Pupil protests – teaching children to campaign

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/apr/08/pupil-protests-teaching-children-campaigning

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A girl in year 8 is kneeling on the ground, head bowed, in an orange jumpsuit – the uniform of British Guantánamo Bay detainee Shaker Aamer. Fellow pupils surround her, in the grounds of an east London church, calling out to convey Aamer's story to passersby. "In 2001, Shaker Aamer went to Afghanistan to work for an Islamic charity…" one student begins. "He has four children; he's never met the youngest."

"I keep hoping, waiting for justice to be done for my husband and my children," bellows another, echoing the words of Aamer's wife, Zin. Aamer, from Battersea, has been held in Guantánamo Bay since 2002 on suspicion of links to al-Qaida.

"This isn't right! This isn't fair! This isn't justice!" cries a third, while others hand out leaflets demanding, "Free Shaker Aamer!" to anyone who'll take them. The pupils have set up a website and a petition for his release. They have also been in touch with his MP.

This multi-pronged approach to human rights campaigning, encompassing new and old media and protest as theatre, is one of four projects undertaken by 76 year-8 pupils at School 21, a free school in Stratford, east London, as part of its commitment to improving pupils' oral skills. Today sees the climax of the projects: taking their campaigns into the local community.

Pupils from another project line up along the path across St John's church grounds, which sits in a traffic island near the school. They hold up a huge net in one hand – to denote confinement – and an apple in the other (a rather literal symbol of Apple, the computer company), dramatically biting into it with each fact blared out about workers' conditions at Apple's Foxconn factory in China.

"In 2010, 18 Chinese workers attempted suicide at the Foxconn factory!" shouts one pupil. They repeat quotes from workers: "I feel like I'm starving when I don't get food. I don't have a break, I don't have water."

Local people stand and watch – some read a leaflet thrust into their hands that encourages them to ask the 12- and 13-year-old pupils a set question. "How are you?" is the first, to which they reply in eerie robotic unison: "Good. Very good. Very, very good."

Aiysha Rao, one of the group's designated spokespeople, explains: "We wanted to show how the workers are treated – no matter how they're feeling if they're asked how they feel they have to say they feel good."

Classes in campaigning skills might well be the very last thing Michael Gove envisaged when he launched free schools, but for the teachers here, it has proved an invaluable part of School 21's ethos. "The whole point of the school [which opened in 2012] is to close the inequality gap, and one of the chief raison d'êtres for oracy is to equip these kids so they can start breaking through that glass ceiling," explains Daniel Shindler, head of drama. "Their language acquisition, composure and ability to express themselves is a huge challenge for us. So everywhere you look in the school we are encouraging the entire development of their expression and in year 8 we wanted them to look outwards. Within oracy that meant running a module on human rights."

To help out, they enlisted educational consultant Jamie Kelsey-Fry, a former teacher and prominent anti-fracking campaigner, whose book The Rax Active Citizenship Toolkit, last year prompted the Sun headline, "Protest chief wrote GCSE book on 'citizenship'".

"Initially I came in and gave an assembly and showed them the creative side of campaigning. Their immediate reaction was, 'There are ways for us to be heard? What we say matters?' Most young people feel unheard, so once you start giving them tools you get very eloquent kids," says Kelsey-Fry.

Inequality underpins another campaign – Stratford is part of Newham, London's poorest borough and England's second poorest, with nearly 40% of secondary school pupils on free school meals and 65% with English as a second language. Also in the church grounds, a third group of pupils stand on chairs holding up their favourite book to illustrate the radically reduced life chances, educational achievements and literacy of poorer young people.

"Fifty per cent of pupils on free school meals do not achieve a pass rate above a C!" one cries. "Sixty-nine per cent of lawyers and 40% of journalists went to a private school!" says another.

The group has devised a plan to boost reading and literacy in their own school. "We're going to take some reluctant readers, film them talking about their interests, and take the film to Stratford library," says Sulaiman Matin, adding that the librarian will then suggest a book based on the child's interests. "Then we'll branch out from what they like and suggest other similar things – like on iTunes."

The fourth group has organised a fete to raise money for two girls in Tanzania, to keep them in education. There are homemade cupcakes on sale, a lucky dip whose only prize is a picture of the girls they're trying to help, and three students performing a song they've written called, I Want, illustrating the gap in expectations between countries. "In Britain kids cry because they don't have an iPhone, but these kids cry because they can't get an education," says Farah Ravat. As well as supporting education in Africa, the group hopes to change attitudes here.

"There's a lot of ephebiphobia – adults being afraid of teenagers – but we want to prove them wrong, that teenagers aren't always bad, that we are interested in politics," says Ahmed Ibrahim.

Peter Hyman, head teacher at School 21, says the projects have had a positive impact way beyond the improvement in pupils' speaking and drama skills.

"It's improved motivation, confidence and behaviour because they're finding their voice and they know they can achieve things by doing school work that has an impact on the real world. I want a school full of children who are good at questioning and thinking for themselves. That has to be the purpose of school."

Before leaving, I ask Eylin Bastida, the softly-spoken girl who earlier was dressed as Shaker Aamer, what she has gained from the experience.

"Kids our age often focus on things like footballers or being on TV, but this project has helped us look more to the world realistically, and look at the news and what's going on," she says. "This has helped us a lot because maybe when we're older we can get into politics, or maybe this could open a whole new door into something else."