July 2011 – matt finch / mechanical dolphin

Interview: Rebecca Wallace-Segall, Writopia Lab

July 16, 2011December 12, 2011Mechanical Dolphin

A lot of the schemes we feature on Books and Adventures involve encouraging reluctant readers and promoting literacy in the family or wider community. Some, like Wales’ Young People’s Writing Squads, offer support and encouragement to those who already have a talent for writing and want to develop it.

New York’s Writopia Lab project is one of these schemes.

So why do Writopia kids want to write?

‘I just want to have fun writing for myself, and do it for the rest of my life.’

‘I watched my friend cry when she read my story – I want to make kids feel things.’

‘I like to read newspapers and magazines. I want to be part of the conversation that I hear going on.’

That third “kid” was Rebecca Wallace-Segall, who grew up to found Writopia Lab in 2007. A journalist in New York, Rebecca spun off a residency at a private school into a non-profit organization giving children and young people the chance to hone their literary skills with professional writer-instructors.

Rebecca and I met earlier this year at her New York headquarters on the Upper West Side, a cosy place of pine floorboards, comfy sofas and beanbags, its walls decorated with images of books where the children can write the names and titles of their own work on the spines. These are the ‘library walls’ which provide a record of success for Writopia participants, but the available spaces are quickly filling up. ‘We’re going to end up having to go on the ceiling!’ says Rebecca.

She began by explaining to me how Writopia Lab’s mission differs from community literacy programmes which seek to engage reluctant readers and writers.

Teaching and testing – the Finnish case

July 11, 2011December 12, 2011Mechanical Dolphin

Helsinki Panorama by Flickr user Huzhead

A tweet from Trevor Cairney, a fellow writer-educator based in Sydney, led me to David Sirota’s recent article on Finnish education in Salon.com.

Sirota’s article gives the lie to claims that a culture of rigorous testing is the only way to improve standards in US schools – pointing to Finland’s success in creating a world-class education system by cherishing teachers, rather than imposing tests.

The Finns have a remarkable system which produced top scores in the last PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) study by the OECD.

Teaching staff lie at the heart of Finland’s achievement. Well-trained, well-supported and given a great deal of independence, Finland’s teachers are trusted academic professionals, choosing their methods and materials themselves. Testing is used as the teacher sees fit – for self-evaluation and development, rather than for league tables and outcomes.

The Finns’ success is a great riposte to forces in the UK and US who continually push intensive testing regimes on our schools. As I said at the House of Commons last year, the current culture of testing and targets is so harmful to learning, especially in the field of literacy.

Nnedi Okorafor Interview, Part 4: ‘Chittim’ and Earning for Learning

July 6, 2011Mechanical Dolphin

Find the first part of this interview here.

One of the most distinctive inventions of Nnedi Okorafor’s new novel Akata Witch is chittim – a currency earned by magical practitioners when they learn an important lesson, delivered in the form of a shower of varying-sized metal rods falling from the sky.

‘I liked the idea of earning something for your knowledge, for learning,’ says Nnedi. ‘The rods are based on objects used in real-life magical practices, but I don’t know where they come from in the world of the novel! They’re not from God, they just…fall from the sky when you learn something new.’

Like most writers and teachers, I could always do with some extra currency, and I love learning, so I adored the idea of chittim.

Nnedi offered her own example of a ‘chittim moment’ from her teenage years as a tennis player:

‘When I was about seventeen, I was in California playing the nationals. I don’t know what part of the draw I was at in the tournament. It was early on. Not the finals or semi-finals or anything. I was playing this girl. Both of us were there alone. No parents or friends or siblings had come with us. But we were battling. We were evenly matched. We had no audience.

‘As our match drew on for hours, other kids finished playing each other and went home for the day. But she and I kept slugging it out. We split sets (she won one set, then I won the second). We played for over FIVE HOURS. No one knew we were there on that far tennis court in the sun. No one cheered. No one was on the edge of his or her seat. But we were battling. We both wanted to win even if no one else cared.

‘I eventually won and there were no cheers. We sat together drinking water, quiet, smiling occasionally, sweaty as heck. It was awesome. It didn’t matter who won, that’s what I learned that day. It was all about the game, pushing yourself, and playing your brains out.’

Nnedi’s perspective on education is shaped by such experiences, and the notion that learning as embodied by chittim is not about formal study:

‘I was a late bloomer – I struggled with tests, and didn’t blossom until grad school. I felt I had missed out because of assumptions made at an early age about which class you were put through.

‘Exams and learning are sometimes really in conflict. It’s not about passing the test, it’s what you learn, the things you choose to develop. I don’t know how many chittim you would get from taking a formal exam…maybe one if you were lucky!’

‘I feel that kids should be given space to change. There’s so much pressure now on young people to achieve and conform. The whole idea of “Tiger Mothering” and “Helicopter Parenting” is also connected to people trying to control fate.

‘As a mother, I understand parents wanting to choose the destiny of your child. But you must let your child become her/his own person – and resist your urge to take control!’

With her writing appealing to a young adult audience, Nnedi has taken her work into high schools in the U.S. and beyond.

‘My last school visit was in Trinidad, a peaceful place where I was very comfortable! They really got Zahrah, because the world of Ginen reflects that same mix of peoples and cultures you find in Trinidad. They identified with that.

‘I had the students do a writing exercise – to work together and create a character, as a group.

‘I was delighted with the result – a mixed-race boy with pink hair…and he could fly!’

Nnedi’s future plans include more schools outreach work and contact with inspiring young writers like the students in Trinidad. In the meantime a film of Who Fears Death is in the works and, of course, Akata Witch is available in all good bookstores!

Nnedi Okorafor Interview, Part 3: Palm Tree Banditware – The Future of the Book

July 1, 2011September 30, 2015Mechanical Dolphin

Find the first part of this interview here.

During our interview in Chicago, Nnedi showed off one of her prized possessions, an object which stands as a manifestation of her fantasy world in ours: a Kindle which has been decorated to resemble a giant folded leaf.

Reminiscent of the ‘Sandpiper’ laptops built from natural materials in William Gibson’s Idoru, Nnedi’s Kindle is a real-life emblem of the kind of distinctive technology which exists in her fantasy world, Ginen – a realm which blends plants and hardware, where the term ‘techno-organic’ has more to do with sustainability than the Borg or H.R. Giger’s Alien.

The defining technology of Nnedi’s stories, however, is one that’s already centuries old – the book. Time and again books play a key part in her novels, whether it’s Akata Witch’s Fast Facts for Free Agents – an unreliable, conservative set of rules for young wizards – or the Forbidden Greeny Jungle Guide of Zahrah The Windseeker, which is virtually a character in its own right.

Uncooperative and all too fallible, the Guide is Zahrah’s only source of information on the mysterious jungle into which she must venture. The device is reminiscent of science fiction’s first and greatest guidebook, The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – and that’s not by chance.

‘Hitch-hiker’s was my first sci-fi experience, and the first book that ever made me laugh out loud,’ admits Nnedi. ‘The physics, the jokes, the way Douglas Adams writes. It was inspiring.

‘I added some extra features to the e-book of Zahrah to give it that Hitch-hiker’s feel. You can read entries from the Forbidden Greeny Jungle Guide on my website that don’t appear in the novel – including real creatures, like the suicide ant!

‘For the Zahrah e-book, I wanted pop-up ads – palm tree banditware, obnoxious recipes by the author – but it had to be exactly as I envisaged it, like in the book, and the technology’s not quite there yet. But just you wait!’

Fast Facts for Free Agents, the book given to Akata Witch’s hero Sunny as she enters the world of wizardry for the first time, is just as unreliable and prejudiced as Zahrah’s Guide.

Nnedi chalks some of this perspective up to her postgraduate studies, especially in journalism.

‘In grad school, I learned a new way of reading. It taught me that you can’t just ‘get information out of a book’. You need to know what forms of information exist, what angle they take.

‘Especially in Nigeria, authors of guide books are often almost yelling at you to convey their perspective –every ethnic group says their way is the best. There are no ‘facts’ in writing about some of the Nigerian villages – it’s always shaped by a perspective, by some writer talking down to you – yet these documents nonetheless contain real information.

‘The same is true of Fast Facts and the Guide – they’re examples of how to look at information, reminders to not always believe, and even when you do believe, always consider the perspective of one who gave the information.’

In the fourth and final part of my interview with Nnedi Okorafor, we talk about ways of learning, and the most distinctive inventions of Nnedi Okorafor’s new novel Akata Witch, chittim – a currency earned by learning , delivered as a shower of metal rods falling from the sky.