Citizenship Foundation Voices

“If youth charities can run schools can we expect these will have pupil voice and empowerment at the centre of the way they run?”

That was the content of a message posted to Twitter on Friday by Fiona Blacke. Presumably she was writing in response to the government’s scrapping of the £2million Academy sponsorship fee, currently required of voluntary and private sector organisations that want to sponsor schools. (More about the Academies programme.)

Asher Jacobsberg of involver picked up on this and asked if there was any interest in a consortium to “try it out”. He marked the message for the particular attention of a number of charities, including ourselves.

Clearly any project proposal for this would need to go through the proper internal channels, but it is an interesting topic for discussion:

• is there a case to be made for a flagship school centred on pupil voice and democratic principles;
• what would such a school look like;
• could one be run successfully by a consortium of enthusiastic voluntary organisations;
• if not, what possibilities are there for supporting other sponsors in achieving similar goals?

What do you think?

Last Friday a number of us from the Citizenship Foundation spent the morning sanding and varnishing at the Calthorpe Project, a community garden in London’s King’s Cross.

Few local residents have access to gardens, so the Calthorpe Project gives them somewhere to sit peacefully and the opportunity to grow flowers and vergetables. The project also runs events, such as summer activities for local children, and is open for anyone to visit. (More about the garden in this interview with Adam from the project.)

The Project is 25 this year, and on Saturday 26 September is holding a carnival to celebrate. Proceedings start at midday with a procession around the local streets, and will be opened officially at 2pm by the Mayor of Camden from 1984. The event will include music, dance workshops, arts and crafts and international food. For more information contact Calthorpe Project, 258-274 Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8LH; tel: 020 7837 8019; www.calthorpeproject.org.uk.

I always enjoy it when the Economist publishes a feature called something like ‘why do people give?’ It appears to start from the principle that altruism is a behaviour so conspicuously irrational that its psychosocial determinants need to be unpacked – as if this irrationality could creep into something much more significant than philanthropy such as – er – the financial markets, perhaps. Fundraisers often play the same game at their professional conferences with seminars asking which people give and why – is it because they are from religious families? Is it for the gratitude that comes back to them from being seen as a giver? Is it for social networking or social justice?

My view is that asking why people give is a little like asking why people have babies in modern British society. Most people do not have children as an insurance policy for care in old age any more, and yet they spend thousands on clothes, holidays, bikes and ipods, which is surely as irrational as giving to charity if putting money into something which does not yield a return to the investor is always to be construed as irrational. An economist might quickly point out that we need young people and migrants to form the workforce to pay for our ageing population – but if you can find me a parent who had a child so that their tax contributions could pay for the care of the lady up the road, I’ll eat my hat. However, I can easily believe that a person might want a child just because they believe that they would love to have children, and also make a contribution to an Alzheimer’s charity because he or she would love people to be able to cope better with Alzheimers Disease.

I think that people give to charities because they see it as a means to make something happen that they would love to see in the world – such as vulnerable elderly people having better care, or children in developing countries being able to drink safer water. We know we cannot as individuals reach all the solutions by ourselves –the greatest talents in business, sports or entertainment have great teams working with them. So we form associations, and link with others by sharing our resources – emotional, intellectual, and financial – with associations we think will bring about the good thing we seek. Nothing so irrational about that, is there?

Recent revelations that British Members of Parliament have abused their expenses may seem pretty appalling. But maybe it’s society, and not simply the MPs, that needs a change of attitude.

On Tuesday Lord Foulkes challenged BBC presenter Carrie Gracie to reveal her salary. When she did, he lambasted her for daring to cross-examine him when her own salary of £92,000 is almost twice as much his.

It seems to me that he’s missed the point. Gracie replied that she uses her own phone rather than the BBC’s because she’s aware of spending public money. That may sound a little pathetic considering the size of her salary, but she’s right: surely it’s the attitude that’s the issue here, not the amount of money?

Lord Foulkes may be earning a lot less than Carrie Gracie, but he’s still earning a lot more than most people: and many of them would be considered well-paid. I work for a charity, which is funded in part by public money. I work from home, and I don’t claim for phone calls, electricity, or heating. Certainly I don’t expect other people not to claim for such expenses incurred in the performance of their job, but some moral integrity wouldn’t go amiss.

Which begs the question: would we be any different?

How many of those who have been so eager to criticise MPs’ use of expenses wouldn’t have done exactly the same given the chance? It would be interesting, for example, to see a freedom of information response on this from some members of the press.

If such a request did show a similarity of behaviour, the defence - I should imagine - would be that it isn’t public money that they’re spending. True, but if someone takes advantage of expenses in the private sector, they’re unlikely to change their spots if they then move to the public sector.

Isn’t it our attitude to money and to our behaviour in business and society that’s important? If we don’t see ourselves as having a duty to behave responsibly with others, and within the society and communities in which we operate, then why should anything change; MPs will always act selfishly - even if they do it within the rules - because that’s what people do?

Surely MPs are a product of society: so if society doesn’t change, neither will they.

Adapted from my post on citizensheep.com

This morning I was invited to participate in a school’s year 10 Citizenship class: via Twitter. I’m not sure how well it worked, but it was an interesting experiment. Here I outline some of the challenges I think it presents as a model, which I’m keen to help iron out.

The lesson was on the topic of climate change, and the teacher had set up a Twitter account from which she tweeted questions on behalf of the class.

Because I wasn’t in the classroom I have no idea how the lesson progressed, which in turn made me feel somewhat isolated. That may not be a bad thing, although it was impossible to know how much commitment was required during the lesson (and, in fact, how long the lesson was to last).

Even though the external contributors like myself were few, the quality of replies was sometimes questionable. This is not a problem provided we were being treated the same as any other source, and not as experts.

I think the main stumbling block was actually the questions; they were too wide for us to answer with any authority, but appeared to expect us to.

These are not criticisms though. It was a bold experiment, and I hope it’s repeated. If it is, my suggestions would be:

• be clearer at the outset of the topic in hand (ie I was told it would be on the citizenship aspects of sustainable development but the questions were about the effects of climate change);
• perhaps, instead of asking questions that expect answers, actually conduct a discussion on a specific question; or invite questions to the class instead (which challenges them rather than offers them easy access to answers);
• provide the external participants with some context; maybe via a live blog of the lesson, or pre-published notes.

I’m no teacher though, so any comments gratefully received. I think this was a great initiative, and hope the teacher in question will continue to explore it.