Posts by Richard Aston
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to BenWilson,
indeed finding it so powerful that it’s hard to find any meaning in their lives when they’re not terrified
You hit it there Ben - finding meaning in their lives.
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Russell Brown,
As well as missing a couple of riots, I’ve also been caught up in a couple. I haven’t really got the right words to describe the crowd dynamics and volatile atmosphere, but the punch-in-the-gut adrenaline ride you experience as a participant, even an unwilling and involuntary one….
Me too -
I was born in Croydon and raised in Brixton and Upper Norwood.
I wonder if that "punch-in-the-gut adrenaline ride" also has a primal sense of power in it. The darker edge of the England of my boyhood was best described by the NZ poet Peter Bland talking of his upbringing in working class England
"I taste the damp recurring thought / of being bred to expect so little"
After years of being bred to expect so little - getting seriously pissed off seems an authentic response. -
Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Russell Brown,
Thanks Russel for picking up that comment by Ally Fogg on Nina Power's story - I agree with Heather Gaye we should plaster that over Auckand. Here's another more poetic take from the US youth worker Micheal Meade ( he works with US street gangs)
" If the fires that innately burn inside youths are not intentionally and lovingly added to the hearth of community, they will burn down the structures of culture, just to feel the warmth" -
Hard News: An open thread while I'm down…, in reply to BenWilson,
It's more that the big focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic
And I'd add the sub curriculum - keep quiet, stay still, take instructions, report on time, be part of large group etc etc .
In my work I come across many boys "diagnosed" with ADHD - actually they are fine it's just the institution of school doesn't work for them until they are given Ritalin to slow them down.
I think the purpose of school in its birth place, the industrial revolution, was just the 3 Rs (plus the sub curriculum) but the western world has moved well past cotton mills and assembly plants. Has our educational thinking moved to?Ben, as parent my hat goes of to you for raising an autistic child, not that you have a choice not to but, it's courageous work and can't be easy.
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Hard News: An open thread while I'm down…, in reply to Greville Whittle,
Thanks for bringing Playcentre up Greville.
My alarm bells have already been ringing with the pushing of ECE (Early Childhood Education) as a cure all social for our social issues. My issue with ECE is what appears to be an increasing drive to bring academic thinking earlier and earlier into ECE. Even the Gluckman report notes the importance of non cognitive development in early childhood but educational thinking seems to be heavily biased to cognitive development , it does after all emerge from universities where cognition is king.
But what of play, imagination, creativity , socializing .. um .. being human?
The very fact that Play Centers use the word Play rather than education says it all, they are onto it. Plus the very strong community connectedness that playcentres bring. So why the hell are they squeezing out Playcentres while trying to drive up academic approaches in Early Childhood.
Sir Ken Robinson is very articulate on the new paradigms needed in education. Our current system is based on intellectual and economic values - education towards employment. But the world is changing and its just not enough to have a world filled with trained workers. Social problems are on the increase but to think we will solve them by doing more of what we have always done (old school education) and do it earlier and earlier is just so stupid.
Taking the play, imagination and creativity out of early education ( out of all education!) is a huge part of the problem. -
no harm
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Dont write on wall
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not all bricks are good
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Hard News: Perception and reality in the…, in reply to Lyndon Hood,
So pending further info I’ll maintain my suspicion that in Becroft’s letter any ‘success’ in the Fresh Start was administrative (apart from anything [or everything] else they haven’t been going that long) and when asked if they could be expanded he said, “that is indeed possible”.
And he also mentioned some other programmes that really are working.
Fresh Start is mainly about the "other programmes" the boot camps are a very minor part of the Fresh Start programme. The thrust is much more towards parenting programmes, drug and alcohol programmes, mentoring, supervision etc
ie Working with youth offenders to effect change rather than punishing them. I have seen a good part of it and can see much worth in the approach. -
Hard News: Perception and reality in the…, in reply to Matthew Poole,
If we had some political will to tackle the sources of crime through multi-generational approaches, we’d get somewhere
Matthew - you are of course so right. It's an area I work in and its frustrating to see so much heat going into the crime and punishment area when longer term preventive measures get much less support.
Articulating the message is the challenge - long term prevention means working with younger ages, multi-generations and it is more complex. It doesn't lend itself well to headlines and sound bytes. It was refreshing however to hear Bill English talk about the economic advantages of long term prevention over prisons , its a start.
