Abstract
This article presents data from ethnographic research carried out at Lillydown Primary, a local authority school in a former coalmining community in South Yorkshire. Complicating Avery Gordon’s concept of haunting, it argues that in order to begin refashioning typical accounts of schooling for the working class, we must reckon with the fullness of ghosts that remain to haunt the fabric of the present. The central argument of the article is that historical, place-based pedagogies and performances work to deliver a more relevant curriculum and experience of schooling that begin to ‘fit’ with pupils’ histories, culture and lived realities. It illustrates how phantomic rhythms of Lillydown’s industrial past have profound social and cultural effects on schooling which can, at least sometimes, encouragingly shape pupils’ experiences of education. It begins to demonstrate how Lillydown Primary is a place of unsettledness, where the something-to-be-done is seething into the present, but ghostly matters still conjure as they are not yet complete. The article argues that there are further spectral potentialities to be reckoned with that could go some way towards forging more critical spaces and pedagogies.
Introduction: Education, social class and ghosts
There is significant literature on social class and education, much of which highlights the deleterious effects of inequality on working-class pupils and their experiences of school and education more broadly. However, there has, of late, been a particular focus on working-class pupils’ thoughts, feelings and emotions, and the ways in which they experience the inequalities of class and schooling (see Reay, 2017; Simpson, 2021; Walkerdine, 2021). Reay (2006) powerfully illustrates how working-class pupils are systematically disadvantaged and disrespected by the formal and informal processes and structures of the school. Experiences and practices of education, she argues, are not merely economic and material; they are also ‘less visible’ and arguably more affective matters that continue to characterise experiences of schooling for the working class (Reay, 2017). She draws attention to the affective scratchings, rhythms and markers of class within education, and highlights how we feel, and experience education differently based on social class. Despite, or even because of, repeated policy initiatives, the injustices of social class remain to haunt the English education system (Reay, 2006).
In some ways, this article builds on Reay’s (2006) call to ‘reclaim’ and place social class firmly at the centre of education. Throughout, I argue that schooling must be located within the historical and cultural context of its locale that critically frames and affects its very being. Though Reay recognises affective dimensions of ‘class in the classroom’, there are still gaps in knowledge and much yet unknown about the haunting presence and effects of deindustrialisation on education. Bright (2012) and Ward (2015) explore how industrial legacies are experienced and negotiated by young people in the UK. Such processes are also evident in other national contexts (see, for example, Freie, 2007; Thomson, 2002). More recent research focuses on the value of teaching local industrial history after deindustrialisation and helps us consider how pupils can better understand their industrial pasts through the formal curriculum and wider engagement with the community, local partnerships, and visiting experts from industry and commerce (see Gibbs & Henderson-Bone, 2022; Grimshaw & Mates, 2021, 2022). To truly know the effects of deindustrialisation in former mining communities we must become attuned to the haunting presence of Britain’s industrial past. To do so, we must come to know the historical, affective and class-based dimensions that haunt processes, performances and experiences of schooling in the former coalfields. This requires a knowing of ‘the things behind the things’, a knowing of the ghostly matters that force subsequent generations to ‘co-exist’, albeit often unknowingly, with their ‘haunting inheritance’ (Gordon, 2008, p. 200).
Data presented in this article are based on ethnographic research conducted at Lillydown Primary, 1 a one-form entry state primary school in a former coalmining community, in the north of England. The ethnography took place between April and December 2016 and examined the role of education for working-class pupils in the former mining community of Lillydown. 2 It examined how experiences and processes of education are shaped not only by current structures and relations of contemporary capitalist society but also by historical ways of being rooted in Lillydown’s industrial past. Ghosts are multifaceted and contradictory and so the tools of ethnography are necessary to decipher the signals and meanings that spectres carry, and to know how traces of the past materialise and are experienced in the present. Ethnography is a well-established method for researching lived experiences, and relationships between structural forces and micro-cultures inside schools. Combined with social haunting, it provides a lens to get beneath, follow and render visible spectres of the past that are not necessarily visible or known to those they haunt. Around 65 days were spent in the field with 360 hours participant observation recorded. Eighteen semi-structured interviews were also conducted. This included 16 staff – six teachers, four teaching assistants (TAs), five higher-level teaching assistants (HLTAs) and the headteacher. Informal interviews – ‘friendly conversations’ – were continuously part of the fieldwork (Spradley, 1979). Two local residents were also interviewed to help gain a holistic understanding of the historical and contemporary context of Lillydown, and the school’s place within the community. Field notes and secondary data sets were also collected alongside descriptive field notes that captured emotionalities, social relations and recorded how time and space was utilised. All participants were from either Lillydown or neighbouring villages or had moved into the area through familial or personal connections.
This article challenges understandings about the landscape and boundaries of education and class by complicating ‘social haunting’: the ways in which the echoes and murmurs of the past are ‘very much alive and present’ (Gordon, 2008, p. xvi). The first section introduces Avery Gordon’s (2008) notion of haunting. The second section gives an overview of the history of Lillydown. Discussion centres on Lillydown’s industrial beginnings, its social and cultural structures, and the effects of deindustrialisation. Here, ethnographic data are used to illustrate the significance of these structures on the day-to-day rhythms and workings in Lillydown. It then gives an overview of Lillydown Primary. The third section moves inside the school to explore the ways in which it serves as an alternative space where traditional social performances and leisure-based activities – once provided through working-class institutions like the Mining Institute and working men’s clubs – are retraditionalised and encouragingly shape education. The final section focuses on the formal curriculum. It shows how staff are beginning to construct forms of teaching and learning that are potentially more engaging and relevant for pupils from working-class backgrounds than many contemporary experiences of schooling. Despite this, engaging in ‘other’ forms of teaching and learning is constrained by structural factors relating to the way education is funded, organised and delivered under neoliberal regimes. The article concludes by arguing that ghostly matters hint at something more to be done, for the fullness of the ghosts’ potentialities to be exhumed to engage with more critical and localised forms of schooling. Rendering visible and harnessing the fullness of ghosts, it is hoped, could open up forms of schooling that are not only meaningful but equip pupils with the necessary skills and knowledge to challenge education, their futures and capitalist society.
Exhuming ghosts
In the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx (1852) recognised that people can shape their own history but those experiences are deeply rooted in the historical and material relations of the past: the ‘tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living’ (p. 5). Inspired by psychoanalysis and Marxism, which both provide particular paradigms for seeing the unknown, Avery Gordon’s (2008) notion of haunting provides a powerful way of understanding the relationship and destabilisations of past–present, presence–absence, history–subjectivity and power–knowledge. Gordon uses the notion of haunting to analyse how historical racial injustices and state violence in North and South America continue to be ghosted into the present. She stresses a method of knowledge production that not only recognises the hauntings of organised forces and systemic structures in everyday life, but also ‘the affective, the cultural, and the experiential’ matters that haunt our very being (p. xii). Haunting is the language and method of seeing and knowing the intricacies of the past that remain and emerge in the present, sometimes directly and sometimes barely visible. Haunting is not merely an ethereal apparition, phantomic illusion, or some ‘ineffable excess’ (Gordon, 2008). Ghosts are: [C]ongealed entities enclosing social and historical substance. They both conceal and display things to us about our social world. They happen upon and traverse the physical material landscape that we, as living beings, also happen upon and traverse. They seize and inhabit living human frames and haunt specific landscapes. (Hudson, 2017, p. 1)
For Gordon, hauntings always register the historical loss, state violence and injustice that remain affective even when these events are ‘supposedly over and done with’, or when their oppressive nature and effects remain ignored or denied. Like Gordon’s concept of haunting, social hauntings are often the consequence of profound physical, psychological and social and economic dislocation (Hudson, 2017). I invite us, however, to think beyond the loss, violence and suffering to recognise that the ‘goodness’ of the past also remains affective and is haunting the present. By reckoning with the fullness of a social haunting – the loss, injustice and the goodness – we can begin to understand our relation to the ghost – the ‘designs it has on us’ – and its social power and transformative potentiality (Gordon, 2008, p. 64). Listening to, following, and coming to know the fullness of ghosts provide a ‘clue as to who we are, where we have come from and our aspirations for our social futures’ (Hudson, 2017, p. 1). To understand ghosts, first we must understand what produced them and how and why they remain embroiled in the social and material fabric of the present. An understanding of Lillydown’s industrial past is needed.
Lillydown’s industrial past
Until the late nineteenth century, Lillydown was a small settlement with a village green, a few cottages, a farmhouse, a well and a corn mill. Lillydown Colliery opened in 1896 and, like many of Britain’s coalmines, it started as a private enterprise and was later taken into public ownership under the National Coal Board (NCB) in 1947. Lillydown’s population, spatial divisions and community developed rapidly after its colliery opened. Virtually all miners at the colliery lived in Lillydown or nearby, it was the main employer and so was central to the social, economic and cultural life of the community. The pit and its associated institutions – working men’s clubs and welfare institutes, for example – were central to community life. Eventually, Lillydown Colliery was one of the largest, most productive and technologically advanced collieries in Britain (see Simpson, 2021). Though Lillydown’s colliery survived the first wave of pit closures following the Great Strike of 1984–5, in October 1992 British Coal announced a second round of closures with 31 pits listed for immediate closure including Lillydown and, subsequently, the pit closed in 1993.
The economic landscape and way of life in mining communities has undoubtedly changed since the 1980s. Factories and warehouses provide some new jobs, but these are often precarious, part-time and insecure (Beatty & Fothergill, 2021; Beatty et al., 2019). Previously, there used to be one road into Lillydown and one road out but the development of a link road in the early 2000s provides, at least for some, easier access to surrounding towns and motorways. Nevertheless, Lillydown is still relatively isolated. Infrastructure remains inadequate and continues to make access to wider employment opportunities difficult, especially for those on a low income and/or with no vehicle. Lillydown remains overwhelmingly white British and has had little inward migration. Statistics show that just over a quarter of residents have no access to a car or van, and there is no railway station in or nearby Lillydown (OMBC, 2022). In 2019, Oakshire 3 was ranked the 38th most deprived local authority in England 4 (OMBC, 2019). Education, skills and training is the domain in which Oakshire is most deprived, ranking 15/317 nationally in terms of average score. Of Lillydown’s residents 37.2% have no educational qualifications (5% higher than in Oakshire and 15% higher than in England and Wales); 42% of all adults in the UK are educated to degree level, whereas for Lillydown this figure is just 14% (OMBC, 2022; Office for National Statistics [ONS], 2017). Lillydown is ranked within the top 20% of local authorities in England with the highest levels of child poverty.
Lillydown’s geographical isolation, homogeneity of industry and social structures of work and leisure characterised and shaped community life. Lillydown’s very being is reflective of a traditional miners’ town (Gilbert, 1991). Its social, cultural and industrial relations were forged and maintained over a number of generations around the coal industry. Frank, who worked at the pit for 44 years from the age of 15, explains how everyday life was tailored to the community’s needs and how these were met locally: Ther’ wo seven butcher’s shops, people shopped when the’ needed it. The biggest organisation wo Corp [Cooperative Store]. It had a big meat and food department, but it also had a drapery that selt [sold] curtains, clothing and everything. That wo a big organisation. Everything the community needed was contained in one street. (Frank, local resident, Lillydown)
The Corp and the seven butcher’s shops have gone. Now there is a small supermarket, several takeaway outlets, and a small number of other businesses: hairdressers, a beauty salon, cafes, a florist, a post office and a newsagent, for example. Local shops often support residents by ‘laying on’ products until their next pay cheque arrives. The supermarket, although small, is the only shop that provides a range of everyday foods and essentials in one place.
Frank reminisces about how wider aspects of community life – pubs, clubs and other social and leisure activities – were an important part of life in Lillydown: Pubs used t’ organise tug o’ wars. . . aye. . . n darts n dominoes. N [and] of course, on a Tuesday, you used t’ have a free n easy where you used t’ dance. We used t’ have good artists. Oh aye, the’ used t’ have good entertainment. . . At clubs ther’ wo a lot. Ther’ wo six clubs at its height in Lillydown. . . It wo a good place t’ live, everybody knew everybody. The’ used t’ tek trips from ‘ [the] club, 43 buses from ‘ old club. . . 43 buses guin to South Sea and Bridlington and Scarborough. . . everybody wo together.
He goes on to add: There wo galas, fire brigade, St Johns, scouts and girl guides, football, and cricket. At Stute, the’ had sports for ‘ schools, wrestling, boxing, books n all that. They had everything for families. It wo entirely different. The football that wo good, we had us own team. Cricket, they had a team called ‘Lillydown Gentleman’ which wo teachers n people who wo ‘gentlemen’ more or less. Ther’ wo boxing, that wo a big thing boxing. Ther’ wo plenty guin off. At chapel, the’ used t’ have harvest festivals and it wo a really good atmosphere. Ther’ wo plenty for ‘ kids t’ do. The’ dint stop in ‘ house, everybody wo out, everybody new one n other.
This is the landscape and production of a social haunting. Deindustrialisation signalled profound social, cultural and economic dislocation throughout Lillydown. Though a number of pubs are still in operation, most struggled to survive after the closure of the colliery and shut in the early 2000s. This included the Miners’ Institute (the Stute) which was demolished in 2010. For Frank, this was a devastating blow for the community: When the Stute wo knocked darn, that wo an absolute tragedy. You’d got cricket, you’d got football, you’d got boxing, you’d got majorettes, you’d got band, you’d got first aid, you’d all them guin off at ‘ [the] Stute. . . Now that has gone, n that has gone recently. Nar when that wo all guin off it, wo a good atmosphere. It is a shame.
The working men’s club, ‘The Old Club’, is still an important part of social life in Lillydown and remains emblematic of many working men’s clubs in mining communities with bingo nights, discos and ‘turns’ on each week, for example (see Dennis et al., 1956). There is, however, nowhere that provides a variety of social, cultural and educational activities and opportunities for the community, like the Stute once did.
Schooling in deindustrial Lillydown
The history of the coal industry is inescapably part of Lillydown Primary’s identity. At the front of the school, old pit carts filled with flowers line the main gates alongside a miniature pit wheel. For the state, however, Lillydown’s past is immaterial to the present context of the school. Over time, Ofsted has gradually disconnected Lillydown Primary from its past. In 2002, an Ofsted report notes: In the past the area was socially and economically disadvantaged after the closure of local mines. The legacy remains. A national survey clearly shows that the level of multiple deprivations is very high when compared with other parts of the country and overall families’ socio-economic circumstances are well below average. There are high levels of unemployment and changing social characteristics. (Ofsted, 2002, p. 7)
This acknowledges the effect of the closure of the colliery on the community and the school. In a subsequent Ofsted report though, there was only a brief entry stating that the school ‘serves a former mining community’ (Ofsted, 2009, p. 3), and the last full Ofsted report in 2013 omits any recognition of Lillydown’s historical and current socio-economic background. The description is now ahistorical – avoiding the structural and economic forces that effect the school and future generations of pupils.
Lillydown Primary is an average sized one-form entry primary school with, at the time of fieldwork, 47 staff and 249 pupils on roll (school capacity: 210). The school has a higher than average proportion of pupils qualifying for free school meals, and all staff and the vast majority of pupils present as white British, reflecting the makeup of the local area. Lillydown Primary is currently classified as ‘good’ (Ofsted short report, 2018). It is a local authority school and part of a collaboration with five neighbouring primary schools. For the headteacher, this allows Lillydown to ‘keep our own identity, our own school ethos, and provisions’. Coming from a neighbouring village, and a mining family, the headteacher stressed how this, alongside her shared history with pupils, helps understand and meet pupils’ needs: It’s almost like we have a mini authority, but we all keep our autonomy. We all have an equal standing. So, each of the schools and each of the heads has an equal standing within the group. . . for communities like Lillydown, they actually need someone who cares and who really, really, understands the community. They need to understand where it has come from, the journey it has been on, and why it is like it is. . . Unless you have actually been part of it and been in it you don’t totally understand that. (Headteacher)
Alongside meeting common needs, the headteacher argues that the collaboration gives Lillydown the financial flexibility to set up an atypical staffing situation in the school. In each class there is a teacher, a teaching assistant (TA) and a higher-level teaching assistant (HLTA).
Traversing historical boundaries: Ghosts and the school
Recognising a social haunting is to understand how echoes and murmurs of the past remain alive and present, and how these are experienced in the social world. Generations after the miners’ strike and pit closures, staff believed their community’s history shapes pupils’ educational and lived experiences: The miners’ strike was really tough, and it left a lot of people damaged. . . there used to be the working men’s clubs and the brass bands. The brass band does still play but I think what has gone is pride. People were proud to work in their local mines; it was a close-knit community – everybody knew everybody. . . there used to be a real social side to working in the mines. I remember going on the day trips by the miner’s welfare club and there used to be a real social side to that. (Frances, Teacher)
Frances highlights some of the social injuries and dislocation of deindustrialisation. In many ways, what was lost was not simply an industry but traditional structures, rhythms, and ways of being and doing. Staff recalled how the Miners’ Welfare Club and Institute were at the heart of the community’s recreational activities. The headteacher remembers how they provided a range of social and cultural activities, organising, for example, day trips where ‘literally the entire community went en masse’ to the seaside: When you hear people who grew up in the community talk, and when the pits were there, they worked hard but they also did a lot socially and culturally as a community. So, they did trips to the seaside where literally the entire community went en masse. They did do a lot of that, and it was very much a community went and did it. It all used to be run really through the working men’s club and Institute and they’d get busloads of people going on trips here, there, and everywhere. There was a lot of widening of experiences educationally and socially then but now they don’t go very far our children. Now, they don’t have that in the community. (Headteacher)
The Stute in particular provided a range of social and educational activities – cricket, football, first aid and a brass brand, for example. Sporting activities at the Stute were an essential part of community activities but it was also utilised by Lillydown Primary for sporting events and activities right up to its closure. Louise hints at the profound economic and social dislocation that the community suffered with the loss of the Stute and the sense of absence-presence between the landscape of the past and present in the school: I used to go down to the Stute and support the local girls’ and lads’ football team. . . now the teams are in the next villages so there is less opportunity. I try to say them, ‘if you really like this there is this club and that club’, but the parents don’t want to take them. They are limited – money, travel and that. Now they don’t get that opportunity in the community, and they need it. The sports coach walks into school now and he’s God. He walks into the dinner hall and he will sit down. . . he gets high-fives and asked if he is teaching them P.E. (Louise, Teacher)
The loss of the Stute in 2010 marked a rupture of traditional performances within the community and signalled a production of ghosts. But the scene of the social haunting is the school; it is there where ghostly matters traverse boundaries of past and present, inhabiting an alternative landscape, and communicating signs, intentions and warnings of those ‘things’ that are supposedly over and done with but are ‘very much alive and present’ (Gordon, 2008, p. xvi). The loss is the range of social and cultural activities once provided through the working-class institutions in Lillydown. In a post-industrial landscape, staff believed there was a ‘real lack of educational and cultural experiences out there’ (Headteacher) and stressed the need to enrich pupils’ experiences at school in order to compensate for the loss of the wider activities once accessible in their community: You’ve got to make it [school] every single zoo, museum, town or city because they [pupils] don’t go anywhere. I’ve kids in class who’ve never been to the zoo or seaside. It’s now our responsibility to them to give them those experiences. (Louise, Teacher)
Lillydown Primary becomes, then, a place where the goodness of the past is harnessed and retraditionalised. The school provides a continuation of some traditional social and leisure experiences. First aid training and competitions, trips to the seaside and zoo, bike ability, football, cricket, Taekwondo and dancing were some of the activities observed. Ex-miner Frank also taught first aid on a voluntary basis at the school. First aid was traditionally taught at the Stute and was a valued feature of the mining industry and community life (see Dennis et al., 1956): Every pit had a first aid team. . . Back when the pit wo open, we had a big first aid organisation at Lillydown, we had abaht [about] 30 members. Ther’ wo adults ‘ team and ‘ juniors team. Juniors wo aged up t’ 21. They wo up t’ 21 n they wo really good. In 1960–61 the’ won all Great Britain Coal Board finals two years running, that’s Scotland, Wales, and England – lot o’ teams. We went on t’ win Great Britain coal board finals in 62, 63, 65, 68, n 75. The’ wo good, I’m not just saying it ‘cos I wo in it but the’ wo really good. 1975 wo exceptional, we got senior final and junior final and we won both of them – British final in ‘ same year.
Frank continues teaching first aid through a personal and affective commitment to pass on traditional practices, skills and knowledge to pupils, not to meet curricular objectives: I come up eya t’ teach them first aid. The’ get a certificate saying they’ve attended a course. . . They take it seriously. At times, they’ll be out on duty at playtime n dinner time as first aiders. If anyone gets hurt, the’ know what t’ do n who t’ send fo’. Kids enjoy it cos it’s hands on. N of course, we took 6 teams from eya [here] to a competition recently, n the’ did pretty well. . .We’ve a lot who gu into caring n nursing n paramedics so we do pretty well in ‘ St John for ‘ kids here. I run ‘ local St Johns and this up ‘ere cos I can see kids and the’ future and I don’t know what the’ gunner do! And yet, education is theya for ‘em nowadays n when we wo young ther’ wo none. Education when we left school it wo straight into ‘ pits. But all that n other stuff at ‘ club and Stute, that is gone.
First aid continues to be a respected skill and form of knowledge that Frank passes on to future generations. For most staff, Lillydown Primary is a place where they could, at least in some ways, provide a continuation of traditional social and cultural experiences. Social haunting helps us to understand how the school serves as an alternative space where at least some traditional social and cultural experiences can be rejuvenated. Whilst similar activities may exist in other schools, social haunting helps us understand how, at Lillydown Primary, they appear to have arisen, at least in part, as a response to, and understanding of, historical and contemporary conditions and performances of working-class life in and around Lillydown. For educational and deindustrial research, social haunting helps us come to know and see how ghostly matters of traditional coalfield life emerge and can challenge social and cultural formations and experiences of schooling. Lillydown Primary becomes that ‘border, contact zone, or meeting place between the landscape of the dead and that of the living’ (Hudson, 2017, p. 19). It provides the conditions, the know-how, and the space for industrial performances to be felt and known by future generations. The school provides a space where the past is conjured, sometimes consciously and deliberately, and the goodness of the ghost is rendered visible and harnessed.
Haunting the neoliberal machine: The formal curriculum
Neoliberal agendas and policies in education have contributed to the proletarianisation of teaching and driven the suppression of opportunities to engage in critical education (see Carlson, 1988; Harris, 1994; Hill, 2016). Control of teachers’ labour process ‘at the point of production’ can be traced back to the 1988 Education Reform Act (Carlson, 1988, p. 161). This paved the way for a competitive, performance-based discourse and practice in schools: the national curriculum, national testing, standardised assessments, league tables, and, later, the discipline of Ofsted, for example. New Labour and subsequent Conservative-led governments have continued an intensification of neoliberal policies and agendas in education. The national curriculum reforms in 2014 further constrained teachers’ freedom over curricular content and discouraged creativity and criticality through an increscent focus on ‘traditional’ methods of teaching – the re-call of facts, whole class teaching, individualism and a ‘back to basics’ curriculum. However, at Lillydown Primary, I argue that staff are able to engage and challenge some boundaries of the formal curriculum, and that there is space to engage in more critical and localised forms of teaching and learning – at least sometimes.
The vast majority of staff at Lillydown Primary criticised the formal curriculum as being too narrow and instrumental. They felt it focused heavily on ‘traditional subjects’ and pedagogical practices of instrumental and rote learning: I think we are very near to going back to desks in rows and rote learning. . . I don’t think it will be very long before ‘ government sends us down that bloody road and that is when we will lose our kids. We have put a lot of effort in to making things interesting, making them want to learn, and making it hands-on, I think that is being taken away from us bit by bit. . . it is very much geared to the SPaG stuff and it is very old school, very public school – it is not what suits our kids. It is very short, sharp, and specific and I don’t feel that the’ is very much room for manoeuvre in that. . . It is almost becoming very dry again and I find it dull to teach. . . We are going back to what these kids’ parents, or Grandparents for some of ‘em, endured when they wo at school. . . Don’t get me wrong SPaG is a skill that the’ need to have but is it going to make their lives any better by knowing the terminology of it? ‘Cos that’s what we are doing we are teaching the terminology of it, if not more than we are teaching ‘em how to use it and apply it. (Estelle, HLTA)
Staff frequently alluded to decreased levels of autonomy. They felt schooling was suffering in many ways from what Freire (1993) termed ‘narration sickness’, whereby teaching and learning focuses largely on instrumental knowledge ‘detached from reality’ and pupils are expected to ‘memorize mechanically the narrated and alienating content’ (pp. 52–53). Staff argued that more flexibility is needed to engage in alternative modes of teaching and learning in ways that have potential to empower pupils: They need life experiences and we don’t because we are so crammed on punctuation, spelling, reading, and writing which are all vital skills but we are pushing other things out at a detriment to the wider curriculum. . . We are under so much pressure to get the results in the core areas that we have not got the time to give the children the experiences that they need and have a right to. . . If we do not give them those experiences, then how are they going to know what their talent is; what their place is in the world? All they are going to know is what a subordinate clause is. (Clara, Teacher)
Although a series of draconian ‘reforms’ have reduced teachers’ control over the curriculum, staff at Lillydown Primary felt they still had a degree of discretion to exercise some autonomy and challenge the boundaries of the strictures of the formal curriculum. Staff were observed frequently engaging in wider learning activities that pupils might otherwise be excluded from – cooking, a variety of sports, trips to the seaside and theatre workshops, for example. Only in a few instances though were staff observed engaging in more localised and critical forms of teaching and learning – covering political and social issues such as debates about the European Union and current affairs; and covering topics and subjects related to pupils’ histories and lived realities: discussing local foodbanks and covering conservation in Lillydown. I want to focus here, however, on teaching and learning linked to the film Kes.
Kes is a British film based on Barry Hines’ (1968) novel, A Kestrel for a Knave. Set in the late 1960s, Kes tells the story of 15-year-old Billy Casper’s experiences of working-class life in a coalmining town in South Yorkshire. The film captures the day-to-day complexities of working-class life for Billy as he navigates schooling, family and community life, and the looming prospect of entering the world of work, with little prospect of employment other than work in the local coalmine. Intertwined throughout, the film illustrates the tensions of poverty, ‘restricted culture’, education and work (Strangleman, 2013, 2022). Kes remains a classic for many working-class people, particularly those from the former coalfields. Many pupils at Lillydown Primary had already watched the film at home and had knowledge of its historical relevancy and relationship to Oakshire and their community – one of the main characters, for example, still lives in Lillydown and is known locally to many. The film was being used as part of Literacy and Art. In Literacy, pupils were focusing on writing balanced arguments. They were asked to watch the film and debate orally, and later in writing, Billy’s relationships with his family – whether it was a good, familial relationship or not. Pupils developed their argument based on evidence from the film, and some drew on their own experiences of working-class life. For example, one part of the film shows Billy’s mum leaving money on the fireplace so he can get his own food from the shop. Some argued that this scene showed a level of neglect as she didn’t cook for him, and left him on his own to go to the pub. Others argued, however, that Billy was of an age where he could look after himself for a few hours after all, the shop was ‘only around the corner’ and he knew where his mum was if he needed anything. Added to this argument were some pupils’ own experiences of money being left for them to go to the shop and get ‘treats’. They reasoned that was okay because, similarly, the shop was just ‘around the corner’. In Art, pupils were developing their pencil skills by sketching the popular image of Billy gesticulating offensively at the world. They were keen to get on with their drawings, particularly the boys, who may have resisted participating in Art lessons if they were asked to draw something that had little relevancy or interest to them. Though watching the film and using this particular image for Art may, for some, be controversial, particularly because of the offensive language and some quite distressing scenes in the film, the point is that the film was used as a cultural reference point to engage pupils with the formal curriculum through points of reference that are more reflective of their historical and current lived experiences.
These practices were, nonetheless, uncommon and limited in scope. Even when studying Kes, deeper issues such as the causes of poverty, relations of social class, and understanding and questioning historical and current economic and material conditions were not explored. In these moments, staff failed, in the main, to engage in critical forms of pedagogy. One of the main commitments of critical pedagogy is to enable pupils to become critically engaged citizens, to provide them with the knowledge and skills to question and challenge structures of inequality and effectively transform these in pursuit of economic justice and social change (Freire, 1993; Giroux, 2011; McLaren et al., 2004). It is important here to return to social haunting. What is simmering below the surface is the ‘something to be done’ – the potential to deliver a more relevant curriculum and experience of schooling that begins to ‘fit’ and correspond with pupils’ histories, culture and lived realities. We are asked then to consider how ghosts can be exercised and rendered visible as pedagogical tools of possibility in the curriculum.
Based in a socially deprived primary school, in a post-industrial setting in the north-east of England, Grimshaw and Mates’ studies (2021, 2022) draw attention to how teaching local mining history can fit within and beyond the demands of the curriculum in primary schools in ways that better connect post-industrial generations to their industrial heritage and lived realities. Their Making Heritage Matter project combined a range of lessons about coalmining history delivered by classroom teachers, visiting specialists and other local community members, partnership groups and organisations. Local mining history is often taught superficially in primary schools, especially those in the former coalfields, to address the KS2 history curriculum objective of teaching ‘a local history study’ (Department for Education [DfE], 2013). Grimshaw and Mates show, however, that there are possibilities to teach industrial history in ways that engage with a broad range of curriculum subjects beyond the history curriculum. For example, they noted how teaching and learning took place through the following subjects:
Through cross-curricular learning and a variety of expertise and experiences, teaching and learning about industrial history provided pupils with a sense of ‘where they live, who they are, where they come from and how they fit’ (Grimshaw & Mates, 2022, pp. 34–35). Teaching and learning is starting to become meaningful as histories, experiences and narratives are valued resources and constructive modes of knowledge helping pupils ‘locate themselves in the concrete conditions of their daily lives while furthering their understanding of the limits often imposed by such conditions’ (Giroux, 2011, p. 157). Pupils in Grimshaw and Mates’ research showed a ‘strong engagement’ with education as they could ‘locate themselves’ within these moments. At Lillydown Primary, whilst Kes was a cultural reference point which most pupils could relate to as it reflected, to some degree, their culture, class and working-class life, the lesson failed to create critical space and dialogue for pupils to become active participants and experts of their history and lived realities. Whilst some pupils at Lillydown Primary, and in Grimshaw and Mates’ research, were aware, to some extent, of their industrial past, Gibbs and Henderson-Bone (2022) show how even where such histories are unknown, the formal curriculum can be used to help pupils understand their industrial histories and the processes and effects of deindustrialisation at local, national and global levels. Their research draws on data from Tracks of the Past (TOTP), a Carnegie Trust funded project which aimed to devise a series of secondary school lessons examining a workers’ occupation of the local Caterpillar tractor factory in Tannochside, a former coalmining community in Lanarkshire, Scotland. The occupation was essentially unknown to pupils despite them living either in new housing developments on the former factory site, or nearby. A number of lessons and activities focused on the workers’ occupation were used to engage young people in questions of democracy, industrial heritage, globalisation and social and economic justice. Pupils met with and interviewed former occupiers, which ‘brought the history of the occupation to life’ for pupils and enabled ‘an authentic connection’ through ‘shared investment of place’ (Gibbs & Henderson-Bone, 2022, p. 168). Their work reinforces the value and need to teach industrial history and helps us consider ways in which shared investment and spaces in the formal curriculum can ‘enthuse students and encourage them to take ownership of local history, even where it is not necessarily related to their families’ (Gibbs & Henderson-Bone, 2022, p. 168).
Conclusion: Pedagogical spectres of possibility
Developing a language and practice of social haunting is necessary to engage in more critical and localised forms and experiences of education. While emphasising the transformative potentialities of ghosts, it is important to be reflexive about such matters. Ghosts are complicated by broader structures and relations in contemporary capitalist society. The neoliberalisation of education has divested much scope to engage in critical forms of teaching and learning. As we have seen, though, there are spaces for teachers, pupils and the community to challenge formal processes of education in ways that place pupils’ history, culture and lived realities at the centre of their being.
However, engaging in such forms of pedagogy relies on staff not only having space to do so, but also requires them to be equipped with appropriate knowledge and skills. At Lillydown Primary, staff exercised a degree of autonomy by engaging in forms of pedagogy and knowledge beyond those prescribed in the national curriculum. However, some of those moments were limited. Perhaps this was largely a result of limited subject knowledge, skills and confidence to take pupils’ learning to a more critical level. Nowadays, teachers are generally trained ‘how to’ manage and deliver curricular content, behaviour management and assessment, for example (Hill, 2017). This limits their exposure to more critical aspects of education, especially the class-based nature and effects of certain structures, relations and experiences of education. Despite this, as we saw in other research (Gibbs & Henderson-Bone, 2022; Grimshaw & Mates, 2022), there is power in the expertise of external organisations – museums, art-based industries and other community and external groups, for example – to open up more localised, class-based forms of teaching and learning. It is important though to remember that the effects of deindustrialisation, alongside cuts to public funding, have resulted in many libraries, trade union branches, museums and various other public spaces and organisations being underfunded, closed down or demolished. In Oakshire, the majority of schools continue to be adversely affected by government cuts in funding (SchoolCuts, 2022). This has significantly reduced funding in areas which are already under-resourced – staffing, teaching materials and equipment, field trips and other enrichment activities. Despite this, Lillydown Primary is functioning almost as a microcosm of what once was, to provide a central point where various forms of social, educational and cultural activities are available to all. Lillydown Primary invites community members into the school for various purposes but such practices and activities need, as Grimshaw and Mates (2021) illustrate, to be advanced in ways which are both critical and relevant to young people in former coalfield communities.
To do this effectively needs not only the know-how but also the funding and the backing of such projects from the school or, in some cases, the Academy chain or trust. Otherwise, it is difficult for the class teacher working alone to provide such a variety of activities, events and expertise. As Diane Reay (2017) recounts of her own experiences of teaching in an inner London school, personal commitments to equality are ‘not enough, just individual solutions are not enough’ (p. 5). In the ‘absence of system support’, most educators will be ‘more inclined to conform to narrow, technicist conceptions of their work’ (McInerney et al., 2011, p. 9).
For schooling to be meaningful, it must start with pupils’ histories and culture. More localised, class-based forms of teaching and learning can give pupils the opportunity to locate histories, identities, lived experiences and their futures within what is being taught. What I am advocating then is re/constructing education through a class-based lens – personalising and localising teaching and learning according to pupils’ historical and lived realities. Teachers can re/construct spaces where working-class history and culture can be utilised and become valued resources and constructive modes of knowledge through the curriculum and schooling more broadly. To do this, we need to ‘conjure’ up the ‘gentle shadowy ghost haunting our classrooms’ and come to know the fullness of the ghosts that haunt (Reay, 2006, p. 289). Within our histories, within the ghosts that haunt, is where hope lies. There is, as Hudson (2017) argues, an ‘angelic’ aspect to the spectral. It is the ghost that: Point[s] us to our way home and to our future . . . Attentiveness to the signals that they are sending might somehow deflect us away from catastrophe and offer us new alternative futures. Our co-habitation in landscape is also about our co-evolution in those places. (pp. 66–68).
As education stands in a particular moment in history, and as neoliberal forces continue to penetrate education, harnessing ghosts needs to engage ‘all of social life and not simply life inside school classrooms’ (McLaren et al., 2004, p. 139). However, as Simmons and Smyth (2018) argue, educational reform needs to be accompanied by broader social and economic change – in terms of the redistribution of wealth and opportunity – if schooling is to be effectively reformed to meet the needs of young people in deindustrialised settings such as the former coalfields.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.