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David Almond: how to let your imagination fly
Spreading their wings: David Almond says children can flourish by reading literature Photo: Rii Schroer
By David Almond
7:00AM BST 01 Sep 2013
At the end of last year, I spoke at a course for teachers at Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books in Newcastle (an astonishing, pioneering institution that has just won a National Lottery award for best education project). Afterwards, a teacher from Dene Community School in Peterlee asked me to visit.
I visit schools when I can: state schools, private schools, primary schools, secondary schools, schools in far-flung rural places, schools in troubled inner-city areas. I used to be a teacher, and it’s a privilege to spend time in so many different institutions, to see what’s happening in children’s worlds. And like many children’s authors, I feel it’s part of the job to encourage and inspire – to help keep literary culture alive.
Dene School is in East Durham, an old industrial belt. It has a higher than average number of pupils with special educational needs; a higher than average number eligible for free school meals and the latest Ofsted report stated it “requires improvement”. It’s the kind of place many parents might steer clear of.
I worked all day with a group of 11 to 14-year-olds. We talked about my childhood and theirs, about our young ambitions and dreams. We talked about books: the authors they liked and admired. They talked about the stories and poems they wrote in school and at home. They asked perceptive questions about my work, about character, plot, writing techniques.
We wrote together: fast, careless writing; slow, structured writing. We used ordinary objects – a key, a sock, a packet of flower seeds – as catalysts for the imagination. I showed them my messy notebooks, and we talked about how the apparent perfection of a published book is an illusion, that the book, like all of the best human achievements, like society itself, is the product of an imperfect, dogged, messy, passionate, optimistic process. We talked about the importance of honouring the time you spend on a story or a poem, respecting the language, respecting yourself, not dismissing your work as useless, finding something to like in everything you write, the value of careful editing.
There was a lot of laughter, a lot of companionship, a lot of hard work. Eyes shone in the moments of recognition and surprise that come when a word, a phrase, an image showed itself apparently unbidden on the page. We wondered together at the spontaneous workings of the imagination and listened to each other as we read our work aloud.
But perhaps you don’t believe such things can happen with children of 11 to 14, in a school like Dene? You may accept the half-truths peddled by some of the media, and most shamefully of all, by some of our politicians, the kind of half-truths that seem to have become common currency: the education system is failing; state schools are dens of insolence and awful behaviour; children are disaffected, uninterested in learning; teachers can’t teach; they’re a bunch of Marxists; the best of them are only found in private schools… You may believe the line that’s often said to me, a children’s author: “Ah, kids don’t read any more, do they?” Why do people believe such things? Why don’t they see that the truth is more complex?
An incident halfway through my day at Dene might help us understand. The head teacher came into the room. The children proudly showed him their work. He smiled wryly. He handed me some press cuttings from last week’s newspapers. Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, had been talking about the schools of East Durham. “When you go into these schools,” Gove said, and he named Dene in his list, “you can smell the sense of defeatism.”
The children all knew what Gove had said. They looked at me intently: did I believe this, they asked. “It’s one of the most wonderful school visits I’ve ever made,” I said.
“You’ll tell other people?” they asked me.
“Yes.”
How must the fantastic young people I worked with at Dene feel when they hear such things about their schools, their teachers, themselves? How optimistic must they feel about their futures?
This is not simply another moan about Gove – there’s nothing new in a children’s author challenging him. And I’m not saying that all is fine in the educational world or the world at large. It’s not. How can it ever be?
Instead here are a few suggestions. First of all, try to find out what really happens at your local school. Wouldn’t it be great if more people – not school inspectors, not suited politicians perching awkwardly on small chairs for a photo-opportunity to launch this month’s dread initiative, not children’s authors such as myself – could also visit?
Go to Newcastle and visit Seven Stories, see the amazing work that is done there, see their great exhibitions of writing and illustration, see the vibrancy and health of children’s culture. Be amazed by the creativity and inventiveness of their educational programmes.
You could write, like the children in Dene did that day. Write a poem, a story, a song. Seems barmy? That’s OK. Lots of people tell me they’d love to write. Be childlike, be playful, be disciplined. Am I wrong to believe writing creatively can help us to understand the complexity and strangeness of ourselves and our world? I don’t think so.
Come to the Telegraph Bath Festival of Children’s Literature. Meet the writers, artists and publishers who create work for the young. Meet the teachers, librarians, classroom assistants who work with the young. Meet academics, professors and students who understand that children’s literature, rather than being a marginal, hardly important thing, is at the beating heart of our culture. Enter a world where people do genuinely believe that art and books can change people’s lives. See how responsive, thoughtful, perceptive, energetic and creative today’s children really are. Be inspired and informed.
Be brave. All you have to lose are some prejudices.
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發表於 13-11-19 11:08
Unless this changes, I doubt we will see much progress in a better environment.