[SSC] SSC - Response to Journalism student (interview questions)
Sarah Amsler
simonewright73 at googlemail.com
Mon Apr 30 16:17:17 UTC 2012
Hello everyone,
Please find below my response to Angela Cheng, a Journalism student
from Taiwan who asked some questions about the SSC for a report she is
writing as part of her course assignment.
I am planning to send it later this eveing; if you have any comments,
please get back to me before then.
Best,
Sarah
Hello Angela,
I've sent your request out to other members of the Social Science
Centre, so they may reply independently. I'll try to answer your
questions from my own perspective, but if you want to talk about
anything further, please let me know.
I'd like to say at the outset that these are my own personal
respsonses to the questions -- at least where I don't quote from the
Social Science Centre website. It's important for me to emphasise this
because we are a group of people who are trying to work collectively
at all levels. Within the group, however, there is a lot of diversity,
so different people may answer the questions in different ways. Some
of them are in fact still questions that we are discussing and
debating amongst ourselves. So the one thing we do like to say is that
no single person can represent the Social Science Centre in its
complexity, and that each person offers one representation, their own
(though often one forged through lots of discussion with others).
1. What is the main point that the teachers set up The Social Science
Centre, Lincoln?
The Social Science Centre was established in early 2011 by a small
group of academics, mainly social scientists, who were concerned about
the British Government's decision to both withdraw all public funding
for teaching in the social sciences, humanities and arts, and to raise
student tuition fees nearly three hundred per cent to, at present, a
maximum of £9000. They were concerned that it would become difficult
or impossible for many people to undertake study in these disciplines,
and indeed that some young people (and many older people wishing to
return to university) would be unable to pursue higher learning at
all. One major reason for establishing the SSC, therefore, is to
provide some way for people who wish to study social science but who
cannot pay the new fees, do not want to or are unable to take out
student loans, or are not particularly interested in learning towards
a formal credential to be able to do so. Alongside this, however, is
the need that I think many educators feel to work with students and to
teach and learn in creative, cooperative, non-authoritarian and
non-bureaucratised ways that are not always possible within
universities today. The increasing financialisation and marketisation
of universities in this country and around the world are altering what
higher education means, what knowledge is for, and how people learn.
In some institutions, ways of knowing and learning that are not
economically efficient or profitable in different ways are
marginalised or prohibited. Languages of critical education, critical
pedagogy, are often silenced where discourses of 'employablity' become
dominant. And the worth of education -- of different universities,
courses, schools of thought, methodologies, teachers and students --
is now often measured through quantitative metrics such as league
tables which encourage competition rather than collaboration between
all of the above. So, we are working both against these negative
trends in education, which lead towards tying knowledge, research and
higher learning to the needs of capital and to the already-powerful,
and towards the creation of alternative forms of critical and
cooperative education in our own locality.
The Social Science Centre is very much a 'situated' or local project;
it is based in the city of Lincoln in the UK, and our hope is to be as
active as possible across the city itself -- in community and social
centres, museums, public spaces, spaces that should be public.
However, we are also inspired by and in contact with other people
working on other kinds of alternative higher education projects in
other parts of the UK, and overseas.
For a selected things that have been written about the SSC to date,
see http://socialsciencecentre.org.uk/documents/. The Stanistreet
(2012) article might give some background; the Burgin (2011) may give
a hint at historical precendents and histories of
radical/autonomous/cooperative education.
2. When is the exact time that the courses start? And How will it carry out?
We are planning to begin courses in October 2012. This will work
slightly differently from a typical university course, in that the
first weeks are likely to be spent discussing the concept of each
course and negotiating its main themes, structure and curriculum.
There are also likely to be different kinds of courses -- running in
the evening, or on weekends, or perhaps in other blocks of time,
depending on the needs and desires of those who are involved in them.
Prior to this, in the summer, we'll be organising workshops and
seminars around the ideas of curriculum, cooperative education,
pedagogy, and other issues that are relevant for our work, and for
developing deeper understandings of both our work and the context in
which we are working. There is a sense, I think, of needing to learn
to learn, and build to be able to build. There is a mindfulness within
the Centre that the sort of project we are imagining not only requires
commitments of time and energy from those involved, but because it is
in many cases very different from what we and others are used to, it
also demands a lot of learning along the way. So while classes will
begin in October, the process of their development precedes this point
in time, and will overflow it as the courses and the Centre develop.
I, at least, am looking forward to being taken in not-yet-imagined
directions as they do.
3. How do the institution operate in the situation that students don
have to pay the fees?
As it is not an institution as such, we have a lot of flexibility in
how we operate. The Social Science Centre runs mainly on the energy,
commitment and generosity of its members. None of the people teaching
are being paid for our work. Scholars have different reasons for
volunteering their time. Some see it as am intellecutal or social and
political responsibility; others are in positions, for example being
retired, where the need for such payment is not so acute. Members of
the Social Science Centre, whether student-scholars or
teacher-scholars, are encouraged to contribute to the cooperative if
they feel able to. We recommend a sum of one hour of a person's montly
wage (e.g., if a person earns £6 per hour, they are invited to
contribute £6 per month to the cooperative). This money is then used
for materials, paying for spaces to hold classes, purchasing library
cards for students, or the like. But this is a voluntary contribution
and does not affect anyone's membership rights. As an example, it
costs £5 per hour to hire a space in a local community centre. It
costs approximately £5 to make copies of a book chapter or article for
10 people. It costs nothing to find paper to write on and pens to
write with. Various people in the Centre have other sorts of
technologies of their own -- computers, printers, etc. We are not
paying fees to external organisations for accreditation, 'marketing'
or etc. And above all, there is a wealth of collective skill,
experience and knowledge -- really in any group that organsises
themselves -- which, when pulled together and worked with, makes many
things possible that may seem not so.
4. How many students will the institution recruit? How is the
evaluation now? (Is there many students want to enter to The Social
Science Centre, Lincoln?)
We would be delighted if as many as twenty people joined the Centre in
order to undertake study and research in the autumn. Because there is
a small group of teacher-scholars at the moment, the idea is to start
and perhaps to remain small. Thus far, we have had expressions of
interest from more people than this, and I think many people are in
the process of seeing what the project is about and how it works;
above all, whether it's something that could be meaningful for them.
It is likely not to be interesting for people who are focused on
earning a formal, accredited university degree. It is likely to be
more interesting for people who desire a cooperative,
non-instrumentalised, non-hierarchical and really alternative kind
higher education, and who want to participate actively in making such
opportunities possible for others. That being said, there is no
either-or relationship between this and formal university studies; I
have spoken to some people who plan to undertake both simultaneously.
Personally, I'm hugely excited about the project. It offers space for
me to teach and to learn with others from a diversity of social
positions about the insights of sociology, philosophy and education
that I believe to be of deep significance for engaging critically and
ethically in the social world. It is already also a type of space
where we can learn to reinvent our relationships with each other; to
cultivate ways of working with others, speaking and listening,
thinking and producing in ways that are not profit-driven,
competitive, bureaucratised and precarious. This is not an easy
process, of course; a brief glance at the history of autonomous and
cooperative projects in education, ecology and politics will give an
immediate indication of the contradictions and difficulties. But for
those who believe that the present organisation of society, and many
of the current ways of defining and organising higher education are
themselves unsustainable, the alternative should to work towards
something better. The Social Science Centre is part of this wider
project, and speaking personally, has opened up new windows of
possibility.
It might be a nice idea if you wrote back again in, e.g., November, or
in January, to see what's happened since today.
5. Please help me to find some students who want to enter to the
institution. I would need their opinions.
I have sent your request out to a number of people. If they haven't
replied to you, I will try to contact them again.
I hope this is helpful for your report. I'm sure you don't need this
advice at all, but you should of course try to find some critical
questions and comments about the Social Science Centre, in order to
broaden and criticalise the perspective. There are a number of really
pressing debates in general about the notions of 'collectivity',
'cooperatives', 'autonomy', 'radical education', 'critical pedagogy',
and etc., as well as problems of social inequalitie, representation,
hidden hierarchies, the role of the university in society, the meaning
of higher education, and etc. Any of these would be worth exploring;
they are all issues and problems we are discussing in the Centre.
All best,
Sarah
On 4/29/12, Sandie Stratford <sandiestrat at phonecoop.coop> wrote:
> I agree this makes excellent material for a discussion. Thank you Megan, I
> found your suggestions very coherent. We must keep our ideals [sic]
> polished. But I share Joss and others' anxiety about biting off more than
> we can chew, if wide publicity brings large numbers on board. Much as I
> want more people to be involved, if that's not a contradiction.
>
> Sandie
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Sarah Amsler
> To: ssc at lists.aktivix.org
> Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 12:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [SSC] SSC Digest, Vol 16, Issue 42
>
>
> I think a great comment and suggestion from Megan, thanks!
>
> We could actually use these statements to play with when we meet...which
> do people feel close to, common themes and differences, talking around
> them...
>
> Best,
> Sarah
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:23:22 +0100
> From: "Megan Robertson" <megan at medals.org.uk>
> To: <ssc at lists.aktivix.org>
> Subject: [SSC] Media stuff
> Message-ID: <CC29A156A1AD439DA30C38973DFEA579 at mexal>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> May an 'outsider' comment, please?
>
> Having discovered you just yesterday through a BBC website article,
> having
> had no idea of your existence before then, I would hope that you would
> grasp
> any suitable opportunity to raise your profile through the media.
>
> It will, however, be important for you to decide just what you think you
> are
> as a collective organisation, and to ensure that you present yourselves
> accordingly.
>
> So, what are you?
>
> People who want to share knowledge in a structured way, by offering
> 'courses' in subjects in which you are knowledgeable in a manner
> accessible
> to anyone who wants to learn.
>
> People who don't like the way in which higher education is developing
> and
> who want to offer an alternative.
>
> People who see themselves as 'activists' seeking to destroy existing
> modes
> of providing education and replacing them with their own vision.
>
> People who do not care for the increasing 'commercialisation' of
> education
> and so want to offer it for free...
>
> Woolly-headed idealists? :)
>
> Some, all or none of the above?
>
> Different things will attract different people, so you will also need
> to
> consider the sort of people that you want to attract. (You may at this
> point
> decide you'd rather I went away!)
>
> For what it's worth, I followed up the BBC story and stuck my nose in
> because I am passionate about the provision of excellent education that
> inspires learners, and as an e-learning specialist I'm fascinated about
> 'alternate' ways of sharing knowledge and skills.
>
> (I also happen to be unemployed, so am always looking for projects that
> might want to make use of my skills... at least, until I find someone
> who'll
> pay me! Until then, and even beyond, interesting not-for-profit projects
> can
> have those skills for nothing.)
>
> A few thoughts from an outsider looking in, read, discard at your
> pleasure.
>
> Megan Robertson
> FBCS CITP
>
> "By doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we come to
> perceive
> the truth" (Abelard)
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> SSC mailing list
> SSC at lists.aktivix.org
> https://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/ssc
>
>
> End of SSC Digest, Vol 16, Issue 42
> ***********************************
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SSC mailing list
> SSC at lists.aktivix.org
> https://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/ssc
>
More information about the SSC
mailing list