Transcriber: Nhu Quynh Reviewer: Annet Johnson
So in order to understand education in difficult settings,
I’ve been watching a documentary series about the most dangerous school in the UK.
People actually die there.
The school’s called Hogwarts.
(Laughter)
It seems everyone there carries wooden shivs.
The doco follows three rebels through their second reschooling.
It reminded me of my own journey through education,
though not as many dark wizards to deal with.
I do remember there were some rather nasty trolls.
So why are we so interested in the stories of rebels?
What can we learn from them?
How might rebels improve schools and perhaps other institutions?
Well, education itself is an institution.
We Muggles have collaboratively constructed this system,
initially for the benefit of people;
as it turns out, making kids smarter benefits everyone.
When we come together to do something,
like running a country or producing a product
or perhaps educating the next generation,
we build an institution,
a pseudo entity, a kind of golem,
like the mythical clay robot from the mystical Jewish stories,
only invisible.
Corporations, organizations, religions, governments,
these are all examples of great, hulking, invisible golems
that we call institutions and we’re surrounded by them.
And then we install policy and protocol.
We add administration to streamline processes
at the expense of alternative points of view.
And then our institutional golem becomes something a lot less genial;
it becomes a Cyclops.
Have you ever heard of a happy Cyclops?
They’re always grumpy.
They’re vicious and mean.
They have one point of view, so they have a limited perception of depth.
Cyclopic institutions harbor a disdain for complexity, which is reality,
and they have a narrow focus which is usually fiscal.
They develop blind spots.
You want an example of a cyclopic institution?
Have you ever been to school?
For my school teachers, I was destined for failure.
Like many divergent kids, my report cards would say things like,
“Demonstrates unfulfilled potential” or “Often disruptive in class.”
I was deemed lazy because I spent most of my time drawing.
I was listening, but I’d be drawing cartoons and little animations
in the corner of my textbook.
I wanted to entertain future readers of that book.
Despite all this drawing, I failed years eight, nine, and ten art.
How do you fail art?
(Laughter)
I was often booted from the classroom for sharing my ideas, or even worse,
asking questions.
And now I’m an award-winning independent animator.
I've lectured in animation at university.
I myself have been a visual arts teacher in public secondary education
for almost 20 years.
I don’t usually give TEDx Talks,
but I do get paid to draw and to share my ideas and ask questions.
I have also been a practicing street artist since my teens;
learning how to control the spray can has been one of my most useful skills.
I’m what some people might call a subversive, a culture hacker.
I’m a rebel, but not in a cool denim leather jacket kind of way.
In any given situation or institution, I immediately question,
“Why does it have to be this way?”
I harbor a deep suspicion of authority
and I question the motives of those that would seek those positions.
As you can imagine, I’m also incredibly difficult to manage.
And that, my friends, is how you jeopardize
any future employment opportunities.
(Laughter)
I still enjoy creating street art,
though I like to find ways to do it within the boundaries of the laws.
So I use removable materials, such as chalk or tape,
to produce temporary artworks.
Surprisingly, these temporary street works tend to last quite some time,
so technically ...
I'm littering.
So what I’ve decided to do instead is to enhance other people’s litter.
I noticed that people had dumped mattresses by the side of the road
(Laughter)
and it took very little effort to rearrange and then decorate them.
I thought ...
(Laughter)
how personal these items had been to their former owners,
only to be thrown away thoughtlessly when they’ve gotten too old,
perhaps a metaphor for how we treat our elderly.
I call them “sickbeds,”
and as you can imagine, the local council picks them up pretty quick.
(Laughter)
I like to find ways to be a little bit rebellious where it doesn't hurt anyone
and preferably where I can get away with it.
I’m trying to be a responsible rebel
or, if you want to think mythically about it, a unicorn.
Unicorns are more than just sparkly, pointy horses that poop rainbows.
They’re a symbol of rebels that embody the ambiguity
or the mix of facticity and transcendence that’s inherent in us all.
Institutional unicorns are instinctively creative.
They are divergent thinkers who are difficult to control,
hard to contain,
and impossible to predict.
We operate from an ethics of care,
putting people and relationships first.
To unicorns the institution is still a tool to the benefit of the “us,”
responsible rebels, unicorns, with tangent takers.
I believe they're highly valuable, but rarely treated as such.
Mahatma Gandhi,
Rosa Parks,
Edward Snowden,
these are all famous rule breakers who operated with a conscience
to remind the cyclopic institution of its original purpose;
that of delivering benefit to people.
Unicorns understand that sometimes resistance is fertile.
So what about education?
Well, traditionally, teachers are high in agreeableness and conscientiousness,
not exactly the traits usually associated with rebels.
They are more like that Neville kid from Hogwarts.
Teachers want change,
but often their inclination to keep the rules and not upset anyone
means, sadly, that nothing changes.
And schools still operate as they have since the Industrial Revolution,
despite our digital world.
Burdened with administrative tasks and superfluous processes,
many teachers are too encumbered
to focus on the actual students which is what the institution is all about.
This situation elicits a few responses:
leave; give up teaching;
some stay and are slowly crushed under the weight and they become bitter;
some climb the managerial ladder out of the classroom,
so they can then tell other teachers who are still in the classroom
how to do their job;
or stay in the classroom and just choose not to do everything,
be a bit of a rebel.
You can guess which one I picked.
So whether you’re a Neville teacher
or you’ve seen similar cyclopic, I guess, strategies in your workplace
I want to share with you my strategies of rebellion
to help you be brave, responsible unicorns.
First, personal benefit undermines any social impact.
I wish our politicians could understand that.
As my wise wife reminds me regularly, “It’s not about you.”
Second, you can’t affect much change from the outside;
you’ve got to be part of the institution at the level you wish to see the change.
It’s no good trying to change the classroom from the principal’s office.
If there’s something wrong with education, be a teacher, get on the front lines.
Third, ...
add value, utilize your creativity,
your skills,
your connections to stay relevant within the institution.
Make it difficult for the Cyclops to get rid of you
because you’re so valuable and value isn’t always fiscal.
Fourth, ...
if you’re going to do the wrong thing, do it well.
I sprayed a big picture of Gandhi on my classroom wall
with the words, “Be the Change.”
I wanted to inspire my students,
but I also wanted to remind myself
to be the kind of teacher that I wish that I’d had.
As a skilled professional, I did it without getting approval.
(Laughter)
When my principal came to inspect the damage,
she ...
was understandably surprised.
See, the cyclopic institution tells her, in her role, that she has to reprimand me.
But how do you tell someone off for doing something so meaningful,
possibly even beautiful?
She was stuck.
I apologized to her.
She was so impressed;
in fact, she got me to paint a mural on the front of the school.
So if you’re going to go about your wrong, your purposeful wrong,
do it so skillfully that it engenders respect.
And fifth, this is the responsible bit, you’ve got to own your actions.
Don’t hide behind excuses.
By all means, use apologies;
apologies are way more valuable than excuses
and we’re not exactly asking for permission to rebel,
so learn how to say sorry.
Sixth, ...
I enjoy, I like, asking dumb questions about stupid processes,
but not during meetings
because everyone will hate you for making the meeting go longer.
(Laughter)
I found that the best time to ask those dumb questions
is when I’m getting in trouble for not following the stupid processes.
I find that, if I display my ignorance and coupled with a well-placed apology,
I can generally get away with not too much trouble on me.
I can walk away unscathed
and sometimes I even learn why they had the process in the first place.
I often think, “Wouldn’t it just be easier to tell us why?”
And perhaps the most important strategy of all, lastly,
exploit systems but don’t exploit people.
Now, if you're in management over a unicorn, lucky you.
(Laughs)
You’re going to need to be flexible, I understand.
Be a Dumbledore, not a Dolores Umbridge.
Collaborate with them to find ways in which you can help institute change.
Unicorns are full of ideas, that’s the whole point;
that was a unicorn pun.
(Laughter)
I think it’s fine to be passionate about the institution that you’re in.
I personally believe in public education.
I think it’s a powerful, if not under-resourced and understaffed golem,
that can really drive social mobility and change,
but not as a Cyclops.
I think there’s a reason why J.K. Rowling set her stories in a school setting.
As Nelson Mandela said,
“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”
Education as a weapon,
I wonder what we’re fighting?
I wonder what we’re fighting for?
I don’t think you have to be a teacher to institute change.
I think it’s important though to question the rules,
force a new perspective.
I’ve learnt a lot from that documentary series.
As a responsibly rebellious unicorn teacher,
I hope, like my old report cards,
that we can all demonstrate unfulfilled potential
and I sincerely hope that we’re often disruptive in class.
(Applause)