A positive and uplifting community

Earlier this year, I conducted my 8 week block placement at SMLC, whose purpose was two-fold, firstly, I aspired to support the organisation's work in the role of a volunteer and secondly, I was required to undertake a research project. My researcher role required me to observe and interact with learning advisors (LA) and learning group advisors to create an in-depth understanding of what they do and my role as a volunteer resulted in me helping students and LA's on a daily basis with activities and workshops.

Looking back and writing this, I disgustingly remember counting down days where my placement would be over. I was tired, felt a bit lost and couldn't comprehend the idea of having to wake up so early to spend my day in a school whose unique take on education I just couldn't wrap my head around. However, I also remember a few weeks into my placement that coming to SMLC felt more than just a compulsory part of my routine or placement module, I was excited to be here and be caught in the hustle and bustle of workshops, the Romeo and Juliet play and just generally learning more from everyone in little ways. I found that being here not only enhanced my research but also me as an individual, I found myself extremely inspired and motivated by the students around me to pursue what I found interesting and work on my own self-management skills.

Being at SMLC not only allowed me to pass a significant part of my university degree but it also made me feel a part of a positive and uplifting community, where I found myself growing as a person and I can confidently say that I ended my 8 week placement with a heart full of love and appreciation from the SML community and a better mindset.

Therefore, I came back to SMLC as a volunteer to continue giving back to a wonderful community that helped me in indescribable ways. In addition, after getting an 8-week taster of the crazy antiques here at SMLC, I wasn't able to stay away from the one of a kind students and staff here, and the home-like smell of butter and toast that always fills the air.

by Ashna Mahtani

Thoughts from India

I am in Bangalore to attend and run a session at, this year’s International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC). I used the opportunity to arrive early to talk with some teachers and especially to gain insights into the current situation here from Amukta Mahaptra, who runs SchoolScape based in Bangalore. (Amukta is also the convenor of this Conference and is well known in India for her work.)

Overall the picture here is very similar to what is happening all over the world. State-run schools are very traditional, classroom-based and totally teacher led. There is minimal room for young people to have a say in any aspect of school life. However, outside the formally approved system there are real innovations. Here in India much of the initiative has come from NGOs working within communities. For instance, children’s parliaments have been set up that give a real voice to young people.

Also there are a growing number of schools outside the standard system. Here in Bangalore there are around 100 small Montessori schools. I was able to visit one. Such schools may still keep to imposed curricula but SchoolScape is attempting to work with teachers to encourage a more child-centred approach. I visited the building site for SchoolScape’s new premises which will offer more opportunities for their work.

Looking forward to the Conference, it’s a great opportunity to meet people doing amazing work all over the world. Given the location of this conference there are large groups attending from Nepal, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Hong Kong as well as from India. News from the actual conference will follow

Ian Cunningham, November 12 2018, Bangalore 

The worst attender in high school...

Nobel Laureate and President of the Royal Society Sir Venki Ramakrishnan was being interviewed on BBC radio recently. Here is someone who is about as respectable as you can get. Yet being questioned about his education he was happy to say that he was a poor attender at school and at university. One trick he explained at university was to sit in lectures by the window so that after the register had been called, and the lecturer had turned his back to write on the board, he could climb out of the window and go off for a coffee.

It reminded me of Bill Bryson’s tales of school and that he was the worst attender in his high school. He was regularly hauled up for his poor attendance. At one meeting with the careers counsellor she had trawled through career options given his poor school records and in the end said; “It doesn’t appear that you are qualified to do much of anything.” He replied; “I guess I’ll have to be a high school careers counsellor then!”. For this response he was marched to the principal’s office (and not for the first time). It’s a shame that the school did not recognise his obvious comedic talents instead of punishing him.

Another example is of a boy in Bolton, Lancashire with no interest in his schoolwork. He tended to spend time with his mates or watched comedy VHS tapes that he had recorded. He gained one GCSE then after school did a series of seemingly dead-end jobs such as in the bingo hall and at the local cinema.

Because he enjoyed cracking jokes and fooling around he started to do some stand-up comedy gigs in local pubs. Eventually he developed a comedy stand-up act. He was officially entered in the Guinness World Records book for the planet's biggest-selling stand-up tour. His ‘Tour That Doesn't Tour Tour… Now on Tour’ show sold 1,140,798 tickets in 113 arena dates between February 2010 and November 2011, earning him a place in the 2013 edition of the book.

His name is Peter Kay and he has also won awards for his comedy acting.

His time when he was seemingly loafing and doing nothing was actually a crucial time of learning for him. He learned from watching comedians the art and craft of doing stand-up. He also used his time in the bingo hall and at the cinema to listen to people so that he could learn the potentially funny things that went on in daily life.

Looked at from a short-term point of view he was a complete failure. Taking a longer view it’s the opposite. He was, and continues to be, a brilliant self managing learner.

This is also true of the scientist Venki Ramakrishnan and the best selling author Bill Bryson. Whilst everybody is to some extent self managing in their learning, clearly not everyone is as effective as these three. Hence our developing Self Managed Learning. What we try to do is to create structures and processes that support effective self managing. However even within these structures and processes we have to be patient.

In SML College we’ve seen students who seem not to have settled and not to be doing much eventually get the idea and go on to successful careers. Patience is absolutely crucial in our work because structures and processes are not magic. Trying to force it is often unhelpful and it requires high levels of trust in young people from adults working with them to avoid inappropriate pressurising.

Ian Cunningham, December 2018

SML COLLEGE – a safe space

Along with 31 other students (aged 9-16) I attend SML College.  I think as there are only a few people, bullying is non-existent. Everybody may not be your best friend, however you still know and respect everyone.

Bullying is surprisingly common in regular schools, personally I find that fairly appalling. I think as there are hundreds of students in even the smaller schools, and you don't really know 90% of everybody, and they will accept everybody, you are bound to have some bullies. As in SMLC, everybody that wants to join has to go through a trial week, and if anyone has any concerns then they can bring it up before they join.

Overall I think bullying is a big issue, and it is important that we all make sure it doesn't happen.

Austin Turner (aged 13)

A few words about my final Silver Arts Award project

By Ryan White (age 16)

I conducted a portrait workshop in late June last term. The main purpose of it was for the final project of my Arts Award, in which I had to conduct and review my own leadership event. The focus of my Arts Award was portraits and so the workshop naturally involved them; personally I really enjoy drawing portraits and trying to create the likeness of a person. Through the workshop I aimed to share that passion with my peers.

The workshop included two activities, the main one and a warm up. In the warm up I gave everyone the same reference picture to draw from, as well as a 'help sheet' that I made myself, with steps showing my personal method of drawing faces. The main activity was similar but everyone chose from a set of different pictures I had printed out, I also allowed a lot more time for this activity as it was more about people experimenting freely and just having fun. It took a lot of planning and that paid off. Overall I think the workshop was a success, with a whopping 10 people turning up and some really positive feedback.

 

AOH visit & collage workshop

Review by SML College student Elai

During Brighton Festival we had the pleasure of visiting one of the Artists Open Houses. Sophie Wake, winner of last years 'best newcomer award' and mother to one of the students at SML college, kindly invited us into her home. We got to see and appreciate her artwork, which mainly consisted of oil and watercolour paintings. The main subjects in her paintings are animals; from horses to birds and all creatures in between, she does this in an attempt to express human tenderness through the expression of those to whom she can relate.  Personally, I love the emotion she has managed to express through each individual in the paintings. We were able to ask her questions about the process and her inspirations for the paintings as well as a few life questions!

Another artist displaying at the Open House was talented collage artist Seiko Kato. We saw some of her older, 30 works of dolls and clock parts and other vintage pieces, all oddly put together and displayed in jars, they were creepy and somewhat grotesque but also quite intriguing. Her newer works were intricate collages, keeping the idea of fusing various separate pieces to create one thing or image. The collages predominately featured birds, plants, flowers and butterflies, all individually cut out and arranged to create colourful and exciting images. My favourite piece was 'The Bird Funeral', a huge collage of hundreds of tiny pieces that from afar just looks like an explosion of colour but on second glance you begin to see the different characters and how carefully and cleverly placed everything is to create a story and capture emotion.

Seiko Kato has also made a book to make collaging fun and easy, filled with different activities and ideas. We also got the opportunity to create our own collage inspired by her work. She hosted a workshop giving us tips and providing many small images for us to pick and mix and create our own concoctions. It was interesting to see how we all created such different collages from the same materials.

Both artists were very interesting and it was fun to have the opportunity to create our own pieces too.

 

 

Published in The Argus newspaper

I’m glad that your correspondent Pauline Hunter (Japan can teach us a lesson, i, 22 June) is in favour of school children cleaning their classrooms. Our students do that and more. Every day they vacuum all areas, dust, mop the floors in the toilets, wash up in the kitchen and so on. They do this because we have a joint resources committee of students and adults that decides on finances for the building.

The students understood that cleaning would cost money so they agreed to do it provided that money saved was then available for extra learning resources and for drinks, bread etc in the kitchen for them to use freely. When our dishwasher broke down they decided that we did not need to replace it and instead they would hand wash. The money saved also goes into the pot.

As they are in teams with responsibility for cleaning each room this is part of the whole ethos of our college (for thirty three  9-17 year olds) of learning to work collaboratively by doing real work. The joint resources committee is another example – and if young people are trusted they can and do make sensible decisions.

Dr Ian Cunningham

22 June 2018

Learning without classrooms

200 people gathered at the Freedom to Learn conference at Summerhill School on 6th, 7th and 8th of May. I ran a workshop on different ways of learning particularly focused on learning without using classrooms. I generally find when talking with many people about learning that they have a bit of a blank in thinking of alternative ways of learning which don’t require the classroom. Somehow an approach which doesn’t need any classrooms can seem aberrant. The reality is that the classroom is a rather odd alternative that has been relatively recently created in human history.

For most of the time of homo sapiens on this planet people learned practically with and from each other in real life contexts. Since the invention of schooling the classroom has become assumed to be the norm as the arena for learning. Indeed Government officials have been known to say that a child not in a classroom is not learning. Obviously it’s accepted that sport and other activities would take place outside the classroom but the idea of learning standard subjects such as English and maths in any other context can still seem strange. This, of course, is despite the fact that we know that many parents use, for instance, tutors to provide educational support for their children.

I generally start sessions on this by helping people to see that what makes them good at anything is likely to have come from activity outside the classroom. You can test this yourself. Think of some things that you have that are positives about you -  skills/competences/qualities/knowledge/attitudes/abilities/etc -  you pick the label – so long as it’s about things that you can cite that are positive features of you. Now think of how come you have these. The chances are that they are either genetic or you learned them.

I have no interest in debating what’s genetic and what’s learned; we just need to recognise these are two dimensions that relate to who we are. However now that we know more about epi-genetics we know that genes can be switched on or off so the best current research evidence is that genes may actually play less part than previously imagined.

When we conduct thorough research with adults we find that around 80-90% of what makes a person effective – for example in work – comes from learning that has nothing to do with the classroom or lecture theatre or training room. (This excludes genetic elements – the focus is on the learned element). Having, in our research, identified what these modes of learning are I and a couple of colleagues wrote our Handbook of Work Based Learning, which showed that most cost effective learning is often free and has nothing to do with education, school, college, university, training courses, etc.

When I turned attention to the learning of young people I identified at least 57 varieties of learning available and the classroom is only one of these. Interestingly in 17 years of running Self Managed Learning programmes both in SML College and in schools we give learners free choice of learning modes. No-one has ever asked to use a classroom.

In the workshop I provided participants (teachers, parents and some young people) with the list of 57 varieties of learning. I then asked them to work in groups taking a real example of something that they either wanted to learn or wanted to help someone else to learn. It had to be a real example not an invented one. They then had the task of seeing which learning modes could be used to assist such learning. Groups doing this exercise generally find quite a range of non-classroom modes.

Much effort is used to improve classroom teaching. It’s like designing a better stagecoach when buses and trains have been invented. It’s just that teacher training is basically about managing classrooms so it’s no surprise that the classroom maintains its erroneous status.

 

Ian Cunningham

May 2018

Shakespeare would have been proud

On the evening of 27 April, a full house was treated to the SML College production of Romeo and Juliet.   Looking at the programme, all of the students of the College were involved in some way, and,  It was evident that a lot of work had gone into bringing the play to the audience.

In many ways, it was a typical production, with several last-minute substitutions and understudies being vaulted onto the stage at short notice.

In other ways, this was not your typical Romeo & Juliet, a play that is known for being a tragedy.  However, Shakespeare was also playing with the genre.  There is a great deal of comedy in the script and the director managed to find a way to wrench every once of comedy throughout the show.  It did not matter if it was from Lady Capulet (played by Flo) delivering her lines in what could only be described as on the verge of an emotional breakdown, or, the Apothecary (played by Jasper) arriving on stage with a Boots logo pinned to his back.

It was an enjoyable evening that showcased just how much our children have been learning.   Whether it was the memorising of lines, taking direction, performing, making scenery, prop making, performing music for the soundtrack and improvising.  It is rare that an entire production goes off without a hitch, but the key to a good performance is being able to handle the unexpected.  Once again, Flo was memorable in this regard.  At the beginning of one scene, noting that someone was missing, Lady Capulet did not break character whilst calling “My Lord Capulet, get her now!

Congratulations to all of the students and everyone involved in the production.  The spirit of The Bard must have been smiling on them.

If I had one regret that evening it was that the show could not be taken somewhere, such as a retirement home, to add their laughter to our own.

 

by David Seidel.

Spring term review by SML College student, Ro Frederick

This term has been very busy for us and lots of interesting things have happened over the last few weeks.

 

At the beginning of term James held a rhetoric speech workshop where we learnt about how to use different types of language features and we wrote our own speeches. Taanu’s speech on donating organs was even read out at the opening ceremony.

 

Over the spring term we did a lot of baking. We made multiple batches of cookies and Lars taught us all how to make bread. From this we learnt about organisms and what makes a living organism (MRSGREN), we also spoke about whether yeast was a living thing because it doesn’t have all seven life processes but it does have some.

 

We have also recently begun rehearsals for our production of Romeo and Juliet. This is a really good opportunity for all of us to get involved and learn about the responsibility and hard work involved in setting up a production. Not only have a lot of us been given roles as characters in the play, but some people have been helping with the props and scenes and some with the textiles department working on costumes and curtains.

 

Recently, there has been  a weekly philosophy workshop run by James. In this we have been asking and answering questions such as: Do we have free will? Does everything happen for a reason? And lots more. We also spoke about how eutopia could be just a result of dystopia and is everything we do meaningless, and is that ok? This has really developed our debating skills and got us thinking about things we wouldn’t normally.

 

Another exciting thing that happened over the last term, was the film. A filmmaker came into college and made three really amazing short videos, Not only did we all get involved in making the film but also organising it. A group was set up and everybody came up with different ideas for what could go in the film. Lots of people were involved in interviews and workshops that had been set up and it was really interesting learning about what was involved in setting up a project and working within a team.

 

Next term the older students will be taking their GCSE’s and we are looking forward to performing the first ever SML College production!