Nicki Jackowska
Nicki Jackowska is a writer and educator whose book, 'Write for Life' (1997), articulates and exemplifies approaches to writing which are inclusive and developmental. Free writing, and regular and collaborative experimentation of the kind advocated by NWP (UK). They are essential disciplines for classrooms concerned with education rather than merely schooling. Not only do children need the trusted space to learn to think for themselves, but the full affordances of language and thinking cannot be experienced solely through conventional structures.
'The existence and practice of writing itself, for everyone and anyone, is that which makes us humans in its capacity to hold the world open; to hold open choice, ambiguity and that most important of attributes - to see and to know the world in many different ways.'
'When we write, we embark upon a process which has more implications, effects and results than are at first apparent.'
Writing is powerful beyond its utilitarian potential to enable social cohesion through common communication. It has potential as an
' ... unquantifiable and complex movement by which our world is shaped, seen and thought about; the means by which we ourselves become what we are.'
'... through writing and its associative processes we can regain a little more of ourselves. Claim back those parts which have never been uncovered and provoked into life.'
'... to write is to create a place external to ourselves that is separate and distinct and in which we may know ourselves and each other better.'
As language teachers, we need to believe in three things about the dynamic and transformative power of education:
1. Believe in the innate capacity of children. Children's and students' experiences and dreams are saturated with their own distinctive images and language use. Meanings proliferate here. It is only through an encounter between their developing sense of themselves and the world that fresh perceptions can be validated and used for free thinking and new learning.
2. Believe in the special powers of language. Language itself acts on us directly, obliquely and has a prismatic quality which, through study, allows us to learn by reflection and play. Writing in particular, is a language mode which allows us to hold our ideas long enough to revise, share and hone them. Writing is generative and supports our own discoveries. Although writing has acquired special status in its products - great works of literature - the potential of its process is far less well understood. Through writing we can encounter the chaotic, contradictory, uncertain, complex, numinous and provisional nature of our human condition.
3. Believe in ourselves as writing teachers. By writing together in trusted groups, we develop an expertise - a 'guild knowledge' than can inform our teaching practice at a deeper level than merely the re-iteration of conventional patterns, structures and approaches - useful though some of those undoubtedly are. We become strengthened and collectively empowered by direct experience of writing, immersion in the process, and discussion of those permissions, structures and books which help. We are no longer dependent on being told by others 'what works' for their ends, but we become insulated from them and truly empowered through our own collective agency. Teachers are strengthened by the restorative, affirmative and creative power of freedom of speech. This is important because such teachers have a key role to play in the preservation of free-thinking and democracy.
Simon Wrigley
NWP outreach director
24.3.2019
'The existence and practice of writing itself, for everyone and anyone, is that which makes us humans in its capacity to hold the world open; to hold open choice, ambiguity and that most important of attributes - to see and to know the world in many different ways.'
'When we write, we embark upon a process which has more implications, effects and results than are at first apparent.'
Writing is powerful beyond its utilitarian potential to enable social cohesion through common communication. It has potential as an
' ... unquantifiable and complex movement by which our world is shaped, seen and thought about; the means by which we ourselves become what we are.'
'... through writing and its associative processes we can regain a little more of ourselves. Claim back those parts which have never been uncovered and provoked into life.'
'... to write is to create a place external to ourselves that is separate and distinct and in which we may know ourselves and each other better.'
As language teachers, we need to believe in three things about the dynamic and transformative power of education:
1. Believe in the innate capacity of children. Children's and students' experiences and dreams are saturated with their own distinctive images and language use. Meanings proliferate here. It is only through an encounter between their developing sense of themselves and the world that fresh perceptions can be validated and used for free thinking and new learning.
2. Believe in the special powers of language. Language itself acts on us directly, obliquely and has a prismatic quality which, through study, allows us to learn by reflection and play. Writing in particular, is a language mode which allows us to hold our ideas long enough to revise, share and hone them. Writing is generative and supports our own discoveries. Although writing has acquired special status in its products - great works of literature - the potential of its process is far less well understood. Through writing we can encounter the chaotic, contradictory, uncertain, complex, numinous and provisional nature of our human condition.
3. Believe in ourselves as writing teachers. By writing together in trusted groups, we develop an expertise - a 'guild knowledge' than can inform our teaching practice at a deeper level than merely the re-iteration of conventional patterns, structures and approaches - useful though some of those undoubtedly are. We become strengthened and collectively empowered by direct experience of writing, immersion in the process, and discussion of those permissions, structures and books which help. We are no longer dependent on being told by others 'what works' for their ends, but we become insulated from them and truly empowered through our own collective agency. Teachers are strengthened by the restorative, affirmative and creative power of freedom of speech. This is important because such teachers have a key role to play in the preservation of free-thinking and democracy.
Simon Wrigley
NWP outreach director
24.3.2019