Question Two:
Education, is there a more natural form, a
different way of doing things that is scalable and practical?
Female
3: Education, is there a more natural form, a
different way of doing things that is scalable and practical?
Male
1: That was me, that was my question and it
actually connects to that last thing I said about do we value people for the
fact that they exist or for what they achieve? Largely I think the question
that school is asking, when you enter school that under the banner is what can
you achieve? Not how can you live in society well or how do we live together? Which
for me seem to be much more interesting or perhaps useful questions in terms of
the issues that global society seems to be dealing with within the UK? Whereas
the approach of what can you achieve seems to me to deal with the “I” of going
what can you achieve? That you’re only
valuable if you do achieve something…
Female
1: The productivity…
Male
1: Yes, the senses of productivity, if you can
get the exam results then suddenly you’re valuable to society if you don’t get
the results the where is your value? The question around education is, in terms
of what are the alternatives? How can
the alternatives at all be practical and scalable? Which might be too big of a question to even
begin with.
Female
1: I think, because I come from a family of
teachers, I’m the only non-teacher. I’m
a facilitator, I’m a director…
I certainly feel that one of the things I struggle
with is, at school, I was an achiever, I got all the grades and I did all that
extra-curricular crap. Then I was like,
and what? Because I felt like all that kind of entitled me to something or that
that gave me value. Then once you’re
grown up it kind of doesn’t matter you know the reason, there isn’t a
reward. I’m really interested; we saw a
post the other day for a self-directed learning school and it really, really
interested me because actually that was one of the things that I found frustrating
at school was that I don’t want to learn about this shit, I want to learn about
how to make a rocket ship. Don’t talk to
me about volcanoes, I’m bored of that, I know that. I read it in a book last week. I don’t have a point really, I’m just telling
you.
Male
1: No, no, that makes sense.
Female
2: I think the, “what can you achieve” question
would be more helpful if it was directed differently because at the moment
achievement is measured against external measures of success and other
people. If it was directed about you and
what is achievement for you, in recognizing that different people have
different measures of achievement, then I think that would be more
helpful.
Female
1: What are all the possibilities that you could
be and which one do you want to go for?
Male
2: That goes back to my first question really,
doesn’t it?
Meaning.
Female
3: Both my children are at school, in a state
primary just off the Walworth Road. I would say that they really are learning
about things beyond achievement and beyond what they want to do. It’s a very inclusive school, it has a lot of
children with special education needs and it’s very ethnically diverse. I was thinking about it recently because
someone I know is talking about homeschooling their child; secondary age.
Female
1: Which I understand the imperative of if
you’re driving for achievement, but if you’re driving for them to be a person
of society….
Female
3: Exactly.
I think that is something that school
achieved, kind of always has, but the focus hasn’t been on that. I think Ofsted now, our school has had a
recent Ofsted report. One of the things they look at, how it’s about the
nurturing or the values of the school and I do think that school is how a lot
of it all begins, doesn’t it? About how you socialize with people or what
values you have? Whether you go with the crowd or – my daughter, just turned
nine, a lot of the kids in her class have older brothers and sisters and she
doesn’t, she has a younger brother.
She said that they kind of talk older and more
teenager. She says that she doesn’t want
to do that because it doesn’t feel like herself, but then she feels that if she
doesn’t then no one will like her. I was
talking to her about that, but that of course is school isn’t that? That’s the universal thing from school and
that’s something that you get from that.
Male
2: No, I was thinking back to when I went to
school and where I went, you know back in high school because we had very
different school experiences. I went to
a country state school and my wife went to …
Female
1: I went to a private school.
Male
2: Sorry I outed you there…
Female
3: Yes, I know, it’s fine, fuck that I’m so sick
of this shit; I went to private school because I won a scholarship. But then
went to a state ‘A’ level college and I was really aware of the difference in
effort and attitude in drive towards achievement or not.
Male
2: There were two big differences, I think, to
what we learned, I never really took on the talk of school, there was never
really a focus on, the thing you were talking about, the difference between
what you as an individual can achieve, what you’re there for, what can you do
for society? The other thing it never taught
me to do or never pushed me to do was to try and be the best that I can be; to
strive for excellence. I think really is
the big difference between us and as a consequence I amble around through my
life and I’m doing alright now…
Female
1: You do very well, based on whatever measure
you choose to use.
Male
2: You know, I’m happy. I have a job and all
that kind of stuff. I’m doing ok now,
but it took me so long to get from there to here and I came out of school, went
and did college because I had to and I almost failed my A levels, went on to a
university and walked out after three weeks because I didn’t like it. Spent the
year on the dole, spent four years on the job doing what I absolutely hated
before I went back to the university to do something I really enjoyed. It’s
taken off from there, but at the time I was never taught to think about
anything other than; you get the grades and that’s all. I got the grades and
didn’t learn stuff. I cruised through just because I could get the grades and
there was no other pressure on me. I
just didn’t learn all that stuff and didn’t get pushed into doing all that
stuff.
Male
1: That’s what I find really interesting is
that. Is it just then it doesn’t really
matter what schooling you do, to some extent, because eventually you navigate
it to a point where you either find your way or you don’t. I know that’s sort
of throwing both those things up there at the same time, but….
Female
1: He’s a really clever guy. I wonder, I’m sure
he’s had compatriots who were less clever struggled through more just to find
their way, because he’s like the most stubborn person ever. If he wants it, he
knows it and goes for it, but if you’re not that, if you don’t have that
strength of will, can you self-direct in the same way?
Female
2: Although, I was just going to say, on the
other hand, because I was similar and I coasted at school, because I could and
at the university. You never learn to
apply yourself or work ethic, or how to study; that kind of thing since you
don’t really need to. On the other hand I had friends at school who had to work
a lot harder than me to get the grade.
They had to study and they had to put the hours in and, obviously you
can’t judge other people’s lives, but I feel that potentially that serves
better in work and the workforce afterwards…
Female
1: They have the habit.
Female
2: Yes, because they have that habit. They’ve
applied themselves to their work, they take satisfaction in their work and
achieving things, because when they’re at school they worked for it and there’s
that sense of satisfaction when you achieve something when you’ve worked for it
in a way that isn’t if you haven’t. I
think when I compare myself to those people, I feel they’re a lot more motivated
than I am and work a lot harder. I don’t know, it just depends on the person…
Female
1: There was just a culture of achievement at
the school I went to; there just wasn’t ever a question that you wouldn’t want
to do your best. It wasn’t that we were
pushed per se; my parents were both teachers and I’m the only person to go to
private school in my family, but they didn’t really push me. They were like, “do what you want, like it’s
your problem” and there’s something really interesting in that I did well
academically; I met all those goals.
Then socially, I’m naturally quite shy, but I did this thing where I was
like, no, I’m going to achieve the goal of not being shy. There’s this thing that happens socially
where I feel like I’m massively underdeveloped in some of those spheres. I can totally fake it, because I’ve watched
what it looks like and I pretend. I find
it really hard to make friends.
Female
2: Yet, here you are opening your home to
complete strangers.
Female
1: Yes, but that’s the thing, because I’m really
good at faking confidence. I think I missed, for all that I got, the
acheivement thing there was also something missing
so I wonder about if this is something about how we frame education that is
actually more about being a unit within a collective. That sounds quite communist, but fuck it, why
not?
Male
1: That’s the worry isn’t it? That when these
alternative models get put up, they get slotted into an established ideology;
when actually it can just be another idea within this system that we have right
now or it can be another idea. It
doesn’t necessarily have to be just because there’s a kind of different
approach to education, it doesn’t necessarily need to turn the state into a
communist state or even deal in those terms; which is part of the issue. Whenever an alternative is…
Female
2: Is reduced.
Male
1: …or anything is established it’s reduced to
the, “oh what does that sound like or seem like?” Oh, that sounds like
communism; that’s what it is. That’s the difficulty isn’t it? The interesting thing I find about school is
that it actually works for a lot of people. Like that whole school needs to be
different thing, I feel like I’ve done alright. Even though, half the time at
school it was horrific and I hated it and I thought it wasn’t relevant to me,
but it’s also where I found my drama teacher, and my P.E teacher, and my music
teacher, and they were figures who were massively inspirational to me.
Female
1: It was where, we had an R.E teacher who said
that homosexuals could be cured with counselling, and that was the first point
where I was like, no; I am in opposition to you.
Male
1: Yes.
Female
1: It totally allowed me, even though it wasn’t
within those rules, I allowed me to define myself I guess.
Female
3: I think, for me, it’s about making sure that
education, whether that’s through parents or home or whatever, it’s very
wide. I think what were all saying here
is that you can get your meaning from education, but you have to be exposed to
lots of different things and different options.
I had a similar to you; I grew up in Hong Kong. I was bright and I was
put up a year above myself, above my age, when I was seven.
Female
1: They did that to me, but then kept me down. I
was like, so I’m not actually as bright as you thought? They told me it was
because I couldn’t put finger spaces. Anyway…
Female
3: I had special lessons about joined up writing
because I missed that year. It was like a prep. I had parents who were very
focused on academic achievement and I can understand why, because my parents
had very different backgrounds to me. My father actually grew up in a
children’s home; education was his way out.
He was born in a council flat in Hackney then
he was in the children’s home and education was his way out. He was very driven; he was the motivation
that you thought of. Where I was in the
school with a lot of bright children where no one didn’t go to a university
because that’s just what it was. I
didn’t have, let’s say motivation or drive, but I had my parents. I had it coming from my parents and I did
well academically and I got a law degree; I am a lawyer, but what is meaning
for me is writing. It’s something I’ve
done as a child and it was my English teachers and my drama teachers. I’m now doing an M.A in play writing and
screen writing. Whenever I’ve had bad times, like cancer, the writing is what
is my meaning. It’s my way of expressing
myself or coping; it’s kind of my coping strategy.
Female
1: What was it, in whatever the context was
before, that allows you to say that?
Does that make sense? There must be something that says, ok you can have
a law degree and choose to be a lawyer or you can totally check out of that
thing that you’ve been striving for and choose to do something else. There’s
something quite special in that; not everybody has that.
Female
3: No, I think that came from me because it
certainly didn’t come from my parents, because they’re all,” you’ve got to get
a vocational degree and you can’t do English.
You’ve got to do a vocational degree.” I can see where they are coming
from, because neither of them had an education they didn’t get to go to
university. They were very intent on us
having an education. It came from me, I think.
The first time I kind of went back to writing was when I got cancer when
I was 24 and I was a lawyer. I started writing I did some articles for
magazines about ovarian cancer actually and I started building up the writing
over the years. Yes, it came from
myself I guess. I think now, with Twitter and everything, I just think there
are so many more options, I think. You
know of different…
Female
1: it seems like there are so many ways to look
at other creeds. Like, there are so many
things that I know about now that I didn’t know about growing up in the very
conservative Midlands. That’s part of
being in London but also just people going on about it on Twitter and you’re
just like, ok well what’s that thing.
Male
1: The interesting thing about that is for the
new generations, they’re exposed to that at a really young age.
Female
2: Very young.
Male
1: How do they contextualize that?
Female1:
How do they pick a thing?
Male
1: How does education contextualize that for
them? This is, I suppose, pushing the argument quite far in one direction. What
if education is just preparing everybody to fulfill an economic role?
Female
1: That’s kind of what it is at the moment.
Male
1: Should it be?
Female
1: No it should be preparing you to choose what
you care about and what is interesting to you and to pursue it and give you
whatever tools you need. That’s a massively
ask, because what interest you could be microbiology, or it could be writing,
or it could be carpentry, or it could be caring for children.
Male
2: Is that something we can only do now thought
because we’ve got the luxury of having an economy where we’re able to do that?
Say you took it 100 years ago. Now You
come out of school and have the luxury to be whatever you want to be. What you need coming out of school is to be
able to get a job…
Female
3: …and not die.
Male
2: Whereas now, you come out and decide to
pursue your dream of whatever it is, you know you’re not going to starve; so
you can do that. So, we need an
education system to reflect that.
Female
2: What about the kids who aren’t equipped to
take advantage of that process? For whatever reason, there families don’t value
education. Okay, I didn’t take advantage
of the opportunities my school offered me but I came from a home background
where I was exposed to other ideas and thoughts. I was taken to the theatre, we had books and we
read, and I had parents that if I was failing science sat down with me and
force tutored me. I didn’t enjoy it at the time, but it got me through
school.
Female
1: What if there is no one there helping you?
Female
3: It feels a lot of the time education is
designed for people who are able to take advantage of their opportunity, where
a lot of people aren’t. Any particular personality like, your father? Your
father?
Male
1: that resilience of I’m in a really volatile
environment and I need to get out.
Female
3: Understanding that you will be in that
terrible moment for quite some time before you will get out. It’s that long
term; knowing that you have to do things you don’t want to do.
Female
1: You can be given that, because I was totally
given that. I still spent seven years
working in the city, fucking hating everybody I met and every second. I think
there’s something about you can give people that agency and then they can give
it up accidentally. I guess it’s a part of whatever the dream education thing
is, if it’s about self-direction and the tools to be interested but it is also
about the psychological ability to keep checking in and be like, “am I happy?
Is this what I want?”
Female
3: and to know that you can change it.
Female
1: To actually have the right to change
something to what you want. There’s a whole class thing in this because I feel
like this is the difference between privileged and underprivileged kids, or
average privileged kids, it’s feeling the right to ask for what you want. If
you’ve never been given enough what you want is so far beyond…
Male
1: Yes.
Female
1: Why would you ever dream of asking for it?
Male 1:
It’s a fascinating thing, because we have an awareness of our educations. Although
they were all very different we were all able to use them at some point in a
specific way. I wonder if now, there is
an opportunity for kids who might not have access or be able to deal with
education the way that it is. That if
there is actually a way to create an alternative space that isn’t the excluded
group of people from school group. It’s
just a different choice. Rather than
them having to have gone to that school to be excluded because they don’t deal
with that sort of environment very well. Actually, you offer a different
choice, but then I suppose the follow on is that be a choice that leads to exam
results or wouldn’t be a choice that leads to a degree.
Female
1: Unquantifiable.
Male
1: Yes, which because that’s the way we are at
the moment things have to be stamped.
Female
2: I don’t want this recorded if that’s okay?
(Recording Pauses)
(Recording resumes)
Male 1:
Let’s say, for example, I ran young people’s programs for years. I’d go into the Somali Community in Bristol
and there were three kids who came to Bristol Old Vic from the Somali community
in Bristol. I was like, why aren’t more
people coming and going out and doing workshops? They seem to enjoy it. Half the answer was it’s just not their bag;
they’re just not interested. The other
half of the answer, which was more interesting, was well their parents don’t
really like it. They don’t really want
those kids hanging out with these kids.
There were all these levels of barriers that just…
Female 1:
It’s you don’t quite know what it is and you don’t quite trust it. Which means you don’t quite trust the people,
which means there…
Male 2:
The question for me is if you have that does the state, or whoever, have a
right to say no that’s wrong and we’re going to force your child to come to
this…
Female 1:
Like sex ed. is compulsory.
Male 2: Yes, but where do you do it? Do you draw the line and say sex ed. is
really important; we must have every child doing it? Theatre is that important
or not?
Female 2:
I think we know what this government thinks of theatre
Male 2:
But where’s the line?
Female 1:
I think that question should be like, expressive arts and you can pick whatever
you want that’s in it but you’ve got to do something. Like when you do your GSE choices or
whatever. You have to do a language, or
you have to do a science, or you have to do Maths and English. What if you had to do something that made you
think like philosophy or you know something that made you think about the wider
context of the world. Philosophy or
arts?
Male 1:
There, it’s all the humanities area of subjects that generally do that anyway.
With philosophy, English, or Arts; they are the ones that are undervalued.
Certainly as the way the education system is being reframed now. They are becoming undervalued.
Female 1:
Well, they’re also the sort of things that allow people to challenge the
system.
Female 2:
They’re truth tellers.
Male 1:
Yes, yes. I don’t know.
Female 3: I think there’s something more in the bacchelaureate
system, something that’s wider. A levels
for me were so narrow, you know, choose three subjects. I think something like you were saying where
there’s something that you have to do something arts and I think that’s
possibly a key.
Male 1:
Yes, but they’re still only catering for those people who’ve gone through the
education system to that point.
Female 1: And kind of know what you want because that’s
the thing that differs between you and me is you don’t know what you want to do
whereas there’s so many things that I want to do. That’s the thing, bless you, but if I set you
loose at 17 and were like, “pick anything”.
Male 2:
The thing is you’ve narrowed it down more than I have, in a sense, but I still
want to be the spaceman and the train diver and…
Female 1:
Oh, so do I.
Male 2: You’ve narrowed it down to a real focus on
theatre and I detail and I haven’t really narrowed it down to any particular
focus that I really want to do. So, I’m
ambling along and doing a job that’s ok, I just haven’t found my real focus
yet.
Female 2:
Can I ask something off topic from the questions? Just interested, every person here has so far
said they got an interest in theatre beyond just attending. I’ve studied
theatre…
Female 1: He
doesn’t really – its just that I work in theatre and he’s married to me
Male 2:
So that’s my interest.
Female 1: I think that shared interest is because this
is the first [Sunday Lunch Project}, and I Tweeted it so the only people that
follow me on Twitter are interested in theatre or in people that rant about
feminism! That’s it.
Male 1:
I do a bit of both of that. I’ll rant
about feminism, but I know a bit about
theatre.
Female 1:
Yes, only of the things I’m thinking about is flyering Brixton market and
stuff, but it’s that same thing; if you’re not going to send your kids to the
free class, or whatever, you’re probably also not going to come and do this. So
it’s self-selecting.
Male 2:
This is exactly the difficulty and we’re moving into a little bit of talk about
diversity as well. I’m running a programing at the moment, where it’s completely
free for anybody to arrive. I’ve sent it
directly to organizations and institutions who only work with ethnic
minorities. Chinese community center and
three or four groups in Stratford who are only…but still the participant list
for that group is still 20 year old white girls.
Male 2:
And the majority of them… How do you manage that? How do you deal with that?
Female 1: In my job we have these two strands our
organization wants participatory stream that is incredibly diverse and works
really hard to try to get out to hard to reach young people. They have programs with disabled kids,
refugee kids, kids at risk of exclusion, and then they have like a youth arts
program for 16 to 25 where jou can just rock up and it’s amazing; incredibly
brilliant. Then I run the professional program and it is entirely
different. It isn’t through lack of
looking for a broad diversity. It isn’t
through a lack of; it isn’t through any kind of discrimination, please God
no. At the moment I’m mentoring a lad
whose from, who came through the youth arts stream and wants to make it as a
professional playwright. And the thing is, I feel like I found one of the
answers, but I asked him to do his five year plan. And the first one on the list: “What do you
want in five years?” said, I want to own a lucrative theatre company. The thing I have to tell him is, I’m so
sorry, that isn’t going to happen; even if you’re Cameron Macintosh. You’re scale of earnings is nowhere near your
scale of earnings of if you were just an average banker, or lawyer, or
whatever. He’s going to self-select out
at the point of which he feels like he’s a lesser person if he can’t earn.
Male 2: Can I just ask a question on that then? In a sense, are you, I know what the theatre
institute is like because I live with you and I…
Female 1:
You pay the rent here.
Male 2:
Are you actually discouraging him from really trying to change theatre to
something that would actually be financially viable? Are you saying here, encouraging him, “You’re
never going to make money in theatre?” Or “Are you saying how can we make money
in theatre?” then encouraging him to do that. I know what you’re saying. You
are trying to let him down gently.
Female 1: No, the conversation I’ll have; I don’t
actually have to have a conversation with him, I can just give him this
recording. The conversation I’ll have
with him is, look, you’re 24 now and it’s going to be ten years before anyone
bets money on you in a commercial way.
Just because you haven’t got the skills; so for ten years it’s going to
suck. Then if you’re really fucking
lucky, you will write Mamma Mia, or War Horse, or whatever. Then you will get
three percent of the international gross profits on that.
Male 2: Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about in
terms of school? In terms of you get
kids going into school, drive them into a steady career, and just get a job and
live your life. At the end of it when
you’re 60 you might get retirement and pension and all that. Instead of saying
to these kids why don’t you just go and dream and do, what you really want. You’ll be saying, sorry, I’m going to be in
so much shit after this…
Female 1:
No, you’re not.
Male 2: You’re stopping him from doing the big
things.
Male 1:
That’s an interesting thing though, because there is a responsibility as a
mentor, or as a teacher, or as an education establishment…
Female 2:
Not to throw them down a career that’s going to kill them.
Male 1:
Exactly, and that’s the difficulty I think, which is a tension within education
around that first question of: what can you achieve? What are you here
for? What you’re doing in society,
because there is that. If we take the
pessimistic view of education you’re saying, “It’s just preparing people to
fulfil the economic need.” You get
placed in the category you earn an amount, you pay a tax, and you keep society
going in some way. Or you could say it’s
being responsible. What do humans need?
Basic, they need income, because the capitalist society that we live in means
an income means you have to eat which means that the only way to get that
income, well not the only way, but one of the better ways. Is to say come and get educated in these
things, because we know these things are the reliable things. It’s such a catch 22.
Female 1:
My mum and dad, they’re both teachers, but my dad is a potter. They had a pottery business in our back
garden for years. They tell this story
about going to see my second eldest sister’s teachers at her state comp up the
road. The only thing she was good at was
art and the form teacher took them aside and said, “Look, the only thing she’s
good at is art; she’s never going to make a career out of that. You guys really need to be yelling at her to
do something else”. And they were like “That’s
what we do, we are artists.” It was like
their heads exploded, they couldn’t understand that this person was saying
this. The teacher couldn’t understand that there was a person out there who
made a living in some way as a lecturer or teacher or whatever as well, but say
50 percent was as artists, in the way saying it’s impossible. I feel we self-fulfil.
Male 1: Exactly.
If you just go to school that said, yes you can be an artist and yes,
this is how you do it and make money out of it maybe that was part of their
education.
Female 1: It would mean more people would want to
consume art; which would make if more financially viable.
Male 2: I went to a school we didn’t say you can go
off and do whatever you want and I’m incredibly angry about that because I’ve
missed so much of opportunities early on.
Everything’s in my own destiny and all that stuff, but back then I
didn’t know that. I didn’t realize and
I’m so angry about that.
Female 2:
What would you be if you be different?
Male 2: I
don’t know, I really don’t know. I don’t
know what I’d do, but I’d have the courage to know that I could. That’s the
difference between you and me for example.
You went to a school where people encouraged you to do that and said if
you really want to you can do it. They
didn’t say it will arrive, they said it will be difficult along the way, but if
you really want to go and do it. My
school didn’t tell me that and it’s my own fault for listening to them in a
sense, but that’s what they told me.
Female 3:
I think that first of all there isn’t a thing as a stable career anymore. I mean in today’s society. Necessarily, I mean things like law for
example is completely changing.
Female 1:
I could see some sort of medical profession or engineer…
Female 3:
Yes, what I mean is, I think there’s some but it’s narrowing down. I also think
there’s something but I completely see your point. There’s something about realism though. You have to work at something and five years
isn’t that long. It’s going to take a long time to build up a profitable
company.
Female 1: If you were just a hunter/gatherer it would
take you ten years to learn how to kill things easily. I mean in the simplest way.
Female 3: That’s something in whatever you have to do.
If you want something you have to fucking work.
It’s not going to just come to you and you’re going to have to make
sacrifices. Whatever they be, you’re
going to have to make sacrifices. Even
if down the road you end up being a doctor and you know you’re going to get a
good amount of money, you make the sacrifice where you’re studying and studying
and studying, giving up social life, and working long hours. There’s always some sacrifice, but it had to
be what works for you. What you’re
willing to balance out.
Female 3: Well, there needs to be balance in the advice
that’s given isn’t there? Like, you want
to be able to encourage people to pursue the things that they love; but do that
in an eyes open kind of way. So this is
your passion, this is what you want to make happen, this is not very good at
the moment, these are the sectors which you could study at the moment that are
similar that might get you the job prospects. If this is your passion then here
are some things that you can do and start doing now in order to sort of help
make that more likely.
Male 1: Absolutely, and what’s fascinating about that
is like three of the most recent studies are 16 to 25 year olds; what do you
want to be, what do you want out of life? Hardly any of them, I mean and I
don’t know what areas, but about 22,000 young people asking them what they
wanted and hardly any of them are saying fame.
Female 1:
That’s interesting, because that’s not what you’d expect.
Female 3:
That’s not what you hear in the media.
Female 2:
Someone should tell the Daily Mail.
Male 1:
Exactly, because it’s not what you expect. Yes, someone should. Then the other one was we want to do
something that we love, that we can earn something from and that will also help
society. I don’t know whether they went into a social enterprise school or what
but these results, like when you look through the data it’s 16 to 25 year olds,
but like so many of them were saying no.
Many of them were saying celebrity is an idiot’s game now; it’s empty, there’s
no point. Yes, we want to earn money and
we want to earn a decent amount of money but we want to do that while we make
society better. I don’t know where these
young people are but it sounds; because I’ve met a lot of kids I know who would
answer like that but I didn’t think it was representative of the wider
U.K. Twenty two thousand kids may not be
representative of the wider U.K…
Female 2: It’s a lot.
Male 1: It was an interesting; I got most of those
data from RSA and from…AandM?
Female 1:
Could you e-mail me those?
Male 1: Yes, which was fascinating, I thought: we’d
like to make money, but we’d also like to make the world a better place.
Female 3:
Do we have to finish?
Female 1:
Yes, go ahead finish because we’ve gone 40 minutes.
Female 3: Just to finish off, I think it’s something
schools are doing more now than say my generation. It’s just the sense of social enterprise,
just sort of eco-awareness and helping other people. I see that in my children’s school; they
certainly do projects like that. They
certainly think about the world, in a way that we, I, was never taught to. That is a positive trait.
Female 1:
Because my school was a convent; it was charitable, conservatively activist,
strand to what we did. It was like,
bring your cans for the harvest festival and help people to cross the
street. It wasn’t campaigning for race
or LBGT rights; for example. Yes, activism was totally there, in quite a twee way.
Male 2: That’s the interesting thing about
religion. I’m not religious in any way
at all, but it’s actually done some pretty good shit along the way. As well as all the big disagreements, like on
a local scale. There’s an interesting…
Female 1: Well, maybe that’s why. Maybe that’s why we’re a secular society now,
because whoever is in charge it’s not in their interest to let us unify under
any kind of ideology. When Adam delved
and Eve span who was then the gentleman?
You know that’s the start to a kind of active socialism.
Female 3: Maybe that’s why we’re a secular society?
Female 1: Ok, I’m pausing.
Female 2:
You’re being a good chair.
Female 1: Well I really need to go to the loo. Would you clear plates and procure chocolate
mousses from the fridge? Does anybody want anything else of anything that’s
savory?
(The
recording is interrupted by the sound of crockery clattering)
Male 1:
What’s the NGO that you work for?
Female 2:
I work for the Red Cross. It’s just a
desk job, policy stuff. I’m not out
delivering food to people flooded or anything like that. It’s alright, it’s good. I haven’t been there
long; just over a year.
Male 1:
How long have you been in the U.K?
Female 2:
Nearly ten years, so, yes a while. My dad is English and I was born over here
so… The connection...
Female 3:
Do you mind passing the water jug please?
Female 2:
No, of course.
Male 1:
Do you want a fresh glass?
Female 3:
Yes, please. I’ll have a water glass.
Male 2:
I’m not very good at hosting.
Female 3:
No, it’s great.
Male 2:
Anybody else wants more water?
Female 3: That
would be lovely. Thank you.
Female 1:
Anyone want the last of wine?
Male 2:
Sure I’ll have a drop, I won’t say no.
It’s Sunday.
Female 3:
Did you get quite a big response then?
Female 1:
I got loads and loads and loads. I’m
trying to reset this [tmer] while I talk to you. Loads of women and loads of
people who had part read it and then e-mailed me with absolutely not what I
asked for. The first day, all I’ve
really done is tweet it so far, then I’ve just finished a really busy period at
work. Now there’s proper work on it…
There
was quite a big response based on three tweets but I was really interested in
this narrow section of society. That’s probably the group of people who follows
me.
I’ve
done a little bit of leafleting for the young kids around work and stuff. They were like, but why would I come and hang
out with grownups?
Male 2:
That’s what I think is crucial those diverse, intergenerational multi-social
spaces. Whenever I’ve done any sort of work in anyway, whether it’s theatre or
teaching related that’s always what’s offered the most interesting results, is
those gaps of age, and heritage, and background, and color.
Female 1:
Otherwise we’ll just spend an hour agreeing
Male 1: Exactly,
or disagreeing about not very interesting points.
