Kate Clanchy, Extinction Rebellion
Books
Some Kids I taught and What They Taught Me – Kate Clanchy
Some Kids I taught and What They Taught Me – Kate Clanchy
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| Catechising in a Scottish School, George Harvey (1806-1876) Photo credit: Leicester Arts and Museums Service [CC BY-NC-SA] |
…She begins
in a small town on the east coast of Scotland in the early 1990s, aged 24, when
she has a temporary job in charge of 13-year-olds at Blastmuir High School. The
year before she has taught chatty multi-racial London students; these almost
exclusively white Scottish children will barely talk to her and are either
abjectly naïve or too knowing. During a lesson about Aids they refuse to open a
book on the subject.
“Mrs Clanchy, we cannae read this. We dinnae want to catch Aids,” says one student. Clanchy adds, “It wasn’t a nasty joke: they genuinely thought the book might infect them.”
This leads to some urgent sex education classes and one of the funniest, sweetest exchanges in the book.
“Mrs McClanchy?” said Callum.
“Yes?”
“Whit wis the name for men and men?”
“That was homosexuality, Callum.”
“Aye. And whit wis the name for women and men?”
“That’s heterosexuality, Callum.”
“Aye well, when I grow up, I’m no’ going to have either o’ them. Ah think Ah’ll just have a big dog.”
On to a new sixth form in Essex – “a place that had grown as fast as Blastmuir had shrunk” – where kids traditionally left school at 16. She finds that her old London icebreaker of asking children where their name comes from (she remembers a Nigerian girl: “My name is Osla. I am the last of seven children and my name means ‘Enough’”) doesn’t work in this suburban sprawl, where kids want to appear, above all, “normal”, which might mean hiding your Jewish or Irish roots.
…Among the children’s stories are Clanchy’s views on Education policy: exclusion (so often done to preserve school ratings, rather than with the pupil in mind); mixed ability teaching – or “Miss Debility” as one pupil pronounces it. She thinks streaming is the lesser evil.
She is clear-eyed, never preachy and admits her hypocrisy. She rages at the good comprehensive that kicks out students at the end of Year 11 to make way for private school sixth formers with better results. Then she adds that her son, who, until 16, attended the state school where she teaches – “the opposite of exclusive” – moved to that good school for A levels.
This is a book that will appeal not just to other teachers and parents, but to anyone who cares about education. Her classroom anecdotes are inspiring, mortifying, energising and moving. I’d give her an A*.
(Alex O’Connell, The Times, 2019)
Give her a B+. That means she will try a little harder with her next piece of work.
Climate Change
…But Extinction Rebellion has retaught a lesson every generation must learn: that civil disobedience works. Amid the spluttering of obnoxious news presenters, it has forced the existential threat of climate change on to the airwaves and into newsprint.
But as this phase of protest winds down, the demands must radicalise. With capitalism itself rightly being challenged, the focus must shift to the fossil fuel companies and the banks. As long as they remain under private ownership on a global scale, humanity’s future will be threatened.
Take Exxon Mobil, which plans to pump an astonishing 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than it did in 2017. As that well-known bastion of eco-socialism, the Economist, puts it: “If the rest of the industry pursues even modest growth, the consequences for the climate could be disastrous,” adding that “the market cannot solve climate change by itself.”
…Then there are the banks. Since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2016, 33 global banks have provided $1.9tn in finance to the fossil fuel industry.
So long as these sectors remain in private hands, they will continue to place short-term profit ahead of the future of the planet. They must be brought under public ownership, with a legal mandate to “green” the economy. One suggestion by the next System Project is that the US government could create a community ownership of power administration, modelled on Roosevelt-era New Deal agencies. It would grant legal authority and funding mechanisms to buy back the energy grid and take over energy utilities.
(Owen Jones, The Guardian, 2019)
“Mrs Clanchy, we cannae read this. We dinnae want to catch Aids,” says one student. Clanchy adds, “It wasn’t a nasty joke: they genuinely thought the book might infect them.”
This leads to some urgent sex education classes and one of the funniest, sweetest exchanges in the book.
“Mrs McClanchy?” said Callum.
“Yes?”
“Whit wis the name for men and men?”
“That was homosexuality, Callum.”
“Aye. And whit wis the name for women and men?”
“That’s heterosexuality, Callum.”
“Aye well, when I grow up, I’m no’ going to have either o’ them. Ah think Ah’ll just have a big dog.”
On to a new sixth form in Essex – “a place that had grown as fast as Blastmuir had shrunk” – where kids traditionally left school at 16. She finds that her old London icebreaker of asking children where their name comes from (she remembers a Nigerian girl: “My name is Osla. I am the last of seven children and my name means ‘Enough’”) doesn’t work in this suburban sprawl, where kids want to appear, above all, “normal”, which might mean hiding your Jewish or Irish roots.
…Among the children’s stories are Clanchy’s views on Education policy: exclusion (so often done to preserve school ratings, rather than with the pupil in mind); mixed ability teaching – or “Miss Debility” as one pupil pronounces it. She thinks streaming is the lesser evil.
She is clear-eyed, never preachy and admits her hypocrisy. She rages at the good comprehensive that kicks out students at the end of Year 11 to make way for private school sixth formers with better results. Then she adds that her son, who, until 16, attended the state school where she teaches – “the opposite of exclusive” – moved to that good school for A levels.
This is a book that will appeal not just to other teachers and parents, but to anyone who cares about education. Her classroom anecdotes are inspiring, mortifying, energising and moving. I’d give her an A*.
(Alex O’Connell, The Times, 2019)
Give her a B+. That means she will try a little harder with her next piece of work.
Climate Change
…But Extinction Rebellion has retaught a lesson every generation must learn: that civil disobedience works. Amid the spluttering of obnoxious news presenters, it has forced the existential threat of climate change on to the airwaves and into newsprint.
But as this phase of protest winds down, the demands must radicalise. With capitalism itself rightly being challenged, the focus must shift to the fossil fuel companies and the banks. As long as they remain under private ownership on a global scale, humanity’s future will be threatened.
Take Exxon Mobil, which plans to pump an astonishing 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than it did in 2017. As that well-known bastion of eco-socialism, the Economist, puts it: “If the rest of the industry pursues even modest growth, the consequences for the climate could be disastrous,” adding that “the market cannot solve climate change by itself.”
…Then there are the banks. Since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2016, 33 global banks have provided $1.9tn in finance to the fossil fuel industry.
So long as these sectors remain in private hands, they will continue to place short-term profit ahead of the future of the planet. They must be brought under public ownership, with a legal mandate to “green” the economy. One suggestion by the next System Project is that the US government could create a community ownership of power administration, modelled on Roosevelt-era New Deal agencies. It would grant legal authority and funding mechanisms to buy back the energy grid and take over energy utilities.
(Owen Jones, The Guardian, 2019)
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