PARTNERSHIP, COMMUNITY AND LIFELONG LEARNING
Classroom politics
From George Orwell’s 1984 to Alice Walker’s The Color Purple , texts studied in the English classroom can present political challenges to pupils and teachers alike. Having embarked on a doctorate studying politics in the English classroom, AlexanderHawes , who teaches English at the College, explains why he has chosen to focus his academic attention on this subject
L ast September provided me with a strange feeling that I hadn’t experienced for some while: for the first time in seven years, I was entering a new academic year as both a teacher and a student. After what I considered a well-earned break from academia since my MA in English in Education at King’s College London, I began my pursuit of a doctorate some two years on from originally having the idea. With a supervisor in place and a proposal accepted, I enrolled with the Culture, Communications and Media Department at the Institute of Education in Russell Square. My working title was: ‘How does the political enter into English as a secondary school subject as it is instantiated in contemporary classrooms?’ Don’t worry: I didn’t know what instantiated meant either! I now know it means represented. My project is designed to explore how politics is discussed in modern-day classrooms, in terms of whether English lessons are seeing pupils not only understanding writers’ political views within their historical contexts, but also actually evaluating those ideas in the light of their own, and their teachers’, political opinions. So, where did this desire come from? Well, the crossover between politics and English has long been an interest of mine. As the son of a civil servant of nearly 50 years’ experience, I grew up in a household in which I was gifted books such as Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia (both of which are very political, to say the least!). During my A-level years studying English Language and Literature, the importance of the relationship between politics and English was further emphasised as I explored A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, Translations by Brian Friel, and the works of Alice Walker. Then, for my Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of
The crossover between politics andEnglish has long been an interest ofmine
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