A Piece of Me
People ask me if ‘Becoming’ is about me. It is and it isn’t. The book is about Gaia, Aran, Freya, and Yann. It’s about their struggle to find themselves, who they are in a harsh and oppressive world. It’s also about the struggle all young people go through, finding who they want to be. The journey which is the most difficult of them all. The one that never ends.
Education had a major impact on my life. It was my route to freedom. I grew up in a small coastal village in the North East in the eighties. There weren’t many opportunities for young working class kids. The pits were closing and what little industry there had been was dying. The service economy hadn’t really found its way up north. It was a period of major change and education was my way of taking some control of my life and escaping. Part me didn’t want to leave. I guess I was afraid, and lacked the confidence. I knew I had to though. I had to do something different. My head was where my talent lay, and my teachers managed to unlock it. Some of them saw the potential, despite my best efforts to fight it. I was fortunate enough to do well in my exams despite a lack of effort. I had a second chance and I took it and went to university.
Once I’d left university and done a bit of traveling I decided I wanted to give something back, help influence and inspire the lives of others. Education had changed my life, and I thought it had the power to do the same for others. I became a teacher first, travelled the world. When I returned I moved into universities again, taught for a while then moved into policy and research. I wasn’t in education policy long before realising I was too naive. Things weren’t as I imagined or would have liked them to be. Education was all about putting young people into boxes, training them for the needs of UK plc. It wasn’t about finding the talent or creativity of young people, but sifting through to find the obedient ones who were good at maths and English. It was narrow, oppressive. It was failing our kids.
I don’t blame the teachers or the heads. They have a lot of responsibility and very little power or real choice. The rhetoric is all about giving them power, but league tables, tests, and Ofsted force them into narrower choices. Policy is about the illusion of power while making headteachers take decisions the government wants. Education is ideological, and in constant change. No-one in the profession wants this. They need stability and the freedom to do their jobs. Teaching is filled with inspiring and creative people. Who would choose to be a teacher unless they wanted to change lives. There are far easier ways of making a living.
I believe every child is special. Everyone has a talent and something to offer. It’s the job of education to find that talent, nurture it, help it grow. Each young person has to find their own sense of freedom and best way to contribute to the community and wider society. I tried to write a story about the struggle of being young, of growing up, of ‘Becoming.’ Freedom, rebellion, finding yourself were all themes that preoccupied my teenage years. I didn’t know it then, but I do now. So yes, ‘Becoming’ is a bit about me, but I hope it’s a bit about all of us. For the reader to see some of themselves in a story is the best any writer can hope to achieve.
