Each the others necessary opposite
Taken on site at a proposed location for a new self-directed learning college in Norwich, October 2024.
Only work that needs to be done needs to be done
And it will be done well, and beautifully, and honestly and earnestly. And by the barrowload. Day in, day out. Youngest to oldest. Each of us here will commit to this, though I know it will be hard to deliver initially because phoney imperatives, needs and expectations; the kinds of which stuff our heads and slow our thinking are a reflex action; a muscle memory from outdated training in the current educational paradigm. We are all busy people so we must consciously make the time to think if we are to conjure a new imaginary where only work that needs to be done needs to be done.
Wonder, doubt
We will be buffeted between wonder and doubt because this is where the rubber hits the road. We will smile and we will cry, Punch the air and pound the table. We will walk in and then walk straight back out again. It will be a strange thing to be amongst. We will each of us fall back on phoney imperatives, needs and expectations - from the youngest to the eldest - no matter how long we’ve been doing this, because such structures offer us the solace of a sentence starter and sometimes everyone needs a bit of that, but then it will suddenly emerge up and through; a beautiful and extraordinarily powerful thing displacing tons of earth as it seeks the light; a thing that simply cannot be stopped. Born of wonder and doubt and now ready for the world.
The powerful, radical caring instinct
Some of us have been bullies. Most of us have been bullied. We’ve all hit and hurt; kicked and spat; knocked, pushed and punched and used the foulest words we could muster. We’ve been held as we’ve thrashed and flailed to the point of utter exhaustion, and we’ve all retreated to the dark tent, contained and comforted by the tight elastic skin of a lycra body sock. Sometimes we’ve sought all this because we just needed a hug. We’ve made it look like love isn’t enough, but love will always be enough. Just give us space where we can start to become human again; a school built on the powerful, radical caring instinct: solid, empty, transparent, heart-shaped.
Adventuring
This is where the real trouble begins, but it’s such incredible trouble; the kind of trouble we all want to be in. There will be a knock and questions will be put to us in barely civil tones. The kinds of tones that see challenge not in terms of growth, but of diminution. If you’d asked me before, I wouldn’t have thought it possible - imbued, as we surely all are with the powerful, radical caring instinct - but there are some really nasty people in here amongst us; people whose virtue signalling masks dark aims, and who are incompetent into the bargain: cruel and stupid. So we must hold adventuring in our hearts, but consider, for a moment, that we might just be each the others necessary opposite.