miseducating future minds
And the re-educating force of punk.
Urgent and necessary reporting by Bob Vylan.
Becoming a teenager in the mid 1980’s politicised me.
At comprehensive school I was taught all about how wonderful the British Empire was and how far it had extended across the world. This mighty colonial mass-murdering pillaging force was sold to me as something to be proud of. The heinous crimes against humanity committed to create this empire were not even mentioned. Whilst extolling empire’s virtues, as the only Brown kid in my class, I experienced relentless racism from fellow pupils and drip fed badly veiled structural and institutional racism. I was educated to fail, to not believe in myself or my self-worth.
Becoming a teenager in the mid 1980’s politicised me.
At home, my Dad would attempt to correct this miseducation reminding me how the British came to India and raped and stole and murdered. They came to our country so he would come here and claim what was his. Because what was his here, should have been his over there.
Becoming a teenager in the mid 1980’s politicised me.
Bright, political and potent I ended up in the worst class in the school, where all of us working class kids were dumped and deprived of the creative opportunities the middle class kids had. King Edwards VII School blatantly replicated the class structure. The kids who would go onto universities, and in particular elite universities were who mattered. Us, we were just going through the system until we could get some kind of job, clock in and clock out. I clocked out early, refusing the boring, inadequate, conditioning education and white lies. Not one teacher at comprehensive school encouraged me, not one saw my potential. Instead I spent hours on supermarket rooftops, in local parks, shoplifting in town (reparations) and writing poetry.
My first job at 16 years old was working alongside my mother packing confectionary at Bassett’s Sweet Factory.
Becoming a teenager in the mid 1980’s politicised me.
Blair Peach 1979
Toxteth Riots 1981
Broadwater Farm Riots 1985
Greenham Common Peace Camp
Molesworth Peace Camp
Miners Strike
Margaret Thatcher
Becoming a teenager in the mid 1980’s politicised me.
Music politicised me. I discovered The Jam and found my catharsis through a group of angry white working class boys who wrote songs that spoke to power and refused to be silent. I was angry, hormonal and full of energy that I didn’t know where to direct. The Jam gave me a focus, a way of seeing the blatant lies that we were being sold. I memorised the words to every single song from all the albums. Paul Weller made me into the poet I then was. The lyrics below still so relevant.
The Jam: Going Underground
Some people might say my life is in a rut
I'm quite happy with what I got
People might say that I should strive for more, but
I'm so happy I can't see the point
Something's happening here today
A show of strength with your boy's brigade
And I'm so happy and you're so kind
You want more money, of course I don't mind
To buy nuclear textbooks for atomic crimes
And the public gets what the public wants
But I want nothing this society's got
I'm going underground (going underground)
Well, if the brass bands play and feet start to pound
Going underground (going underground)
Well, let the boys all sing and let the boys all shout for tomorrow
Some people might get some pleasure out of hate
Me, I've enough already on my plate
People might need some tension to relax
Me? I'm too busy dodging between the flak
What you see is what you get
You've made your bed, you better lie in it
You choose your leaders and place your trust
As their lies wash you down and their promises rust
You'll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns
And the public wants what the public gets
But I don't get what this society wants
I'm going underground (going underground)
Well, if the brass bands play and feet start to pound
Going underground (going underground)
So let the boys all sing and let the boys all shout for tomorrow
la-la-la-la
(Oh) la-la-la-la
We talk and we talk until my head explodes
I turn on the news and my body froze
This braying sheep on my TV screen
Make this boy shout, make this boy scream
Going underground
I'm going underground
I'm going underground
I'm going underground
la-la-la-la
(Oh) la-la-la-la
(Oh) la-la-la-la
(Oh) la-la-la-la
Braying sheep on my TV screen
Make this boy shout, make this boy scream
Going underground (going underground)
Well, if the brass bands play and feet start to pound
Going underground (going underground)
Well, let the boys all sing and let the boys all shout
Going underground (going underground)
Well, if the brass bands play and feet go pound-pound-pound
Going underground (going underground)
So let the boys all sing and let the boys all shout for tomorrow
My teenage education didn’t come from school. It came from music, from politics, from activism, from home and family, from my roots. It came from truanting and learning to be a teenage flaneur. From trees and chip butties. From poetry and dreams of being a writer. And perhaps bone-deep ancestral refusal.
The education ‘system’ right now is bringing the mid-80’s back (and the repetitions of time-past). Banning books! A school in Manchester banning books written by mainly Black authors. This is nothing new. Empire has always destroyed knowledge, books, schools and knoweldge-keepers as a way of obliterating intellect, culture, indigneity and dissent. Why wouldn’t they do that here too? The closure of arts and humanities departments across all levels of education and dogged and relentless growth of STEM = an attack on imagination and creativity.
What are we educating our children for? Who and what will these future minds become if we feed them a one-track spoon-fed trope in school with highly edited libraries and curriculums? What kind of thinking will emerge? Especially with AI as an ally? We all know the agenda here. It is terrifying.
As Bob Vylan highlights in the above report our education system is under severe attack, led by politicians and billionaires. And that means the hearts and minds and bodies of our children are under severe attack. Their minds being shaped to adapt to what is to come: an increasing far right agenda. Now more than ever we need our children, and all of us to have punk education. Music that refuses and shows truth to power. Art that refuses and shows truth to power. Literature that refuses and shows truth to power. People that refuse and show truth to power. Like Bob Vylan.
I was lucky enough to see Bob Vylan eventually at that Manchester gig earlier this year. Just like finding myself through The Jam back in the 80’s, I’m finding myself, my anger, my power, my dissent, my humour and dance moves which dislocate – which I need for these times (not the dislocation) – at home in the exquisitely disruptive and urgent poetics and performance of Bob Vylan. Bob Vylan, along with Kneecap and others are some of the most important bands of our times. This is about creating alternative curriculums for our children (whether we have them or not) and for all of us. To re-educate our minds so we’re readier for the times ahead. Create our own alternative libraries with open access. In our living rooms or garden sheds or on a park bench or a page on a website.
Becoming a silver-streaked middle-saging woman in the headfuckery of 2026 continues to politicise me.
Bring me the punk.
Bring me all those banned books.
Bring me all the muthafunkas, the misfits and unruly cunts**. The young ones and the oldie goldies too.
Bring me a big speaker. Under a big old oak tree we’ll sip herbal tea, put the world to rights, make laughter and altogether sing, ‘Teachers said when I leave / No one here will miss me / Didn't know I was a sinner / But if they say so, well I must be…’*
May we sin(g) ourselves wise to these times.
*We live here by Bob Vylan
**Cunts: during my masters studies I wrote an essay reclaiming the word 'cunt’, exploring the etymology of this beautiful word and most powerful of expletives and the power of ‘cunctipotence’ (Jane Caputi).
