I’ve started trying to get more work leading creative writing workshops in schools. I never really saw myself as an artist-in-schools type of person but it’s partly a credit crunch thing (consultancy work may be thin on the ground but the government’s Creative Partnerships scheme in schools goes on, at least until the government changes).
As a result of the above I have been applying for various jobs in schools and last week I toddled along to a local(ish) college to be part of their ‘Creative Day’. The students are aged 14-19 so this is a bit of a departure for me, as most of my work has been with either adults or younger kids. I have only once before worked with yoof and I didn’t enjoy it much. Or, to put it another way, I am Scared of the Big Kids.
The brief for the Creative Day was ‘loose’ to put it bluntly. I received a briefing document which banged on about creating a mascot and logo and had to phone the Deputy Head to ask for clarification on how they saw my skills as a poet fitting in. The best advice she could give was, “Don’t come prepared”. Apparently the school had some vision of creative practitioners in various disciplines (there were 16 of us in total) ‘floating’ around the school, dipping in and out of various classrooms and being called upon to provide inspiration to hordes of enthusiastic, culture-hungry students and staff as they went about their creative tasks for the day.
Hmmmm.
Creative Day:
Having dispatched Smudge off to nursery at an unearthly hour (7.45am) I drive the five miles to the school and am greeted in the car park by some young ‘creative ambassadors’. They escort me to a briefing with coffee and croissants (very civilized; can’t eat any, too scared). Afterwards the deputy head takes me aside and tells me that although most of the creative practitioners (that’s ‘arty types’ to you and me) have been allocated four tutor groups to work with, I’ve only been given two because they felt that one of them would need “a lot of support”. Alarm bells ringing yet? Yes, me too.
However I have no time to make a run for it since one of the young ambassadors is ushering me to my classrooms where I meet the first, less needy of the two teachers I’ll be working with (media studies, looks perfectly happy with his lot) and then thrust in the direction of the classroom where “we think you’ll be spending most of your time” (goddamnit, those bells are loud!)
At the front of the class, Mr H is cowering behind his pc. He is an ICT teacher. He looks profoundly uncomfortable with (a) being involved with anything ‘creative’, (b) being a teacher, ( c) being alive. He thrusts the brief for the day at me and mutters something about not having any ideas. I am suddenly very glad that I spent a whole day preparing to not come prepared. I cannot see the students at all because they are hiding behind banks of computers. Yes, that’s right, we are in the ICT suite - an environment not wholly conducive to creativity, interaction, communication or any of the other aims of the day.
One of the requirements of the day was that students were supposed to bring in recycled items to help them complete their creative tasks. Mr H enquires in a resigned tone whether anyone has brought anything. No one has. However, at this minute a girl arriving late enters and drops onto Mr H’s desk a loo roll tube (slightly squashed). Bingo!
I politely suggest to Mr H that the students might remove themselves from behind the banks of monitors and come into the middle of the room, where I can at least see their faces (acne & hair straighteners rulez ok).
I do a couple of ‘icebreaker’ exercises to try and reduce the heady combination of ambivalence, reluctance and downright hostility I’m sensing. Responses vary from the self-conscious shruggers and gigglers to the lads engrossed in drawing a large erect penis.
A student ambassador enters and ask us to pick from a hat our ‘word for the day’, upon which we are required to prepare a creative presentation to be shown to the entire house (16 tutor groups) later. Our word for the day turns out to be ‘colour’. Trying to suppress my inward groans at its naffness, I ask students to shout out anything they can think of to do with ‘colour’. Silence reigns. I put on my most encouraging/inspiring/supportive face/voice/body language and eventually someone does shout something out. I am so relieved that I respond with unfettered enthusiasm. It is not until the words have left my mouth that the inappropriateness of my response strikes me.
Student: Racism?
Me: Racism! Great stuff!!!!!
Hastily abandoning the exercise, I turn instead to the recycling theme and ask students to think about things they have thrown away this week, both concrete and abstract, in small groups. I make my way around the groups, none of whom seem to be able to come up with anything. Not. A. Fucking. Thing. In most cases, we seem unable to get off the starting blocks due to an astounding lack of pens, considering these are students. In a school. What has happened to the concept of a ‘pencil case’? I approach a sandy-haired miss, who I shall call Naomi.
Me: Have you got a pen you can use so your group can get started?
Naomi: Nah. It’s in my bag.
Me: Where’s your bag?
Naomi: It’s over there.
Me: Well, could you go and get it please?
Naomi: Nah, I can’t be bovvered.
Me: Well, go and get it, it’s not far away is it?
Naomi: I’ve forgotten my pen anyway, I’ve just realised.
Me: Can you just check?
Naomi: You can’t tell me what to do!!!!
Me: Actually, Naomi, I can. Because I am an adult and you are a child.
I am to discover, during the course of the day, that ‘You can’t tell me what to do’ is Naomi’s stock response to any suggestion that she might actually do anything.
As I make my way around the room, one long haired lad thrusts his hand at me and says, “Hi, I’m Crispin”. Crispin, I soon realise, is the only intelligent and articulate lifeform present (I include Mr H in this analysis). Needless to say, he doesn’t seem to have a great many friends. Apart from me.
Meanwhile, chaos has broken out at the front of the room. Two students sent to collect resources for making the mascot later have burst back into the ICT suite shouting, “They are doing SAWING downstairs!!!!!” I assume this refers to one of the other arty types, evidently working in a more appealing artform than poetry. A rumble of discontent begins. “Miss, this is boring.” “When are we going to start making the mascot, Miss?” “When’s break, Miss?”
Having been a Mrs in the past, I don’t like being called Miss. Why not address me with, “Person with failed marital past, this is boring?” or, “38 year old spinster, this is boring?” However, I don’t want to contravene any behavioural code so I grit my teeth and put up with it.
I won’t describe the rest of the morning in detail but they do settle down a lot after the break when the class is split into two groups to create a mascot (the girls make a nice lion using Mr H’s lucozade bottle and the empty loo roll tube) and the House logo (6 lads muck around on the computers while Crispin creates a logo). I even get the chance to make a visit to my other tutor group, who are rattling along just fine.
Back in the ICT suite, as the lion and logo take shape I realise that we still have not prepared our presentation on the theme of ‘colour’. I ask Mr H whether I might remove a small number of students to do some writing on the theme. He agrees and I ask for volunteers. Hahahahaha. Then I ask Mr H to nominate some students.
Needless to say, Mr H nominates the four ‘least engaged’ lads in the room, and waves us goodbye with the most enthusiasm I’ve seen him display all morning.
So, here I am in the foyer area, with Jason (fat, quiet), Jon (football mad, wearing Leicester City kit), Steve (fat, lary), and Zach (ginge with bling). Those aren’t their real names. All aged between 14 and 17. We need to write some poems on the theme of ‘colour’. If you can imagine a less appealing scenario, I’d be interested to hear it.
But in fact I quite like the lads now I’ve removed them from their natural environment, and seeing as I spent a whole day preparing to not come prepared, I’ve got a few ideas up my sleeve. Before they know it, I’ve tricked them into writing some poems, and then I release them back into the wild before they realise what’s happened. Mwhahahahahahaha.
I put all the lads’ writing together and give it to Mr H to go into the presentation. That afternoon, 500 students file into the hall of the neighbouring high school to see what each tutor group has prepared. As our turn approaches, panic sets in among Mr H’s class. A whisper of “I’m not doing it” spreads like wildfire along our row of seats. I plead with Crispin, who flings his hair back and looks at me superciliously.
“I am not a public speaker,” he announces peevishly.
Trying not to attract attention to myself, I crawl along the row of seats, begging the students to be brave and deliver the presentation. To my surprise, obnoxious Naomi and another girl eventually agree, and when I return to my seat, Mr H (showing unprecedented initiative) has bribed Crispin and lary Steve with chocolate to get them to do it too.
At the last minute, at the very moment that Mr H is descending the auditorium steps, Naomi has an eleventh hour “I’m not doing it” panic. “Go on, Naomi,” I plead. “You can’t tell me what to do!” she shrieks. I fix her with a murderous glare. She goes.
After all that, I have to give them credit. They read the poems. They read them beautifully. We are the last tutor group to do our presentation before the break, so as the Head of House stands up to talk, I crawl once again towards Zach and the lads to congratulate them on their poems.
“I didn’t write that,” says Zach astonished.
“Yes, you did!” I tell him. “I didn’t add anything, I just put all your words together.”
Zach looks astounded, and then suddenly, just a little bit proud. But I have become aware of a shuffling noise, and 500 youthful heads turning in my direction, and the Head of House’s voice floating up the rows of chairs towards me. Yes, me.
“Will you please STOP TALKING AT THE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
The pencil case may have become outmoded but some things, it seems, will never change.
Codicil: Am I cut out for this lark? No. The day did help me make some decisions about my future workshop practice, namely, that I don’t wanna [work with this age group. Ever again.] The younger ones are fine. If you work with 14+ kids every day, you have my unstinting admiration. Please carry on. Don’t mind if I don’t.
