being kicked on the floor. Sunil reports what he’s written. The group listens, apart from Paddy - who fiddles with a magazine advertising video tapes.
“What could you have done differently?”, Julia asks.
“Hit them back!”
“I couldn’t, they were much bigger than me.”
“I would,” affirms Tricia.
“I’d punch them,” chimes in Susan Cynthia Camilla Megan.
The rest are silent, Dean especially so. His parents are talking about leaving London and that depresses him. No more college, no more friends.

I break the ice, “Life’s risky for teenagers.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s risky being young. Acts of violence, unsure how to respond to feelings, easily being taken over by them and reacting in an extreme and aggressive manner.”
“I’d still hit them”, replies Anastasia Augusta Francine.
“And what happens if they have a knife?”
Una Rachel Claire Sarah now gets down to her real business. Nobody understands her life, nobody understands how difficult it is for her to cope and no one in the world listens and helps her. She, on the other hand, is the good doctor, the proverbial Samaritan helping others with their problems. The students listen intently and seriously.

“People get angry with me and tell me to get lost.”
“I wonder why?”, shoots back Tricia.
The group’s warming up, Julia and I sit back.
“I don’t know”, she replies hurt.
“I’ll tell you,” Tricia continues, “you never leave us alone. All the time you come over to us uninvited and give your opinions and interfere in our affairs. I don’t like it!”
Pauline Roxanne Melissa looks perplexed.

“That’s right, nobody listens to me, you all ignore me,” she intones in hurt innocence.
“That’s rubbish.”
“We’ve listened to you for twenty minutes talking about yourself, so somebody listens - right”, Tricia blurs back.
“But you don’t. None of you care.”
“Are you saying we lie to you?”
“Yes!”
“Thanks a million!”
“You do.”
“So, no matter what we say to you, you disbelieve us?”
“Sounds to me you want to lose all the time.”
“We’re telling you we do listen and do want to help, but you say we lie.”
“She’s crazy”.
“Yes, she is Dean.”
Quixana Corozon Emma Jade turns her back on her fellows inflaming further passions.

“You should apologise. I think you should say to all of us, by name, that we do listen to you.”
“That’s hard to do Richard.”
“So is listening to you. You take up everyone’s time but give nothing in return,” adds Chung.
“I really mean it. It’s hard, I can’t cope.”
“And we can’t cope with you,” adds Dean quietly.
“What do you want me to say?”
“That we do listen and take notice of you.”
“Say it seriously.”
“She doesn’t mean it!”

Slowly and haltingly she begins to say her lines to the group. Her smile gradually fading from her mouth as she works her way around the room. The group’s taken over, asserting their feelings with the one student who places herself in the frontline of her own and others’ emotions.

3

Friday’s the sponsored table tennis. Many of the second years who planned the event are missing. Derek’s no place to be seen and Bart the dog man is AWOL too. The first year’s contrary as ever, turn up in force instead and the local press, after promising they would, don’t. Nor do we start at 10 a.m. prompt. Nobody has informed Gerry, the transgender cleaner, about it. The tennis tables have no nets. We can’t find the bats and balls, and quickly discover one of the tables has a habit of collapsing when the play gets heated, the slipstream draught too great for its ricketiness to cope with. Nevertheless, the game goes well and Janet, the local representative from the Guide Dogs for the Blind, arrived with her dog. Peter and myself are invited to their next committee meeting to hand over the raised cash. All we have to do now is organize the disco.

Alan talked to the vice principal who does not see any difficult over Tricia and Chung holding hands, but doesn’t intend to see Emrhys for fear of inflaming the situation. Meanwhile Tricia and Chung are looking increasingly worried having long counselling sessions with Julia.

Inspirational and Transformative Education Ticks no Boxes

Chapter Nine
From the Palm of his Hand



From the palm of his hand Chung withdrew a sliver of thin clear plastic, long and seemingly endless, it emerged through parted flesh.

“Richard, I’m getting fed up with people, especially Dean, asking when’s the wedding. I’ll explode,” he starts as the class begins. His volcanic temper has been temporary kept under control, revealed only through his tongue and inflamed eyes, as Tricia’s arms have begun to calm him. My mind, my intuition, is telling me something’s different this time and feel the group’s silence is positive. Chung’s more open and mature, and has something others haven’t.

“Chung what would you do if I brought a member of staff into the group and put my arms around, if I found myself falling in love with her?”
“But you’re married.”
“Chung ....!”
“Oh, you mean like a divorce?”
“Yes, some people do, don’t they?”
“Chung, what would you feel?”
“I’d feel angry.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d be excluded.”
“Right. Maybe Dean, Paul, Lee and the others feel excluded. They haven’t got what you and Tricia have. Chung, do you know what you and Tricia have?”

“Yes”, says Chung directly and sharply affirmative, his head looking straight forward, his eyes proud, “love and caring.”
“And friendship. Someone you can turn to and talk about the world. Someone who can help you when things go bad.”

I wonder loudly, whether Dean, or lost Paddy, have the love and affection they need. I ask Chung if he thinks they’ve special friends to depend upon.
“They don’t, do they?”
“But you have a special friend. I wonder if they feel jealous. Do they Chung?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wonder if it’s time for you and Tricia to help us. Do you think we could talk about what’s special in your relationship?”

I’m asking his help to lead a discussion, challenging the undermining “we’re boys and girls” self image they have. But I’ve lost the thread, unable to come up with the right lines. I’m faring no better than Chung confused with the weight of responsibility I’ve placed upon him. The subject’s sinking from view, important matters tossed about with insufficient focus. Maybe they’re tired, perhaps I’ve been too personal, preferring to keep parts of me hidden and private. Possibly Chung and Tricia are not keen to reveal the depths of their intimacy. Why should I have one rule for me and another for them? The class breaks leaving me feeling nothing but doubt.

I talked to Chung afterwards and tell him I don’t plan to continue our sessions next term. He seems upset. “Can’t we talk about feelings again?”, he asks.

“Do you think college would allow us to continue working like this instead of normal work?”, I ask him.
“Well, you could ask”, he replies.
“I can ask if I could split the group, one half continuing group work, the other written work.”

I’m pressurised by another factor, staff criticism of their relationship, more specifically their hugging and holding each other in public. A meeting’s been arranged with the counsellors to discuss how they could become more involved with special needs students. I see this as an opportunity to talk about Tricia and Chung, making them more conscious of open hostility from certain members of staff. I begin by asking, “What happens when they’re approached by Emrhys again? I object to him telling me I must control the feelings of my students. I don’t think their actions are wrong at all.”

The counsellors say they’ll support me if there’s further trouble from Emrhys. The test for this offer of support is soon in coming, on a Wednesday, forever to be my unlucky day. I receive a call from my faculty director to meet him in his office. “There you are Richard!”, he says as we bump into each other along the corridor leading to his room, “can we talk?” I feel honoured to be sought out by an old style educationalist I greatly respect.

“I’ve had a complaint from a member of staff about two students of yours, Tricia and Chung.” Oh God I think, as my happiness quotient plummets below zero. Alex is senior management and I need to watch what I say, listen intently, and not be abrasive which is how I feel when Tricia and Chung are criticised. I’ve got to put my views across calmly even though I’m intimidated by him. I don’t want to curtail what the couple have. I’m not a moral policeman, but here I am beneath vulture Alex circling me, ready to swoop, pecking me into line. I’m being scrutinized. Christ have I got to justify them - and myself as well - what kind of adult education college is this?

“Richard, I received a call from Emrhys about your two students literally an hour ago”, he says, beckoning me to sit down, though remaining standing himself. “Emrhys asked the two students to stop kissing and behave in the appropriate manner. Can you go and tell them not to behave like this.” My mood sinks deeper, my breath forced from me to conform to what I don’t accept, stop affection and its public display. I remain deliberately silent, passive hostility oozing from me. Alex shifts about the room and tells me he’s seen more compromising behaviour at staff parties, I’ll bet you have, I think. “Richard, I know you care for your students, but Emrhys told me they verbally abused him, and I can’t allow my staff to be spoken to in such a manner.”

“But”, I continue, summoning up strength, “this isn’t the first time disagreements have occurred between them. Emrhys regularly makes hostile comments to them. I think the relationship is important to them and for other students too. I’ve already had a meeting with student services about it.” But I can’t add we decided the problem is Emrhys can I? I’m floundering trying not say the wrong thing without getting tongue tied and bursting out, “go away and leave them alone will you. Give them a break”. I can’t say that. In the face of Alex’s insensitivity I remain calm. Then he adds, “it’s against college policy for this type of behaviour. This is a public place. We have students aged sixty and over, coming into this building. What do you think the effect is on them? Richard, go and tell them to stop their behaviour.”

Joe and Joanne Hendon, the couple atop the 303 bus circling the estate with its impersonal concrete blocks, are avoiding college portals, fearful of meeting couples embracing and muttering sweet nothings.

“Alex, we discussed the whole subject last week and I’ll have to talk to my colleagues and student services about our discussion”. I’m shaking inside as I leave. I won’t act the moral policeman, I storm around the college building looking for the couple, but they’re nowhere to be seen. They must be outside. I go upstairs to talk with Alan, but he’s not around. I tell one of the counsellors the whole story, seething anger as I do.

“I’m sorry for burdening you with this, but it’s upsetting me. I’m supposed to be dealing with adults, helping kids come to terms with themselves,” I tell her. And Alex, I think to myself the philosopher of education, argues self learning is the most effective way to develop. “Listen,” I conclude, “when Alan comes back can you tell him I’ll be downstairs in the gym.” Within the hour we meet up.

“Richard, I’ll have to talk to Alex and get this sorted out as soon as possible,” he informs me leaving immediately from the sweating echo of the gym. I’m luckier this
time in my search for the two criminals.

“I want you to do something for me immediately. Go the library and write down what happened earlier. Be detailed, write the time, where you were, what you were doing, what was said - and be honest. Remember everything, talk about it together. And do it now!” The urgency in my voice didn’t even prompt a simple “why?”. They turned and vanished along the corridor to the library. I search for my acting manager, but he’s no where to be seen, I find Carol instead and talk to her about events.

2

The group session begins on Thursday, a little loose and ragged. Michelle’s been stalking me. I’m changing tack with her. Her increasing integration into the group and growing confidence means I can adopt a more direct approach. Though she’s full of self doubt I can take chances with her. I make her the centre of attention in the group telling her she has to make choices. No ifs or buts. She chose to come to college full time, so there’s no alternative. She has to think what’s in her best interests and be more confident. She’s to respect my wishes when I ask her to leave me in peace. Her written work is coming on apace, topics on Berlin, the Himalayas, and herself on holiday, but she must stop leaving private messages on my desk signed with “love from Michelle”.

In response she wants to say something to the group, I ask her to speak up and face them. She begins by saying everything’s getting her down and she can’t cope, the usual global complaints lacking focus. I ask her to be more specific. “No, no, speak up Michelle, we can’t hear you!” I look at the group reminding them over the term how we’ve all helped each other. “We’ve all said things we’ve not talked about before, we’ve all been honest and with guts expressed our feelings without embarrassment. I want you to help Michelle.” There’s agreement, now Michelle must talk. Her head slumps on the table as if decapitated from her woollen covered shoulders.

“Michelle we need to hear you speak. You have to tell us what’s the matter before we can help.”
“I’ve seen my doctor.”
“And? What did she say?”
“That I’ve to have an operation.”
“Yes?”
“And I might not pull through.”
“Is it serious then?”

We wait, but there’s no answer to Dean’s simple question. The silence grows. The group’s restless. “Michelle, you have to help us, you have to open your mouth. None of us can help if you sit in silence. We all need to open our mouths to let thoughts and feelings out.” Silence. “Who else has had surgery here?”

Paul reveals he’s had seven major operations, necessary ones to keep him alive. Tricia similar life saving ones, but only six. Lee, he of the voice becoming loud and frenetic
energy, has had numerous operations on his club foot. Even Dean joins the chorus telling us of a visit to the dentist to have teeth removed.

“But I won’t pull through,” she exclaims emphatically.
“But we’ve all survived haven’t we?”, I add.
Paul grins his eyes made large through thick lens.
“But I won’t!”
“Can you tell us why?”

More silence. Followed by more. Tricia’s getting angry, the group losing patience.
“If you won’t tell us we can’t help you.”
“Shall we break for twenty minutes?”

I find Gill in the staff room.
“Richard, can I have a word with you.”
“Sure.”
“You know Emrhys’s looking for you.”
“Why?”
“About your two students. Do you want me to talk to them about their inappropriate behaviour?”
Gill really thinks she’s helping me.
“No”, I tell her quietly as she changes tack to admits that, “Every time Emrhys becomes involved in anything it’s the kiss of death.”
“I understand how you feel Gill, but I don’t think I can tell them what is, or is not, appropriate behaviour,” and inform her of my discussions with student services.
“It sounds as if you have it worked out.”
“Yes”, I repeat, “we’ve discussed it.”
“But beware of Emrhys.”
“Thanks Gill.”
I’m furious again. Mike arrives in the staff room, and I quickly update him on the situation, when Dean pops his head around the door to shout, “Come on Richard, we’re waiting for you!”
“Dean, give me a few more minutes will you.” Well, now seems the time to raise what I missed with Chung earlier. I start the group, but I’m lost for an opening gambit. They’re becoming restive and quickly uninterested as I fumble my lines and ask them to bear with me. “It’s important”, I try to convince them. Michelle’s sitting with her back to the group. I tell her to move into the group and show the same respect to them as they’ve shown her.

“What would you do if I brought a member of staff into the room and kissed her?”, I repeat. I explain Chung asked me to raise this and tell them I was unable to. I ask Chung to hold his response for the time being, instead asking the group, in turn, what they think. “Well”, says Paul, smile beaming beneath blue eyes, “I wouldn’t object, it’s your life.”

From around the group each gives an opinion, apart from Chung. All in favour. I ask the group what they think Chung’s response was with me. Dean bursts in, “He wouldn’t like it!”
“That’s right, isn’t it Chung. Dean, can you tell us why you think this?”
“No, I can’t!”, he blurts promptly shutting up.
“That’s o.k.”

I continue. “Chung, can you remember the word you used to object?”
“It was jealous.”
“Yes, and another word. Can you remember?”
“No!”
“I’ll remind you, it was ‘exclude’, wasn’t it?” I’m on firmer, safer ground now, and over my embarrassment. I ask the group what they think Tricia and Chung share, and if they’ve ever had a special friend. The group reaches out in support.
“They care for each other.”
“They love each other.”
“They can talk to each other.”
“That’s right, they have each other when things get tough. They can talk together can’t they to make life easier. When Chung admitted to feeling excluded did anyone else feel the same?” Sunil feels a little out of it, and says so, becoming less shy about his feelings. The rest admit they don’t. “Does anyone feel it’s wrong to show affection the way Tricia and Chung do?” They seem surprised at the question, commenting it’s perfectly natural.

Over the past week or so Dean’s been kissing Sunil on the cheek, so I ask them if they think this is wrong. Sunil objects strongly to the group and calls Dean a “poof”. Paddy gets aroused by this and for the first time says something, “It’s queer”, he shouts. Nice to see you’re still here Paddy. “What would you do if you saw two men, or two women, come to think of it, embracing and kissing.”
“I’d say something to them”, ventures Sunil.
Chung and Lee say that in France and Russia men kiss each other openly, “and sometimes in Italy too”, Chung adds for good measure.

“Sunil, would you say anything to Tricia and Chung kissing each other?”
“No!”

“So why would you dare to make comments to two men, or two women?”
“It’s queer!”, shouts Paddy again.
“Oh shut up!”, replies Tricia.
John looks around the group and smiles, “Well, I wouldn’t object because it’s their life.”
“That’s right. It’s their life. Who knows the age of consent in this country?”
“Sixteen.”
“That’s right. Who knows what it was in a hundred years ago?”
“Fourteen”, bursts forth Paddy.
“That’s right. So, you can decide at sixteen to make love. Who knows the age of consent for two males?”
Nobody does.
“It’s eighteen. Sunil, why did you object to Dean kissing you?”
“I didn’t!”, laughs Dean, then quacks.
“Duck off will you Dean”, a voice answers.
“I don’t like it!”
“That’s o.k., but why?”
“I don’t like it,” asserts Sunil.
“Maybe because you didn’t consent, and it was done against your will.”
“That’s right!”
“But if both partners agree on it,” says Tricia, “and they’re old enough to make their own choice, it can’t be wrong can it, because they’re consenting adults.”

With discussion now well lubricated by student outrage and controversy I need to tell them what’s happening outside our cosy and safe room in the corridors of power, abuse and uncertainty.

“Listen, I think this morning we’ve made clear what Tricia and Chung do with their lives is a choice only for them. If Dean, or any other student, wants to date someone of their own sex that’s their choice too. If that’s where they get affection and love that’s also a matter for them, isn’t it. We all support Tricia and Chung, and this morning we’ve told them so, and from them we’ve learned the importance of having a loving relationship, or a special friend.”

3

The second years, having self-selected themselves down to seven, are moving with haste on their sponsored table tennis game. They’ve used reprographics facilities and covered the college with posters advertising the great event. Nish suggests we call into the estate’s community centre to seek sponsorship money. The group agrees, though Chrissy’s very reticent, pacing up and down the class room saying she can’t go, becoming more agitated each step she makes. We have our sponsorship forms, so off we go.

The pensioners remember us from our previous visit, young faces they won’t forget. I buy a mug of tea and ask the group to home in on the tables and get as much cash as possible. Chrissy’s agitated. “Go ahead Chrissy, just ask the nearest person.”
“I can’t! I don’t know them!”
“That’s true,” I tell her. “Before you came to college nobody knew you, did they? But now everybody really knows you well. Just approach the kindest looking person and see how it goes.”
“I can’t! I don’t know them!” She continues to pace agitatedly, so I leave her alone.

Peter’s a true businessman, his sponsorship form quickly filling as my mug is slowly drained. Nish likewise, and even Harry, though looking his usual lost strangeness, is making an effort. Mohammed’s coming forward and hands his cash to me. A woman beckons Chrissy over to her and asks what it’s all about. Chrissy, lumbering over, half woman, coy, shy, half girl, explains the purpose of her visit. A few moments later, as another mug is emptied, she comes to me handing over £2.50p, she’s scored and beams confidence.

We cross the Concourse to visit the disabled day centre opposite the community centre. I explain the purpose of our mission to the officer in charge, who, as a one off, agrees to the request. Mark, suffering total confidence collapse waits outside in the cold. But nobody enquires inside as to where he is, they’re all too busy. I just see his over coated shape merging with the sky and concrete grayness, his wild hair adding a mousy glow to his cold and pinched face.

Back in the base room we count out £25 and the group’s over the moon. We split and throughout the remainder of the week money’s thrust into my hands and new sponsorship forms requested. We did the same thing the following Wednesday, this time booking the mini-bus, and visiting the other two college sites. I’ve no need subsequently to tell Chrissy what to do, she goes right ahead and does it. Some of the first years’ are getting in on the act requesting forms. Soon the cash donated is touching £100, with more pledged on paper.

One of Emrhys’s colleagues comes into the staff room saying she’s totally peed off with him. He’s becoming obsessional about Tricia and Chung wanting to protect them from original sin. She says a male colleague and her conspired to canoodle in the corner of their staff room to wind Emrhys up - all hell was let loose when they did. I ask why she thinks he’s worked up about it. “Is it because she’s disabled, or is there another reason?”
“No, he’s genuinely against sex before marriage.”

Meanwhile, Alan has decided to go above Emrhys’ head and raise the issue with the vice-principal to get the matter clarified once and for all.