Uncomfortable Aesthetics

Three things you probably don't know and wouldn't guess about me:

• I love military aircraft, more particularly fighters.

General Dynamics F-16

Duxford air show is a particular delight and I generally go to a couple each year. I always take one or both of our children and occasionally one or two of their friends. This gives it a sort of educational aspect and earns huge parenting brownie  points. And this isn't even mentioning the envious and knowing smiles I get from the mums of other families, who I guess are sometimes there under sufferance!
The truth is that I'm following my dad's example who took me and my brother to motor cycle races and air shows. To this day I don't know whether my passion for bikes and planes is just because I loved our days out together with our fantastic dad .

• I love racing motor cycles, especially Italian and Japanese multi cylinder machines.

250cc 6 cylinder 1967 Honda

Similar reasons for liking bikes and planes I suppose: both very pared down engineering where speed, weight, ergonomics and aerodynamics determine the form.

In the twenties, a French Swiss architect, Le Corbusier, wrote an influential treatise about architecture illustrated with pictures of cars, ships, civil engineering projects and farm and industrial developments. His premiss was that houses should be "machines for living" and their form should follow their function and not be a series of boxes with bolted on historical references. This approach to design resulted in some fabulous (to my eyes) minimalist architecture that still looks modern after over 80 years. The International Style was a movement that produced the Bauhaus with all its astonishing output, and was fuelled by a philosophy and aesthetic similar to my beloved bikes and planes.

La Ville Savoye 1929

• I failed an Architecture degree course at Aston University (First year).

Perhaps I should have studied engineering!

Anyway, I was particularly looking forward to Sunday's display as the F-16 was flying. This is arguably one of the most ubiquitous planes ever made, flying in over 25 Air Forces from Norway to Thailand. I had followed its development since the early seventies and loved its sinuous, taut rather than voluptuous, shape. So there I stood ( chairs at air shows are for oldies! Besides, you can't use a camera properly from a chair) and at about 1 o'clock a blue grey shape came from the east and quickly defined itself as the Belgian Air Force F-16. 

I took rather a lot of pictures of the F-16!

 I'm used to Spitfires, Hunters, Sabres, and all the usual Duxford fair of easy, low stressed, manoeuvres with lovingly rebuilt and maintained machines and I just wasn't prepared for the sheer power and chutzpah of this plane. It didn't so much float on the air as rip it apart and I loved the power of  the engine which growled and thundered like a demented animal. I was entranced. I wasn't just entranced: I was genuinely awe struck and in tears. What astonishing power and beauty the human race is capable of! Not only to design and build such a thing of beauty but to train to subject yourself to over 6g to fly it.

Then the unease set in: The WW11 planes are a historical statement and a primary source ( eduspeak),
but the modern stuff,  especially hardware in service and fighting, seems a bit near to glorification of conflict. I have problems with guns too. I'm not a bad shot for a pacifist* and the feel of a wooden stock against your cheek and shoulder, the blue of the steel and the craftsmanship is a delight. We don't let our son buy guns with his pocket money but he makes them from lego or carves them from sticks. AAARRGGHHH! Well at least he's engaged in a real craft and not playing "Call of Duty"like many of his eight year old class mates claim to be! And I actively encourage his archery skills as well as improving my own.

So where does that leave me? I'll still take my children to the air shows because thats what good dads do. I'll still enjoy the sound and sight of military aircraft. I'll still shoot rifles when I can and I'll make and shoot longbows at Kentwell. And I'll accept the unease and share it, and I'll carry on teaching pacifism and conflict resolution and try to keep alive that vaguely hippie ideal of peace and love.



* Target shooting of course!

'Tis a Gift to be Simple.

I've just started serious cycling again. I suppose most of you reading this know I've done an event recently involving 100 miles cycle around Norfolk for charity. If not, then you know now! All sorts of bicycles passed me: mountain bikes with knobbly tyres whirred, state-of-the-art carbon fibre frames rumbled, aluminium racers whistled by, oh, and occasionally I passed other bikes. I had a great time, I completed the course with no discomfort, no pains, no blisters but a huge sense of achievement.

This was the first "big" cycling I'd done and I was really fired up all through my training month. I'd read all I could get hold of through the 'net and books, but the best advice was from an American book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Book-Long-Distance-Cycling/dp/1579541992/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1316369417&sr=8-2

This more or less said the bike you're comfortable with and have ridden should be fine. It was. It advised against specialised, usually very expensive, in the way of wheels, tyres, gearing, pedals etc.
I liked this philosophy and so did my my wife and my bank manager. My own bike was a ten year old steel frame tourer which fits me perfectly and has seen me commuting in London, Birmingham and finally Norfolk. Its simplicity has always appealed to me.

Me and my Bob Jackson Tourer (camouflage to deter thieves!)

 But I've also recently come across groups of cyclists all over the world who were trying to simplify their cycling even more. Fixies are stripped down bikes with an aesthetic all of their own. Most people adapt their own or buy a cheap secondhand frame, but you can buy quite expensive ones ready made. These cycles effectively have one gear, one brake, a frame and two wheels. Do you remember your first ever bike? It was probably like this but with a free wheel so you could rest on the pedals.

I loved the idea of this but wasn't sure how I'd get on with riding one as it's pretty hilly around Norfolk despite what Noel Coward wrote. 

Don't you just love ebay? I found a cheap bike with a huge frame ( my inside leg is 35"!) which was fairly close and won the auction. It was sold by a lovely retired USAF officer and it was shipped over from the States in the eighties. It was extremely crudely made but very comfortable and almost identical in size and geometry to my beloved Bob Jackson.

I stripped off the gears, got my LBS (Local Bike Shop, a great American abbreviation) to fit a gear and locking ring to the rear wheel, heeded advice to keep both brakes and tried it out. A time of bleeding shins, strained thighs and lots of giggling ensued as I got to grips with pedals my legs had to revolve with. After about a week or so of commuting I got the hang of it. I got the hang of it so much that I could get up the hills I used to drop through all the gears for and manage to keep my legs revolving down really wooshy hills. And the giggling continued and still continues! I'm even considering cycling the 25 miles to Norwich on it next week.

It's now hanging in the garage having the paint job it deserves instead of the rather sober grey scheme it came with. As I paint it, I feel the sort of pleasure I felt with my first bike. The pleasure of a bit of machinery I can maintain myself, that was inexpensive, that was fun to ride and that was essentially an extension of me.

Finished!

Yes I did ride it from Norwich yesterday and had a wonderful time. I cramped up in the evening and feel quite achey today but I love the freedom and simplicity I have when riding it: 

YOU JUST PEDAL!

We live in an increasingly complicated world, how good it is to recapture some of the simplicity of a happy childhood! And also some of the silliness.

Religion and Cocktails

I suppose it had to happen.....couldn't keep quiet about religion for long.

I'm having to do a lot of thinking about religion, fundamentalism, evangelism, conversion etc at the moment. I'm a member of the local Sacre group, a really lovely lot of people of all sorts of religious persuasions who are totally committed to giving the children of Norfolk as good an education about religions as we can. We meet about once a term and look at ways we can get schools to become more enthusiastic about the teaching of religious education. I've belonged to a multi-faith group before in 1995, in Newham, possibly the most culturally and religiously diverse of London boroughs.

So there we were, all of us, including Sikhs, a couple of Muslims,  a Hindu couple, Christians of all persuasions, a Buddhist, a delightful Baha’i woman, even a pagan,  meeting at the local methodist community centre, talking about how we could raise awareness of faith issues in schools and the borough in general. Quite suddenly, apropos of nothing at all, an Anglican Minister said, “Of course, you realize you’ve got it all wrong, only Christianity has got it right”. I thought it was a joke, surely in this company it must be: it wasn’t. He genuinely meant it.  I couldn’t believe anyone could be so crass. After a rather embarrassed silence the meeting wound up. I never went again.

On Tuesday I saw a news item about the Government trying to legislate against fundamentalist led terrorism and trying to pump money into Islamic hot spots. Outrage welled up within me, a feeling I’d not associated with the 10 o’clock news since the eighties! (Ever so sorry to those under 30, you won't remember Thatcher). I was furious that so called intelligent and informed politicians couldn’t see that it wasn’t Islamic fundamentalism we should be afraid of, it was any religious fundamentalist. My mind went back to those horrific days when an ex alcoholic bigot was the most powerful single person on the planet. I remembered with deep embarrassment that it became acceptable to be a “creationist thinker” (surely a contradiction in terms) and that it became mandatory in some states to teach Intelligent Design.

It seems to me that instead of being afraid of Islamic fundamentalists, we should be afraid of unthinking acceptance of any religious dogma when it obscures our basic human glories of compassion, care, acceptance of others, and a readiness to consider that we may need to think about what once we accepted as “revealed truth”.

My eleven year old daughter at the moment is having to sing some songs in assembly which, while not out of place in a Baptist church, are quite questionable in a state primary school. The same school has started a Fish Club. This looks at Bible stories, is run by a "born again" Christian and is advertised widely in the school. I have this virtual sister school in Forest Gate where the local fundamentalist Imam sets up a club…… yes, precisely.

As Pilate once said “What is truth?” I don’t know, I DON'T KNOW, but I hope we would accept that, from our incredibly myopic view of our astonishingly complex universe, there are many truths.

Incidentally, I questioned my daughter about what she thought religion might be. Almost verbatim, these are her words:

“ I think human beings like to make sense of things. I think religions are the stories they tell when it gets too complicated for thinking. Because there are different groups of people all over the world, there are bound to be lots of religions.”

Thank you Sue, for encouraging the children in your care to think!




Cocktails: So many from Harvey Wallbangers to Caipirinhas. We all have our favourite. All seem to make the world a happier place.
Religions: So many from Hinduism to Atheism. We all have our belief. All should make the world a better place.


Cheers!

Masks, Identities and Authenticity.

We've just got back from a couple of fantastic long weekends at Kentwell. I am supposing that if you are reading this you'll know what this is, and why it is such an important a part in my life. If not then follow the link:
http://www.kentwell.co.uk/Re-Creations/Tudor

I met most of my best friends here including my bestest friend. I have often wondered why this is so. When I first  went to Kentwell I was a teacher in charge of a small group of 10 year olds and because we were supposed to dress in a "Tudor" style and I was a bit of an exhibitionist (!!!!) I borrowed a pair of opaque tights, made myself a red felt codpiece, adapted an old fawn shirt and topped the lot off with a straw hat.
How was I to know that most other teachers just tucked their trousers into longish socks or wore a long skirt?
We passed through a dark, narrow time tunnel and emerged into what can only be described as a sensory heaven. People in russet and other muted colours drifted over lawns in front of a manor house. Everywhere was the smell of woodsmoke. A couple of pipers and a drummer were playing unrecognisable but haunting music and all was peaceful. In those days you could see nothing that wasn't authentic (such an important concept for us re-enactors!). As we progressed around the manor, through the farm, looking at and smelling smiths, charcoal makers, potters and builders, women kept on making comments like, "Fine arse!" "Well met, Fellow. Art thou in search of a wife?" etc (modesty forbids me to go on!)
Anyway after a fantastic time crowned by a wild dance to some of the most exciting music I'd heard (apart from Samba, naturally), a re-enactor came up to me and, committing the dreadful sin of coming out of role, told me how to apply to be part of it and suggest I might fit in with the 200 or so people on the manor.
So I made me a costume, went to see Patrick Phillips whose train set it was and who made sure we wouldn't break it or mess it up and the rest, as they say, is history.

So what makes us relinquish the modern world for a week or two or three in some cases, live in a tent or at best a caravan with very limited conveniences, research a role, learn to speak in a Tudorese cross between Shakespeare, the Bible, and Carry on Henry and learn skills that in most cases have been forgotten? Fun of course! And the chance to reinvent ourselves so convincingly that our best Kentwell friends may not know what we do in our other lives. (Notice I did not use the phrase, "Real World").
Patrick always says in his (long) speech to newbies that many see their Kentwell personae as their primary identities. It's a Kentwell aphorism that a gentry dustman will talk to a beggar doctor and neither knows who they "really" are.
My contention is that our education, our jobs and to a certain extent our dress are masks we have been wearing for years and that Kentwell give all of us a chance to rediscover our true selves. Patrick's genius is his ability to sum up people in a few minutes, offer them a role and allow and encourage them to develop that role whether it is a real historical gentle man, or a wandering player. We are left very much to ourselves with a bit of advice and a whole lot of peer support and somehow it all works beautifully and convincingly.
Authenticity can mean a hand sewn woollen and linen costume, a tool collection that will appear to be correct, songs which sound right or were written before the year we are re-creating. But it can also mean becoming the person you really enjoy being and who can relate to others. Kentwell not only allows that, it actively encourages it.
And there's not a sentence of writing we need to do!
(But we're not paid either!)

Confusion is a state of mind

Last Friday Annabel went for her appointment with the mental health worker which we thought was going to set the official diagnosis in motion. She, the worker, told us rather regretfully that we had to approach Asperger's East Anglia directly and that the appointment was a bit of a waste of time. As you can imagine, this was Annabel's worst nightmare: three months wasted and being told that you hadn't played by the rules! So I spent three days trying to contact the "Adults with Asperger's" worker. (Being a teacher makes simple things like returning phone calls in office hours really problematic!) A very helpful, calm man explained that our GP should have made the first contact. AAARRGH.

Annabel was by this time remarkably calm, but that sort of brittle calm that a wrong word could shatter. Meltdowns are part of the aspie make up and can seem completely unreasonable to onlookers and rather frightening for those caught up in them. What is actually going on is a feedback loop of confusion, ignorance and helplessness which quickly becomes an outburst of extreme emotion: weeping, swearing, temper tantrums and it doesn't seem to matter whether these are public or private. But these only happen when the aspie model of the world and the world itself are in opposition. What helped her enormously to maintain the calm was the construction and mostly hand sewing of some of our Tudor costume. Cloth is predictable, hand sewing is completely absorbing and a well made seam SO satisfying. Annabel can work all day and most of the evening getting a sleeve exactly right and then unpick it and sew it all again because it it didn't hang quite right. What an astonishing accomplishment!

I've tried to get some idea of how the world seems to those fortunate enough to be born with an ASD. In my work I get wonderful flashes of multi sense modalities as when Bess (13) told me that she only liked red beakers because yellow ones were too hot, blue was icy and green was just yucky. Or Ben who had no spoken communication but would happily hold a thirty minute musical conversation with me using riffs and sequences on a djembe. Some of my students have the ability to fit music to films intuitively, and one has a subtle sense of comic timing in Lego animation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaDxG5YbuII

My job is to "educate" these students. This often means attempting to make them fit in with a neurotypical world and perhaps even find a job they might be moderately happy and productive in. I try to minimise the confusion this sort of watered down mainstream schooling brings but I sometimes think I really ought to be spending more time in mainstream education sharing with others the sparkling, enthusiastic and often painstaking world of ASD.

Perfection and being human.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an alliterative poem written in about 1390 by an unsung anonymous genius who lived only a few miles from where I climbed and walked in my teen years. The poem has fascinated and obsessed me for the last forty years.
http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/gawain.htm

Gawain, the youngest knight in Arthur's court and a bit of a ladies' man, agrees to undertake a challenge which leads to a quest to find a Green Chapel and meet a formidable opponent. As a prequel to this quest Gawain arms himself with a shield whose device, an endless knot or pentacle, is described in a very precise and lengthy section. It is an emblem of Gawain's wish to be a perfect and integrated knight. On this quest he meets with various tests which severely try this perfection. Please read the poem! I will not bore you with the erotic and comic seduction scenes, nor the astonishing descriptions of a wild winter landscape, nor the evocation of hunts so vivid you can smell the sweat of the horses. And as for the landscapes, architecture, interior decoration, armour and sexy frocks!
The final denouement is such that Gawain is made to realise the impossibility of his aimed for perfection. Being human and fully alive is not compatible with a constructed ideal.

Which brings me to my bugbear at work. The English education system has a series of judgments which inspectors make to categorise individual schools. These range from "failing" to "outstanding". A couple of years ago the school where I teach had a report of "good with outstanding elements". The Headteacher wants the school to become "outstanding" in the next round of inspections due in the New Year. A laudable and understandable aim surely. Alas what seems to be happening is that the pressure the staff are feeling is getting in the way of what was outstanding in the last round: our care for, and relationship with the children. These pressures are administrative, to get the paperwork perfect, to make sure our plans are perfectly cross referenced with our colleagues, and, of course, all the peripherals that our education system seems to be bedevilled with must be perfectly adhered to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwDt94Z62gY

We are human. We are gloriously, messily human and our pupils respond to that. They are children for whom their previous schooling has failed. They are children with ASD, ADHD, ADD. They come from families where care and nurture have been difficult. Some have physical difficulties, some have emotional problems. Almost all have problems with self esteem. What these wonderful children need most of all is a group of relaxed, consistent adults with time for them and the love, care, patience and humour to forge real links with them. Only when we respond as accepting, flawed human beings ourselves, do our children begin to feel good about themselves. Our last inspectors found this care and we were congratulated for it. It seems a pity that this humaneness is put in jeopardy by a push for spurious perfection.

I'm new to this......

As a teacher of nearly 35 years experience, an avid reader and a bit of a thinker ( friends have questioned which bit and how big the bit really is ),  I have felt a sudden urge to share my opinions about all those bits and pieces which I've thought important, contentious or just plain intriguing.

Over the next few weeks the big issue in my life is my wife's upcoming interview to try to get an Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis.  It's one of those events which will change nothing but change everything. The very fact that she feels she needs this diagnosis to explain all the difficulties she has felt throughout her life means, I think, that she warrants it.
When we watch Butterflies on DVD, I want to know how the family works: will Rhea get with Leonard &c? Annabel wants to know where the door leads to from the kitchen. If a friend walks past her and ignores her, she is convinced it's because she has upset her. Causality and rules are at the centre of her universe.
If a piece of litter is dropped on a pavement, it bothers her for days because people should not drop litter. And as for any drivers infringing the Highway Code........car journeys can be pretty rancourous!
Aspergirls* are so good at pretending to be good socially ( unlike their male counterparts ) that they often get labelled as "Quirky", "Eccentric" or "Different". All these adjectives have been used by friends describing Annabel. Indeed these attributes were and are the facets of her character which I fell and fall in love with. These and her intelligence. How else could you possibly rehearse conversations, try to predict responses and organise your life to try to fit in with a confusing world?

The bizarre thing is that I have worked with Autistic spectrum children, off and on, for nearly twenty years, found that I had a real affinity with the ( mostly ) boys I worked with, and found their different world view intellectually challenging. I could communicate with them, and not necessarily through language: music was good, and mime too. But I completely missed Annabel's difficulties as being ASD related. Boys had Asperger's, not girls. Besides, her anxieties, depressions and anger were due to a whole host of external issues.....weren't they? In fact we laughed about her Autistic tendencies. Then, one night during one of those three o'clock moments, Annabel googled "Autism in women" and came up with a whole cascade of sites which summed up her difficulties and achievements. We sent for various books which other women had found illuminating and useful, saw our extremely sympathetic GP who referred Annabel to the psychiatric services and now we wait.......

*See the book of the same name by Rudy Simone.