Where are you from?

"Where are you from?" 

I am never quite sure how to respond to this question.  

What does the person really want to know (if anything)?

"Do you want to know where I was born?"

"Well, I was born in Blackpool."

"Do you want to know where I live?"

"Do you want to know where I lived?"

"Do you want to know where I work?"

"Do you want to know with which place(s) I identify?"

"Well, I am from Clermont Ferrand."

This was an answer I gave to a man in a queue at the checkout of a hypermarket in France.

My answer clearly did not satisfy him.

"Oh, you're not really from here," he says with spite, "You're a plum (pudding)."

He means rosbif, English...

I have lived in this town for 30 years - longer than anywhere else in my life. 

I could stay another seventy years but to this man and others of his ilk, I will never have the right to say:

"I am from Clermont Ferrand."

Others are less aggressive, they smile when I answer:

"I am from Clermont Ferrand."

They immediately detect that I am "from somewhere else".

"But you're not really French." 

"I can hear a little accent."

The fact that I have French nationality means nothing to them.

"But you're not really French."

I will never be "really French."

"So you're English."

"Well no in terms of passports, I'm British and French."

"Oh...but you're not really French."

The Auvergne, the region in which Clermont Ferrand is located, is not really France...to some.

Alsace and Lorraine, a border territory between France and Germany, has alternately been "French" and "German".

Wars have been fought so that they can say it is "français" or "deutsch".

It is for now "French".

What do people from Reunion island, in the Indian Ocean reply to the question:

"Where are you from?"

"I am from France."

"I am Reunionais."

Who decides what it is to be French?

Who decides what it is to be Auvergnat?

Who decides what it is to be English, British?

What do I answer when I am aware of my heritage with its English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, and Norman origins?

On what criteria shall I be judged "really English"?

I chat with one of my friends from university that I have known for thirty years.

"You're not really English now are you?" he says in a broad Derbyshire accent, "You're more French than English."

Where are you from?

As a child, I lived in a big house, a rectory, as my father was a clergyman. 

When I played in the park and spoke to the other kids, it was clear that I was unlike them.

They gave me dirty looks and chattered between themselves.

I never had a local accent like theirs.

I never sounded like I was from any place in particular.

I remember being able to detect the accent from a small town near Preston in Lancashire.

"That person's from Bamber Bridge," I rightly guessed.

Nobody easily detected where I was from.

I didn't come from a place, I came from a class.

I was marked as "posh"  by some.

I spoke, like many middle class kids, a version of "received prononunciation"

I alternate vowel sounds from the North West and from received pronunciation.

I am not quite one thing or another.

I am not a real anything really.

I am a human...I suppose.

"So where are you really from?"

Talking with a British colleague in France, I immediately determine that he, like me, has been to boarding school, to public school.

"So, where are you from?"
"I am from a class, I am from public school."

Where he or I are from is an irrelevance.

We come from privilege.

Suspect origins, suspect sexuality, suspect intentions.

So, I am in a pub with my family in Yorkshire. 

As we come in, the local people all stop speaking and stare.

We are NOT one of them.

I am reminded of a scene from American Werewolf in London.

An American Werewolf In London - The Pub Scene from Sajeev cheeroth on Vimeo.

I forget the norms of masculinity in Yorkshire, I have, like many French men, a shoulder bag.

"Oh, look he's got a handbag." jeers one of the "real" men at the bar.

How could I have forgotten that having a shoulder bag would make my sexuality appear ambiguous?

"So, where are you from?"

I run through the possible answers in my head.

"I was born in Blackpool."
"I lived for many years in Manchester."
"I identify with the North West of England, Lancashire."
"I am from Clermont Ferrand, in France."

I settle for:

"I was born in Blackpool, but now I live in France."

The men in the bar appear not to be able to get their heads around that.

"Oh...right..."

"Can I buy you a drink." one offers.

I do a quick mental calculation of the number of rounds I will be up for and politely decline.

I am rejecting their challenge, their "hospitality," to be mascot, a token, a guest member of their drinking fraternity.

They go back to speaking about football.

I am irrelevant.

Where are you local?

If I am writing of this now, it is because I am currently studying on a course which concerns intercultural facilitated virtual exchanges.

As preparation for a synchronous video conferencing session, we are asked to watch a TED video entitled:

"Don't ask me where I am from, ask me where I am local."

I decided to annotate the video and tweet it out on Twitter.

Don't ask me where I'm from, ask where I am local.https://t.co/zwPdacTa03@makle1 @Bali_Maha @tutormentorteam @EatcherVeggies @wentale @14prinsp #clmooc

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 30, 2018

I choose a number of friends whose reactions to the video intrigue me.

These people, I know, have lived in a number of different countries, are living in colonised lands or are more rooted, and identify with a land, a  national group.

Clermont Ferrand, Manchester, Blackpool, Coventry, London, Frinton-on-Sea, Bournemouth, Yeovil, Glasgow, Montlucon..., boarding school, university, Mont Blanc...

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 30, 2018

I wonder how occupation by invaders or colonisers of a territory affects the strength of people's association with populist concepts of "nationality".

In times of mass migration or military invasion, I wonder about "resistance" to "diversity."

"Where are you local?"
"Where are you from?"

What would a coloniser answer to this?

Oh for heaven's sake...

"Why don't we just all go back to where we came from?"

"We're not from here are we?"

https://t.co/J1G2kU0g5U

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 28, 2018

How do the colonised feel?

Do indigenous people identify with national myths, national concepts?

Would some indigenous people see any relevance to the question:

"Where are you from?"

How many generations does it take for people to feel a sense of a place being "home".

I think of people in Corsica, in Majorca and other "desirable" territories for "second homes" who are being priced out of the market by wealthy investors who buy up property and let it out on Air B'n'B, ripping out the heart of communities.

What to say of how attachment to land, to culture, to home is being wrenched from families?

I get some more reponses to my tweet.

I am a local of the Cabrini-Green public housing area on the Near North side of Chicago, of my basement office in front of a PC, of many places where I spent one, two or three or more years over a 71 year lifetime.

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) May 30, 2018

Yup! Believe it or not 👉🏼 “Where are you from...or where are you really from is often code for why are you here...?”

— Parisa Mehran پریسا مهران ✊🏽💪🏽✌🏽🌷 (@ParisaMehran) May 30, 2018

I'm gonna come back to the vialogue. But I was in a situation today where someone said it was "so exciting" when they learned I was in Egypt and it felt exoticizing, like I didn't belong... And man, it was in my own home of vconnecting!

— ℳąhą Bąℓi مها بالي 🌷 (@Bali_Maha) May 30, 2018

I think of connection in a time of disconnection.

I wonder who really benefits from Erasmus "Intercultural", "Virtual Exchanges" ?

Indeed, whose interests does "European Union" really serve?

The EU helped create the Italy crisis. If it doesn't learn, worse will follow | Cas Mudde https://t.co/6epKLRzjPx

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 31, 2018

I wonder to whose and what ends academia and its markets are performed?

I think of my lack of attachment to the earth, my lack of manual skill, my dependence on a system...

I am ever so proud of having seeded a lawn.

I never get round to growing food.

I pick up fruit and vegetables in the hypermarket.

"Where are they from?"

"Corsica, Spain, California, South Africa, China, Guyana, Kenya..."

I go and take a tour of IKEA, I go to the cafeteria...

'My whole life has been a lie': Sweden admits meatballs are Turkish https://t.co/qSC1nBJ5Ea

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 31, 2018

I look at labels on my clothes.

"Where are they from?"

"Vietnam, China, Tunisia, Romania..."

Where they are from is an irrelevance.

I don't care where they are from.

I look at the price.

I don't care about the cost to others.

I am detached from the people, the children perhaps, whose calloused hands made my t shirt.

"Where is it from?"
"Where are you from?"

The t shirt and I are from a system, an exploitative system.

I wonder to what extent our local attachments, our feelings of belonging are under threat.

I wonder who benefits...

Young people don’t have tribes any more. We have smartphones instead https://t.co/YkdDniq5Jx

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 28, 2018

Is all that counts not knowing or not caring the answer to the following question:

"Where are from?"

"Where is your/our wealth from?"

How 'dirty money' from Russia flooded into the UK – and where it went https://t.co/tN5NidZDp4

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 31, 2018 

Roman Abramovich granted Israeli citizenship https://t.co/ssdqSeigbe

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 31, 2018

"All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned." ~ Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto

Very small samples.

I had typed my prejudice in black and white.

"They generalise from very small samples."

I took in its catastrophic irony.

"If you look at the teachers...."


I categorised.

"This idea that my learners will have learnt x is probably based on something...which is probably faulty from the start."

It all sounded (un)convincingly adamant.

Even on the page.

Grid-locked.

"What we need is a grid of criteria", was the refrain.

"Otherwise how can we choose?"

"How can we judge fairly?"

"They are demanding a ranking."

"We have to do this with tight deadlines."

"If we have cross-disciplinary collaboration that will look good."

"If we have a partnership with business that will look good."

What the fuck is grading to do with research?

Grid-locked.

I sat down in the same chairs as the week before.

I set my phone to time.

I chose the first student to start the evaluation.

"Don't worry it won't last long."

"You'll be fine."

"No really, you'll be ok."

How the fuck did I know that?

The candidate (deliberate objectification) fled in panic.

The candidate knew much better than I.

What the fuck is grading  to do with learning?

Turnkey laments.

Just don't understand it.

I smile at 'em, jolly 'em along.

I pay attention not to spill their food.

Just don't understand it.

I believe in my educational role.

I even organise outings for some of 'em.

I smile at 'em, jolly 'em along.

I pay attention not to be unfair in my comments.

They just don't pay attention.

They just don't play the game right.

They just don't put their heart and soul in it.

They don't take their work seriously.

They're just looking to score enough points for smokes.

I put my life into the job.

I read those books.

I tried all those motivating tricks and the like.

I even did research like... a while.

The guvnor thought I was crazy.

"This is a bloody prison not a kindergarten," he said.

I thought that was pushing it a bit.

I am more than sympathetic to their plight.

I was in their shoes once.

I don't see difference between black and white, man or woman.

I am open-minded, I'm empathetic even.

I smile at 'em, I jolly 'em along.

Anyone would think that they'd be pleased to see the back of me.

Just don't understand it.

Cellnotes.

“Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penality? Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?”

Michel Foucault.

Footnotes

Inspired by Terry Elliott's reading of a Bertolt Brecht Fable.

Dancing in the open

A few years ago, I asked myself : "How can a teacher change an education system?"  

The answer, of course, is that a teacher alone can not change an education system.  

A system is not one teacher.

After feeling a little less weighed down, I decided to investigate how I might play my part in such a systemic change...

I went out and did some research...

I went out and met people...

This is part of an ongoing investigation...

Dancing in the open
A teacher can learn how to dance publicly and let others join him or her.

A teacher can document the dance steps so that others may follow long after he or she is gone. 

Here I am dancing openly again in this blog.

I am way past feeling ridiculous sharing my steps...

A teacher may understand that a single choreography can become a dance phenomenon. 

It doesn't need to be classical dance.

Anybody for the Harlem Shake?

About a year ago, I was documenting some of the change which had been enabled from working as a connected educator.  

It featured CLMOOC. 

http://clmooc.educatorinnovator.org/2015/

It was called Compagnie d'apprenants.

CLMOOC is part of a wider internationally connected dance.

http://clalliance.org/

A few days ago, I witnessed a virus unpredictably and rapidly spreading and mutating again.

Space for change.

It reminded me again of the importance of space for change.

You need space to dance.

Colleagues from completely different disciplines were using photos from our Nomad's Land Album which we had taken to document our learning journey to illustrate the repurposing of an ex-university library into a new open, modular, connected learning space.

https://goo.gl/photos/L6Wi5n2mzxrTjUvR9

I remembered the inspirational work of Stephen Heppell on Super Classes and Learning Spaces. 

http://rubble.heppell.net/superclasses/

I remembered reading the book of Diane Oblinger on Learning Spaces. 

http://www.educause.edu/research-and-publications/books/learning-spaces

I found it hard to believe what I was witnessing.

This space would bring the community into the institution and involve learners in redesigning their own learning space.

I remembered the work of Juliet Heppell's students in designing their own learning space.

I remembered the talk and book of Keri Facer on Learning Futures. 

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Futures-Education-Technology-Social/dp/0415581435

A few days before that, I had been visiting a fablab maker space in an art school, this is to become one element of this new learning space. Strange how maker space connects to CLMOOC...

http://www.fabfoundation.org/fab-labs/what-is-a-fab-lab/

A few days later, I was sitting discussing the importance of open connected, social media enhanced, reflective learning for an international dance class. 

Last night, I was working on translating an article for an ex-student become athletics coach/international social entrepreneur.

I invited him to work with us as a co-teacher/learner in the new open learning space.

He seemed happy to contribute. 

He is one of a growing number of people helping us out.

As they say in Africa; 

"It takes a village to educate a child."

This morning, I am thinking again about changing systems.

Change seems so impossible at times.

We can feel like we are just a helpless cog in a machine.

I don't believe that we are cogs...

I am reviewing the dancing man video on Youtube.

The dancing man remains for me the simplest model of how to transform a system.

The most important person in the system is not the one who leads but the one who follows.