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The period since 1990 has been a momentous episode in the life of ALP. In the years since the first publication of Living Adult Education, ALP has continued to develop a broad curriculum of cultural studies and action based on the ideas and practices of Paulo Freire. There is not the space here to tell the whole story of what became one of the most exciting and productive periods in the life of ALP so far, but we will attempt to convey some of the sense of excitement and solidarity that was shared by all of those that were involved in a truly historical adventure in learning and action. We begin by taking a broad look at the politics of the time which were extraordinary in the sense that ordinary people became engaged in a political process which changed the life of Scotland forever. The chapter will look at how ALP engaged with the conjunctural nature of these times and how its programme grew exponentially as people sought to find ways of understanding the changes that were taking place around them and new ways of engaging directly in them. The rapid growth of the programme presented many challenges in relation to the maintenance of the ethos and practices of the project. We will look at how the teaching and learning practice of ALP was codified and then taught to the ALP tutors and how the social nature of learning amongst a much larger body of learners was maintained. Several examples of learning and action programmes are outlined to offer a flavour of the life of the project during the 1980s and ‘90s before the story of the life of the project is brought up to the present day. A Developing Conjuncture The events of 1979 would come to dominate the life of ALP as they did the lives of all the people of Scotland throughout the next twenty years. The failure to secure a parliament for Scotland in the referendum had been down to an amendment which required the support of at least 40% of the Scottish electorate to vote for change, and while a majority of voters supported change, there were not enough to break-through the “40% rule”. A sense of shame, resentment, bewilderment and recrimination came to dominate Scottish politics in the period to follow as people wondered how the opportunity had been lost. The division which dominated the referendum campaign seemed to confirm the feeling that Scotland wasn’t ready to handle its own affairs. There was however, little time to dwell on what had passed as what Martin called Mrs Thatcher's 'project of hegemonic and institutional reconstruction' (Martin 1992) began its consensus shattering progress through the economy, the welfare consensus and eventually the institutions of Scottish civic society. By the late 1980’s opposition to Thatcherism was almost complete in Scotland. Gerri Kirkwood wrote of the period that people felt ‘a sense of impotence in the face of de-industrialisation, and the loss of community based on work.’ and a sense of ‘rage at the imposition of government policies which were felt to cut across the grain of our collectivist and egalitarian values’ (Kirkwood,1991). Driven by monetarist principles the government had refused to intervene as the manufacturing base of the Scottish economy was decimated and the imposition of policies like the “Poll Tax” had driven this sense of loss and rage but it was out of this that new political and civic alliances were being built on what Gramsci calls ‘the terrain of the conjunctural’. (Forgacs, 1988). By 1989 the civic and political establishment found themselves drawn onto this terrain as the independence of the central civic institutions of Scottish life came under threat from a government who sought to undermine the political role of civic bodies. A Constitutional Convention was established to prepare the way for a separate Scottish legislature which would place these institutions, and their role in the political life of the country, beyond the reaches of Westminster. However, they weren’t alone in organising for a new political age in Scotland. A Scottish Civic Assembly was formed to offer a rallying point for those outside the civic and political establishment and new political alliances were formed between political parties which had previously been sworn enemies. As people’s political aspirations were frustrated at successive general elections, they began to turn to cultural expressions of opposition which transcended the world of representative politics and focussed on issues of identity. Through language, history, theatre, music, dance, song and literature people found a type of counter-hegemonic activity which engaged them in a struggle to construct new Scottish identities free of the homogenised and inferior images of the past. In moderated, rational Scotland these were truly revolutionary times as a new consensus emerged that demanded the re-negotiation of the relationship between Scotland and the United Kingdom. The historical opportunity that this conjuncture presented was the stuff of the ALP programme which emerged in the wake of the 1989 co-investigation as the project set-out to build a 'pedagogy of hope' through a broad curriculum of cultural reflection and action which sought to reflect and respond to the counter-hegemonic spirit of the times. The 1989 co-investigation was one of the most ambitious carried out by ALP, involving large numbers of people exploring a wide range of generative themes. (For a fuller description see Kirkwood, 1991) The co-investigation threw up a number of learning challenges covering a range of themes including: Power, Control and Democracy; Culture and Identity; History; Religion; Cultural Expression; Democratic Education; Women in Scotland; Land and Environment and these challenges would become the focus of the projects work for the coming decade. We had not planned that there would be not be another co-investigation until almost a decade later but in retrospect we can see that there were a number of factors which led to this: the large number of learning challenges; the unexpected growth in demand for the programmes as they emerged; the conjunctural nature of the political and cultural life of the people at the time; and the realisation that more work could be done to develop the broader curriculum possibilities of the project. The task then became to consider the learning challenges presented by the co-investigation and plan the development of a broad curriculum of Historical, Political, Cultural and Economic studies which would engage the participants in a programme of inter-disciplinary studies. Codifying the teaching/learning
process It had been the norm that ALP staff would be directly involved with learning groups, structuring the learning experience and ensuring that it was dialogical in its nature and approach. In an expanding programme this was no longer the case as tutors needed to be brought in for their expertise and knowledge. Where possible tutors who were sympathetic to the approach of the project were brought in to teach but they needed help to develop their methodological range of skills. Those tutors who had no experience of this kind of teaching needed to be given clear guidelines. The teaching and learning process was broken-down into a four-step approach to dialogical teaching and learning which we hoped could be applied in any subject area. The approach involved the design of an opening session in which the views of the students in relation to the subject are expressed; the planning of a teaching session about the subject itself delivered by the tutor; the design of a structured dialogue in which the tutor uses a four-stage analysis of the given subject which will incorporate the initial views of the students and the generative themes that are at the core of the course; finally the tutor must plan a summary and review section in which the students can talk about what they have learned and what they would like to do as a result of the session. Student Research: Students research the subject in their daily lives Knowledge In-put: Teachers deconstruct existing knowledge Integrative Dialogue: Students and teachers construct new knowledge Future Orientation: Imagining the future All four elements then, are designed to transform study into a preparation for action: Student research allows the student to see the relevance of the subject in their daily context; The deconstruction of existing knowledge by the teacher exposes the permanent need to build new versions; Student/teacher dialogue allows for the construction of new knowledge; and future orientation allows the students to consider how new knowledge may change their reality in practical ways. Regular sessions were held with tutors where the teaching and learning structure was taught and possible approaches to a range of subjects were discussed. More experienced tutors supported tutors who were new to the approach and encouraged them to experiment. Through this process of training and discussion a manual of ideas and approaches emerged which was passed on to new tutors. There were clear differences between how the approach was used. The dialogical model tended to lend itself more naturally to discursive subjects like History and Democracy but those teaching skill based subjects like Photography or a musical instrument found it more difficult to adapt the four steps to their subject. Nevertheless, many interesting experiments in the use of the structure emerged and the model proved to be adaptable. Some examples of the use of the model in practice will be given later. Training of tutors wasn’t the only strategy to protect the dialogical ethic of the project. Learning in dialogue is not just about the individual relationship between teacher and student. It is also a broader social/cultural relationship with the other students around them. Working with others in dialogue demands learning new ways of being and new forms of behaviour which must be learned. Skills like active listening, paraphrasing, critical thinking and personal expression are essential to building new ways of relating to each other and they need to be taught as an integral part of subject-based studies. The combination of transparent teaching methodology and dialogical relationship building are the keys to democratising the classroom and turning it into a setting where real transformation can occur. It should become a place where people can experiment with knowledge and with each other, where solutions to the challenges of the world outside the classroom may be imagined and tested by the students. Thus the dialogical classroom becomes the practice ground of freedom. Paula Allman (1991) talks about the dialogical learning relationship as preparing people for change: 'The preparation hinges upon offering people a glimpse or an abbreviated experience of what it could mean to know, to learn, to be and relate differently'. As these 'abbreviated experiences' multiply and the students' familiarity with the approach grows, they become less dependent on the tutor and more autonomous in their learning. They also become protectors of the dialogical ethic of the project as they learn themselves how to use the methods and approaches used by the project. In recent years a number of very popular classes and groups have been run on the ideas and practices of Paulo Freire. These courses have been filled with experienced ALP participants who have gone on to become tutors themselves. Keeping Learning Social One of its main tasks is to develop the social life of the project and help students connect across the subject disciplines. In the early 90s The Association started hosting project wide seminars towards the end of each year. The seminars, called Gaitherins (Scots for gatherings) brought together all the different groups to see how, while studying different subjects, they may be addressing the same themes. Each group was encouraged to present its main points of learning in as interesting a way as possible through drama, song, visual aids, etc. and then a discussion about the main themes that had emerged was held. The Gaitherins were not simply end of term parties, they allowed people to see the links between their subjects and spawned many programmes of co-operation between groups. One of the most important of these was the programme of study visits and international exchanges which emerged in the early nineties and continue to this day. Scotland’s national poet said: “O wad some Pow’r
the giftie gie us Individuals and cultures learn about themselves through their reflection in others' eyes. In addition to consolidating their learning through re-presenting it to people they met on ALP trips to other areas and countries, students progressed their learning through these study visits. They understood more about the effects of Scotland’s feudal system of land ownership through comparisons with Ireland’s similar topography and landscape but different ownership system; they discovered more about the relationship between Scotland and England through hearing Bretons’ views about the French state; and recognised the effects of globalisation on their local economy by visiting and talking to a Highland crofter. Freire would view these study trips as forms of 'codifications', stimuli presented to students to enable them to examine their own experiences at a critical distance, encouraging a contextualised understanding of their lives and their historicity. The ALP Association serves as the social hub of the project and holds regular parties, suppers, concerts, poetry nights, where the students perform along side tutors and professionals reinforce the sense of community and introduce people to the practical skills required in seeking a praxis. It also holds large Ceilidh dances to raise funds but these just as importantly, serve the need to create new social spaces where participants could practice their new found skills in music, song and dance, and where the public could interact with ALP and experience the heady atmosphere of a culture reinventing its self. The ALP Association insists that there be refreshments available at the Ceilidhs which requires voluntary effort and organisation not normal to most educational institutions. The atmosphere we seek to create could be described as a team of colleagues working together to understand and tackle together the object of their enquiry, be it a tin whistle tune or a philosophic problem, i.e. a "Culture circle" Finally, The Association also acts as a organisational vehicle to engage with the outside world. During the Nineties and since then the association has engaged creatively in making a contribution to the popular political process which resulted in a parliament for Scotland, making banners and encouraging and organising debates in the local community, as well as taking part in the national marches and debates of the time. When Freire said ‘Learning is always, always, always social’ (Frere,????) it seems to us that he used the idea of social in a number of senses. Dialogical learning is social because it is always between people, but it is also social because it is a learning encounter which is always human and convivial. Lastly, dialogical learning is social because it is always about the world and engages people with the world. The ALP Association has achieved all of these with the people of ALP. Learning Programmes Traditional Music, Song and Dance As part of a generally low self-esteem, Scots people had a very ambiguous relationship to anything to do with indigenous musical forms. We met with local musicians to investigate this aspect further, and decided, as part of the "Making Sense of Scotland" programme, to offer evening class tuition for adults on a weekly basis to encourage the practice of traditional arts in a participative and non-competitive way. We set up our first four classes: in fiddle, guitar, song and tin whistle. In 1990, 60 people enrolled; in 1995 we had 300 students in 22 classes at different levels. ( In 2002 we enrolled over 600 adults in fiddle, accordion, tin whistle, pipes, small pipes, guitar, mouth organ, mandolin, mixed instruments, step and social dancing and song classes.) All of these were offered for a wide range of abilities, and this is now the largest programme of adult classes in traditional music in Europe. It is important to emphasise that the aim was not to produce competition winners, or concert performers, but to bring the music back into everyday use in the family and the community' (Reeves and Galloway, 1996). Thus wrote Stan and Vernon for an international conference on Adult Education and the Arts in 1996. It had been something of a surprise that, given the contradiction alluded in the above statement, that so many people wanted to learn about traditional arts. The challenge that we now faced was how to develop the teaching and learning experience in synthesis with the dialogical ethos of ALP. Classes learned tunes and songs in common, and from an early stage, students were encouraged to take part in 'sessions' in local pubs. Tutors ensured that the class tunes and songs were included to enable students to join in, building their confidence and helping them to see themselves as creators not mere consumers. Having learned by ear, as their skills grew they could also play along with tunes new to them.The common repertoire of tunes and the pub-based learners sessions allowed the tutors to start each class asking how the learners had got on in the session. Thus, classes could begin with a discussion which grounded their learning in the social context. The Tutor could then go on to teach the class something about the tunes they were learning. Tutors were encouraged not only to teach the technical elements of playing the tune well but also where possible give the tune some social context. The class could then go on to learn the tune together before finishing with an invitation to the pub session. As the programme developed, special interest groups were formed to allow for more intensive learning than could be provided on a weekly basis. This led to a wide range of autonomous organisations and annual activities: for example, Scotland's Fiddle Festival, The Power of Song Weekend, a Social Dance Workshop Weekend, the Easter four-day Youth Gaitherin for school-age children, a 40-strong Folk Choir, 2 song ensembles, 6 dance bands, a retired persons' band, and numerous performing duos and trios. This huge and rapid growth clearly met a very real need in human beings to get together to make music and to sing and dance. ALP's Scots Music Group has now become a fully fledged voluntary organisation. In 2002 there were over 50 active committee members in 5 separate sections of the organisation. To all this activity they have brought their existing skills and experience, but there was also a massive development of new skills and competencies. Through their learning and productive collective activity (Praxis) they have become a democratic learning community based on meaningful and sustainable human relationships. It is clear from our experience that there are large numbers of people who are hungry to get involved in traditional music, song and dance - and thus to become creators, building community by organising and practising the traditional arts. They share with all human beings what Freire identified as our ontological desire for 'authentic comradeship', and, by creating culture together, they challenge the 'false gregariousness' and passive consumption promoted by the globalised entertainment industry. Learning the Land The inequitable, archaic and feudal system of ownership was put under scrutiny in what was one of our most popular classes. The Land group took part in the study visits we made at weekends to different parts of the country to examine the issues and made an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the culture as a whole. We collaborated with a land expert who was writing a book on ownership and the learning group found themselves doing original research for a publication that was to have profound effect. Andy Wightman's book "Who Owns Scotland?" was so revelatory that it forced a political debate, one result being in that one of the first pieces of legislation of the new Scottish parliament was for land reform. Thus the students of ALP's Land group felt as if they had made a real contribution to reform by their own actions. The potential for praxis in educational activity was realised in a separate activity of the Land group when one of the members did a presentation of the white paper which would lead to the Criminal Justice Bill being introduced. The group felt that this piece of legislation had such profound consequences for land access and use, that they determined to hold a public meeting to discuss the matter in the wider community. Simultaneously ALP's Democracy group had been studying participatory methods of conducting meetings, so they were brought in as consultants and facilitators. The land group hosted 2 public meetings attended by over 130 people out of which an action group was formed to fight a by- election on a platform against the Bill. Thus, can the actions of an educational project, and a powerful and relevant generative theme can create a process out of which direct action for reform arises The History Workshop The warning given in the learning challenge which lead the History programme warned us not to wallow in the past as many Scots like to do. The problem of a romanticised past that is cut-off from the present, is that people can simply get stuck in it, preferring it to life in the present. We had to avoid this pitfall that many history projects had fallen into before. The history courses in ALP took many forms over this period of development and there is only room here to look at one but the structure and principles contained in this single example were maintained in one shape or form throughout the various manifestations of the history programme. The title History Workshop was used to suggest the approach which was to be taken in the course. We were determined to develop a dynamic and participative approach to the teaching of the subject which centred on the expertise of the tutor but which also drew on the experience and active engagement of the learners. This was not to be a dry experience of passive listening and digestion of dates but rather a coming together of people discovering the past in new ways which inspired them to work to make history in the present. Each workshop period lasted for six weeks and focussed on a particular historical period with a central event acting as a locus around which learners could develop their own particular interests. In this way we sought to avoid the chronological listing of dates, so familiar in traditional teaching of history. This is not to say that there was no chronology to the development of the course as it did progress through staged historical periods, but simply that the dates were less significant than what Gramsci calls the ‘organic’ and ‘conjunctural’ movement of historical developments. This also had the effect of new participants being able to join or indeed, drop-out of the programme at more regular intervals. For many adults the ability to commit to a sustained period of learning is difficult due to life-style, changes in circumstances, family commitments etc. These more regular changes in workshop periods took this into account and allowed people to disengage and re-engage as they felt necessary or convenient. The first session of most workshop periods would begin with a reminder of what the purpose of the workshop was. This would often involve taking an extract from Beveridge and Turnbull’s chapter on Scottish history and lead to a discussion about how history has been traditionally written, who has written it and their particular ideological take on the past. The emphasis would then be on the importance of people to write their own versions of history from their own stand-point. From there-on-in every session would begin with a section entitled History today in which participants would be asked to come-up-with events form the past week and how they thought they might be recorded by history. The discussions ranged from topical news stories to local and personal events and considered how these might be seen in a historical context and how they might be recorded depending on the viewpoint of the historian. Starting with this focus was designed to ground the session in the present day and offered a reference point for discussions throughout the session as a way of brining people back to the current when they might be tempted to get stuck in the past. This was followed by a short in-put from the tutor on the historical period under consideration. As was outlined above, a typical workshop period would take a significant event, in this example the death of Robert Burns in 1769???? It was common for the tutor to start the in-put with visual images for the group to look at rather than written texts. Literacy abilities in ALP groups could vary widely and while text had its place in individual study it was more common to use visual images. In the case of this example, a well known image of Burns would be examined by the group and the image would be decoded using a structured conversation method, described earlier in this book. The aim of the discussion was to help people consider how Burns was being depicted, what messages the artist was trying to convey about the poet and how it matched or differed from the participants images of Burns. Introducing the subject in this way allowed the tutor to re-emphasize the point about the construction of history and how that colours our own views of people and events. The tutor would then go on to look at the contradictions present in the popular story of Burns and the ways in which his more radical credentials have tended to be under-played in some versions of history. The tutorial would then progress to look at the period of history that Burns inhabited and the radical and conservative conflicts of the period. After some opportunity to clarify and question what the tutor had said the session moved into workshop mode. The workshop usually involved three groups initially working with an ALP worker or volunteer tutor. These groups tended to form around the headings working life, social life and political life taking one aspect each and setting-out to gather information about the period in relation to their subject heading. Organising the workshop groups under these headings of economic, social and political life allowed the groups to look at life in all its aspects and to become familiar with these different subject areas. These groups became small research teams for the remainder of the workshop period. On the first night they would consider what interested the members of the group in relation to the workshop heading and then talk about how they could find-out more for the group. With the help of the group tutor they would look at possible books, web-sites, TV programmes, magazines, etc, where information might be found and then agree to try to bring some information back the following week. The next four sessions would mainly involve the participants meeting in their workshop groups and the members reporting back their discoveries. Each workshop period would end with a series of presentations from the groups outlining the main things they had discovered about the historical period in relation to their particular area of interest. These presentations were always exciting and full of insights as the groups became more adept at developing dramatic ways of presenting their findings. Music of the period was played, costume was worn, dramatic reconstructions were acted-out and images of the period were projected. A period of structured dialogue between the tutor and the participants would follow the presentations in which the central themes of the period were drawn-out in order to show how the economic, political and social events were linked. This would culminate in a discussion considering the legacy of the historical period in relation to the present-day. This focussed on conservative and radical movements in contemporary Scotland and the key areas of contestation. The dialogue would end by addressing the question “What do we need to do as a result of what we have learned?” The responses to these questions lead to proposals for action that were both calls for personal and collective action. These proposals lead to a whole range of action outcomes some of which are listed below. Following a workshop period looking at the early peoples of Scotland, a forum theatre style drama which addressed the waves of outward and inward migration of peoples who had left and settled in Scotland was performed by participants at an ALP Gaitherin. This lead to a dialogue around the question of contested claims around Scottish identity and the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. A workshop period which had covered Scotland during World War II lead to a group of participants learning the skills of the oral historian and setting-up an oral history group which interviewed and recorded peoples stories from the period. A workshop which looked at the history of Gorgie and Dalry resulted in the development of a historical walking tour of the area in which participants became tour guides and lead tours of local people and tourists round the area visiting points of interest. The tours took on a dialogical aspect as they raised questions about current issues of local development like housing development, protection of green-space and traffic congestion. After studying working class housing conditions in one workshop the participants organised a demonstration against the demolition of one of the oldest tenement buildings in Edinburgh’s Old Town. Another participant lead demonstration was held outside the gates of Holyrood Palace when the grounds were closed to the public. A workshop which studied the Scottish justice system lead to a play being written by participants which dealt with corruption in the judiciary in the 18th Century and led to discussions about failures in the current legal system. These and many more examples of people acting as a direct result of dialogical study are testament to a history programme which was determined not to consign history to the past but to make it a source of inspiration to those who want to make history in the present day. Our profound thanks go to those historians who brought their knowledge and commitment to the dialogical process and made history come alive in a very special way. In particular we would like to pay special tribute to Derek Suttie, Tim Porteous and Gavin Watt. The Democracy Group The first Democracy Group emerged in the wake of the 1989 co-investigation and began an investigation of the issues surrounding the learning challenge which called for study and action round the questions of Power, Control and Democracy. Its investigation engaged with the sense of new democratic possibilities that had opened up as the country began to imagine what kind of democratic structures it wanted to put in place. Ideas about new voting structures and forms of democratic engagement were explored and a plan for more participative forms of public meetings was designed. This was the period in which the Constitutional Convention was meeting to propose the principles upon which any new legislature in Scotland should be established and they called for a wide consultation on their findings held within what was named A Claim Of Right For Scotland. The Democracy Group saw the opportunity to experiment with its new participative public meeting structure and called a day-long consultation entitled The Gorgie/Dalry Constitutional Convention. A day of participative workshops looked at the principles set-out in the Claim of Right and members of the national Constitutional Convention were on hand to respond to questions and ideas. Central to the day was the mass-decoding of a national photographic exhibition which was co-ordinated by the ALP Photo Workshop. The exhibition drew on images sent-in by local photography groups from across Scotland which depicted the issues they felt were most important inn their area. The exhibition had toured the country and been subject to decoding sessions wherever it arrived. The decoding on this day involved everyone who attended the day and helped to inform the discussions. As a result of the day the people of Gorgie? Dalry were able to send their ideas and their comments to the National Convention and make their contribution to the debate about the country’s political future. The second phase of the Democracy Group’s life began on election night in May 1992. A large group of ALP participants had gathered in the ALP shop to watch the election results come in and witness history unfolding. There was widespread expectation that the Conservatives would loose power and a new Labour Government in Westminster would herald the way to a new Scottish Parliament. What started as a night of excited expectation slowly turned to despair as the election results gradually revealed that the Conservatives would remain in power for another period of administration. Despair turned to anger and recrimination as the sense of disbelief and disappointment deepened. By the end of the evening however, the mood turned from anger to determination, something had to be done, this result was unacceptable and action was required. As the gathering dispersed it was not clear what form that action should take. We didn’t have to wait long for an answer. In the weeks and months that followed that momentous night the new democratic movements discussed earlier in this chapter spontaneously emerged and offered a way for the folk of ALP, along with the rest of Scotland’s people to vent their anger and frustration in a positive outpouring of resistance. Rally’s were announced, public meetings were called, organisations were formed, vigils were started, petitions were drawn-up, alliances were formed and in the midst of this conjunctural terrain the Democracy Group was reformed. Those who had gathered on election night reconvened in the ALP shop and a new group was formed. This group was born into action rather than reflection. Banners and flags were made, T-Shirts were printed, whistles were bought and plans were laid to send members to the myriad meetings that were being held. In a whirl of activity the new group started to meet weekly and bring back news of events and campaigns.The group soon started to identify gaps in their knowledge and a programme of studies in democracy was planned. Each session would begin with in-put from the group as we asked what the democratic events of the last week had been and people reported on meetings and news events and we considered their implications for democracy. The in-put for the learning programme came from the ALP staff and invited guests who helped people look at the history of democracy and consider what the major differences inn understanding had been throughout history. In these times of possible change it was important to look for alternative understandings of democracy to let people imagine other possibilities for Scotland. The result of this programme was the groups response to the plans for a Scottish Parliament that were now under serious consideration as the next election became the focus of everyone’s longer-term attention. A radical plan for a participative democracy was submitted which called for an extension of the power devolution process down to the local area, involving a radical re-think of the role of community councils. While the study programme was important to peoples understanding of some basic principles, it was the action of this period that really stands out. The Democracy Group experimented a lot with the Participative Public Meeting Structure which the original Democracy Group had designed and used it to open-up areas of contestation to local people in new ways. These new public spaces helped people to engage with issues like Water Privatisation, the Criminal Justice Bill, European, Scottish and local elections. The programme of activity was not all focussed on Scotland as in a tremendous programme of co-operation with an international development organisation called Scottish Education and Action for Development brought a series of visitors engaged in democratic struggles from the Philipines and South Africa. These contacts allowed the group to make connections with democratic movements across the globe and one of the Democracy Group members, Rona Brown took part in a study visit with a group from Scotland to South Africa. A similar group gathered in the ALP Shop to hear the election results four years in 1997 they were able to celebrate the end of the Conservative years only this group were a lot wiser and much more politically experienced. And they had other great nights of celebration to come when the Scottish people put the nightmare memory of 1979 to rest and voted overwhelmingly to create their own democratically elected parliament for the first time in its history. Women in ALP 'Inferiorisation’ was the word used by Frantz Fanon to describe how colonised people are persuaded to accept imposed values and norms, “to internalise the message that local customs are inferior to the culture of the coloniser…” (Fanon, F. 1989, p1) Freire's term is 'cultural invasion', “… it is incumbent on the invader to destroy the character of the culture which has been invaded, nullify its form, and replace it with the by-products of the invading culture.” (Freire, P. 1976, p111-112) In gender roles, women are the ‘colonised,’ the ‘invaded’. The values internalised are those of patriarchy. And it is not only women themselves who are discriminated against, (often with the necessary consent of their ‘internalised oppressor’), but also what are perceived as feminine characteristics and values. Sally Kempton, writing in The Scotsman newspaper about domestic abuse and how women are often ‘accused’ of staying with abusive partners said, “it’s hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.” (Kempton, S. 1994) Although women have always played a major role in ALP - and it should not be forgotten that its founders were women - the 1989 co-investigation findings acknowledged that, “Very little exploration of the issues affecting Scots women was undertaken by this investigation.” The challenges were identified as, “How have they contributed to the culture in the past? How should they do so in the future?” Women in the project soon rose to those challenges. Members of ALP’s large and active Scottish History Workshop were already aware through their studies that Scottish women’s experiences seemed to warrant little more than a footnote in most of the books and other materials they’d looked at. It was decided to form a women’s history group, ‘Scottish Women Past and Present.’ Around the same time, an article was published highlighting the fact that only one of Edinburgh's many statues was of a woman (Queen Victoria). The article’s author, historian Veronica Wallace, was employed to tutor the group. In keeping with ALP's approach, rather than teaching the group what she knew about women's history, (the banking approach), she encouraged them to be historians in their own right (the liberatory approach). One result of this was a book, “From Margaret to Mary: A Herstory of the Royal Mile”, researched and written by Rose Brown, who had joined the group as a grandmother with a son of her own at primary school. She and other group members conducted walking tours based on the book, raising public awareness of how women had shaped life in Edinburgh. Rose went on to study at Edinburgh University and graduated in Community Education. She is tutor of ALP’s current women's history group – Damn Rebel Bitches, the title defiantly celebrating the derogatory term used to describe female Jacobites by a male Hanoverian contemporary. Similarly, Writers Workshop members had investigated writing in Scotland from a number of perspectives and concluded that Scottish women had a ‘double knot in their peenies’ – two barriers preventing their voices being heard. WORDS Women’s Writing Group started meeting on Sunday afternoons and soon began to address this. Some of their work was published in the Spring 1992 issue of ALP Works, the project’s magazine, then in March 1995 with funding from what was then Edinburgh District Council’s Women’s Committee, their collection of poetry and prose, “Spread the Words”, was launched to coincide with International Women’s Day. ALP’s popularity as a placement agency for under-graduate and post-graduate Community Education students enabled many of them to experience Freire’s theories in practice, but the reciprocal nature of the arrangement means that ALP has benefited from students’ contributions to the work of the project; in fact, like Rose, many were later employed as workers in various roles. One such who must be mentioned here is Sheila McWhirter, who was a post-graduate student on placement at ALP in 1994. Sheila returned later that year as ALP’s part-time Women’s Development Worker and laid the ground-work for much of the ambitious project work and wide-range of women’s activities which followed, most notably ENACT for Women (see below). During this period, an instrumental music group, a singing group and a Women’s Studies course joined history and writing in the women’s section of the ALP programme. These courses were complementary to the mixed gender groups studying similar subjects, and offered a supportive and encouraging atmosphere in which women could express themselves. "...women need a women-only support group because they need a safe space. Men don't support each other. So a men-only support group is a contradiction.Women support men. So a mixed group is a men's support group." (Lloyd 1991: p41) It is important to emphasise that these groups were not simply women-only groups which approached subjects in the usual way, but rather subjects were explored from particular female perspectives. For example, the singing group would learn about women’s roles in the fishing industry as they sang, “Song of the Fish Gutters”. Similarly, the various "Women in (the New) Scotland" courses explored the diversity of women’s lives. Each week began with a 30 minute review of women's issues in the media, identified by the students; maybe a sex discrimination case, or women’s representation in government. In response to an item about child-care costs the tutor might ask, “Why is that a women’s issue?” leading to a discussion about gender roles, the income gap, etc. Alternatively, a student might raise a news item which had interested her, for example about a homeless man being robbed. The tutor’s role would be to prompt, “How does that relate to women’s issues?” reminding the students of the purpose of the activity. The result might be an exploration of the links between drug-taking, homelessness and female prostitution. Sheila facilitated the formation of the ALP Women’s Planning Group (WPG), which began meeting in 1994, to explore the development of women’s work and activities in the project and consider the opportunities to access funding to develop projects of specific interest to women. In Sheila’s words, the aim was, “to create a space where women can define their own agenda, develop their own ways of working and take a lead”. The group was open to all ALP women whether they attended women-only or mixed classes. The group also organised ALP Women’s Gaitherins, held each year in December and around International Women’s Day (IWD) on 8th March. These were opportunities for women in the project to share what they’d learned through performances of their work to supportive, women-only audiences, consolidating their learning and building their self-confidence. 1997 saw a collaboration between women from ALP's music, folksong, history, writing and Gaelic groups which culminated in performances at that year’s Gaitherin based on refugee stories of forced emigration from the time of Scotland’s Highland Clearances in the 19th Century to more recent ‘ethnic cleansing’. But despite the seriousness of the subject of some performances, the Gaitherins have always been primarily fun, celebratory events where women from all cultural backgrounds relax and enjoy themselves. The 1996 reorganisation of local authorities in Scotland led to the demise of Edinburgh's Women's Committee. The now City of Edinburgh Council stopped organising high-profile IWD events in central Edinburgh but continued to fund local groups' IWD activities. However the funds relied on there being a projected budget surplus; women's groups felt they were being thrown scraps from the men's table. IWD's profile in Edinburgh became so low as to be almost non-existent. Meanwhile, the ALP Women’s Gaitherins went from strength to strength. As the women in the WPG gained skills and experience, the Gaitherins grew to be large-scale public events, often headlined by professional performers, with around 150 women taking part and dancing to the all-women Belle Star Ceilidh Band to finish off the evening. In April 1998, Sheila and the WPG ran a 'Women Organising' residential weekend. Women who attended were not only from ALP but from other local organizations. Later in the year, the first “Women in the New Scotland” course tutored by Sheila investigated topics which had been identified at the residential. Guest speakers from organisations covering a range of issues, (e.g. poverty, disability, governance), took part to help participants explore the issues raised. Through their participation in the course, women began to voice their concerns about what they’d learned, including the ever-decreasing profile of International Women's Day, funding cuts and the closure of women's groups and projects around the city. Other groups were finding it increasingly difficult to sustain their activities and found themselves competing with others for resources. These concerns were shared by the WPG who were particularly keen to encourage more women to get involved in educational and cultural activities. Sheila led a visioning and planning workshop called, 'The Path', one outcome of which was a strategy for a sustainable women's organisation. This led to the formation of ‘Women ENACT 2000', a pilot project to encourage groups to come together to organise a women's festival encompassing: Education Networking Action Culture Training Partners in the project included ALP; Women Unlimited, a women’s health group; Engender, a national group which researches and disseminates information and statistics pertaining to women; St Bride's Community Centre (which houses a critically acclaimed theatre and concert venue); and the Filmhouse (a cinema complex with three screens, a café/bar and workshop spaces); with support from the City of Edinburgh Council's Community Education service and women's groups throughout the city. The ENACT 2000 festival was an tremendous success, with some 700 people enjoying the programme of mainly women-only activities, including a ‘taster’ launch, a dance event for young women, a concert, theatre, films, a Bazaar with information stalls and short performances, the ALP Women's Gaitherin, exhibitions and a programme of workshops. Most activities also had a free crèche. (ALP had previously run crèche workers’ training courses in collaboration with Women Unlimited.) One highlight of the programme was on 8th March (IWD): the first 'Hidden Heroines Awards’ event. (The awards were named ‘Elsies’ after Elsie Inglis (1864 - 1917) a Scottish surgeon, reformer and one of the founders of the Scottish Women’s Suffrage Foundation, herself a hidden heroine in the view of many ALP women.) Emails and press releases had been sent, posters and fliers displayed, and newspaper articles published, all asking the question, “Who is your Hidden Heroine?” The response was overwhelming. Nominations poured in not only from Edinburgh and Scotland, but from men and women all over the world. It seemed that everyone had a Hidden Heroine; a woman who’d been inspirational, a role model who had kept them going – kept whole communities going. Every nominated woman or group received a certificate. An exhibition showed the women's stories along with other relevant information and illustrations. Hidden Heroine awards sculptures were presented by Member of the Scottish Parliament, Fiona Hyslop to ten women in recognition of their work and achievements in a variety of fields. It is worth noting that every one of the women, in her acceptance speech, said that she didn’t deserve it - proving the relevance of the quotes at the beginning of this section. Although some sponsorship, grants and donations were received, most of the work of the festival was sustained through voluntary activity – ALP convener Rona Brown and Joan Bree ALP's administrator need special mention for the amount of voluntary hours they contributed (and continue to). Crucial in that first year was additional support from many people, including ENACT patron, writer and singer Horse McDonald, who put together the fund-raising concert, and the other performers who volunteered their time and expertise throughout the week. Much of this support, and the involvement of the ENACT partner organisations, was due to the WPG’s record in running the successful ALP Women’s Gaitherins, which were now well-known in the city. ENACT 2000 was such a success that the organising group was forced to drop the ‘2000’ from the name, acknowledging that it had gone beyond the pilot stage. Over the following five years, the voluntary co-ordinating group of 'ENACT for Women' organised Edinburgh’s high profile IWD celebrations, with a Hidden Heroines event and a conference alternating as the main event each year. Women in ALP have taken the lead in
many other groups, courses and activities which are too numerous to mention
here in detail. They include: The Welcoming - Orientation and
sharing culture In 1996-97 we ran a class called Indaba (a Zulu word meaning 'meeting of minds') which took a more reflective, thematic and dialogical look as some of the cultures represented in the community. In particular we mapped families' experiences of migration and immigration and identified the contradictions in that process. In 1997 we wanted to draw breath and think more deeply about how we might address the issues emerging such as growing racism and cultural isolationism. We met Sana Sadollah, the Scottish Refugee Council's Community Development Worker, and began a collaboration to establish a cultural exchange between the students and workers in ALP and the participants of the Refugee Councils weekly drop-in befriending and advice session. In 1999 drop-in participants expressed a wish to learn about life in Scotland past and present so we created a programme of monthly thematic learning exchanges lead by Sana and one of the ALP workers. The ALP learners/activists made presentations and taught the refugees about the aspect of Scotland they had been studying, and the refugees taught the Scots participants about how the theme of the day was experienced in their culture. For example under the theme of language we discussed the suppression and belittling of the Gaelic and Scots languages here, which encouraged refugees to talk of similar experiences in different parts of the globe, for example the suppression of Kurdish in Turkey and Iraq. Because the ALP students had been learning about their own culture they could identify commonalities and empathise with the refugees instead of patronising them or viewing them as exotic; it was a more equal relationship. Out of this collaboration grew a model of cross cultural work which was effective and extremely popular and ALP accessed funding for a pilot project which began in February 2003. In line with ALP's policy of finding popular, common sense and descriptive names for projects we called it "The Welcoming" as this was precisely what we intended to do. Through collaboration with and cross-referenece to many BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) organisations, we broadened the scope of the work to include all recently arrived immigrants, and to include refugees and Asylum seekers. We would set up a dialogue with the local community by encouraging ALP learners/activists to share their knowledge of local culture at weekly sessions and learn from the immigrants about the situation in their culture. We further broadened the scope of the project by introducing literacy and English language work. Sana had always started our refugee sessions with a light lunch and we were impressed with the simple, symbolic, effective and significant nature of breaking bread together for establishing good relations.Thus we structured our work together round a meal. Starting with a language class in the morning staffed by an ESOL teacher (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and local volunteers, we move onto lunch where we are joined by more local people and immigrants whose English is better, and we share information, engage in educational and arts activities. We often punctuate the afternoon by a performance of music, song, poetry and dance from the cultures of the people represented there. This creates a celebratory and social atmosphere which runs alongside the exploration and deepening of our understanding of the theme of the day. This project has been one of the most successful of ALP's initiatives, regularly attracting more than 40 participants at the weekly session, running over 42 weeks a year, with over 100 at special events such as our summer outing or winter festival. A simple description of a Freire inspired activity may serve to illustrate the power of the method. As each person arrives they are met by a volunteer or a member of staff. We recruit people who speak the major languages of the immigrants (e.g. Arabic, Turkish, Cantonese) to smooth this greeting. Having registered, we invite each person to write a word or phrase in their language relating to the theme of the day on a big board under the English version; in their language; we invite them to "say their own word". There is always a lively discussion around this board as people arrive, where people meet, feel valued and become orientated to the topic of the day. Having made their first contribution to the dialogue the newcomer then is introduced to others and they share food together. Thus the lived experience of the student is the starting point of the education programme, and the student is sustained and nurtured in the process. The thematic approach connects people across cultures. Everyone has a story to tell about their "Land" for instance, and new themes are identified with the participants as we collectively construct subsequent programmes. In 2006 The Welcoming attracted 3 year funding for 3 full time equivalent posts from the "Big Lottery" to develop the orientating dialogue between newcomers and local people. Football and Literacy Taking people's lived experience as a starting point in building a curriculum, and making the primary target group working class men, it was decided to build a project which combined literacy activities with a sustained decoding of professional football. Thus we engaged with people's passions and a subject in which the participants' experiences provides the knowledge base and the expertise. Exploring the "Historicity" of the topic is made explicit by inviting guest speakers, e.g. ex- players, coaches and organisers. Having a range of ages and cultures represented in the group allows for further exploration of the experience of being a fan. A thematic dialogical approach opens up the possibility of exploring the political and economic context of the sport. For example a Russian student on placement at ALP did some original research and made a presentation on the life of the Russian (Lituanian) owner of Hearts Football club, (in whose stadium is the class is held in a bid to make it even more attractive to football fans). This presentation and it's subsequent decoding by the participants led naturally to the unveiling of a whole range of generative issues (e.g. Globalisationing and gentrification of the local game) which the student explore and express in their writing. Thus they explore their own experience and feelings and in "saying their own word" feel the useful power of literacy to help them articulate their relationship to the world. Making learning social and creating a learning community is made possible by encouraging the group to socialise together, and at the end of term to organising together a presentation of learning certificates with guests , a comedian, musicians and dancing. Not only is this approach effective and engaging, but it is the largest and most popular literacy group in the city. Praxis and the Learner/Activist The women's Scots song class went on to form an accapella group "Wildfire" performing political songs in the community and making a CD with one of Scotland's foremost recording labels. This making of what we call "cultural products" involves students in a process of creation emerging from their studies in which they recognise themselves as having the potential to create the world, and become the authors of their own existence. This recognition that the roots of authority lie in the ability to create, challenges working class people's oppositional attitudes to authority. Through praxis, in however small but significant acts of creation, folk learn that authority is not always something external to themselves seeking to oppress, but that they too can have authority. The establishment of this dynamic relationship between Adult Education and Community Development within ALP creates a climate in which the students believe that, not only is it possible to create their own cultural products and projects, but that it is their right to do so. Thus groups of student, supported by the workers and the ALP Association, create their own programmes of learning and action, and their own organisations to carry the tasks through. The Scots Music Group, and, ENACT for Women women's organisation, writers workshop, democracy group, etc. We see here the emergence of the Learner/Activist who, having been excited by the possibilities of taking control of her/his own learning and making an impact on the world, will put in hours of work voluntarily work to sustain organisations to ensure the development and realisation of their vision. One such learner/Activist is Rona Brown: I strongly believe that it is every adult’s right not only to have access to education but to have a say and work in partnership with providers and policy makers. I myself have benefited from being part of such a process. Adult education should not only be about a list of classes from which you pick and choose to further your career, or to get a qualification, adult education should be much wider than that and it should be social. Paulo Freire says, ‘Education is always, always, always social.’ We all have experiences and skills and we all have much to learn from each other. I joined ALP during its 1989 investigation, ‘Scotland and Its People.’ My experience in ALP has been exciting, challenging and empowering but I have no certificate to show you. In ALP we don’t sit in a classroom setting with a syllabus to get through to sit an exam. However I believe the process that I have been involved in has given me far more opportunities to learn and develop as a person than any college or university course could have provided. I am not saying ALP provides an easier option because it does not, in fact one woman I know actually told me that she felt her ALP experience was more challenging than when she was studying for her degree. If they gave out degrees for changing lives and commitment to other human beings Rona would be a Doctor with distinctions by now. Rona is still deeply involved with ALP which now has a new larger and more accessible home in the neighbouring community of Tollcross. It continues to flourish and take on the challenge of building praxis with learners. References: |