I have two Key note speeches coming up at the moment. One is at Regents Park College for the London Association of the Teachers of English (LATE) and the other is the UKLA International conference a week this Friday in Winchester.
The first is a repeat of one I gave in Cambridge a couple of years ago, but the other is on 'Literacy on the Left'. As usual, for this one, I need to decide how to approach the subject of my book in a way that will be interesting and engaging and without getting too bogged down with complex theory which it does of course all rely upon (I can't spend too much time with Bernstein).
I'm thinking of offering a political spectrum of literacy practice and then picking on some of the differences between such practice as 'critical literacy' to 'revolutionary critical literacy'. A description of the work of Chris Searle with examples of his students' work could be interesting alongside the philosophy of Freire, with his emphasis on the need for educators to 'come over' to the working class - but then a critique, perhaps based on Hatcher's work.
It would be useful to discuss left and right politics - the origins of the terms first and then perhaps to describe briefly the social democratic liberal philosophy, the 'neo-liberal' answer to education and then Marxism.
After the UKLA conference... I need to finish the book and then think about leaving my present University - moving books, papers and computer files - ready for taking up my Professorship in South East London. Oh, and I need a new car...
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