Week of Action for FREE EDUCATION

Wednesday January 26, 2011 00:40

by BristolStudent

Bristol Against Education Cuts (and others) Presents...

A week of events, in support of of Free Education, and in solidarity with all those opposed to cuts and job losses. Friday 28th January – Friday 5th February, at locations across the University of Bristol campus – all welcome!

In November and December of last year, the current government’s cuts stimulated debates and protests across the country, including more than
thirty university ‘occupations’. As a continuation of the important conversations which characterised these protests, and in solidarity with
other sectors and individuals affected by the broader cuts, Bristol students are organising week of free events open to everyone.

Please publicise where possible - hi res flyer/poster:<http://img405.imageshack.us/i/weekoffreeeducationeven.jpg/>

*SUMMARY OF EVENTS*
Friday 28th Jan
1. 12pm, Lunchtime Seminar: “The New Geopolitics of Aid to Education: Are We All Soldiers Now?” With Dr. Mario Novelli, University of Sussex
2. 5pm, Panel event – Reimagining the University! Higher Education, Funding & the State. Hosted by Geographical Sciences.

Saturday 29th Jan
3. All day, Coaches to Manchester and London for demonstration against education cuts.

Sunday 30th Jan
4. 1pm, Bristol Demo against tax-dodgers.

Monday 31st Jan
5. 1pm, Workshop on Political Representation. Hosted by SPAIS.

Tuesday 1st Feb
6. 7.30pm, Film Night: Implanting Ideology.

Wednesday 2nd Feb
7. 7pm, Film night: "F**k the System Before it F**ks You"

Thursday 3rd Feb
9. 7pm, Film night: Dystopic Revolution

Friday 4th Feb
8. 6pm-9pm, Open debate: “This university believes that the cuts will be both socially and economically damaging to the country”

*EVENT DETAILS*
1. *Lunchtime Seminar: The New Geopolitics of Aid to Education: Are We All Soldiers Now?* Dr. Mario Novelli, University of Sussex

12 – 1.30, @ The Graduate School of Education, 35 Berkeley Square, Room 401

2. *Panel event – Reimagining the University! Higher Education, Funding & the State*
5.00 – 6.45pm, Peel Lecture Theatre, Geographical Sciences.
With guest panel speakers Maria Fannin, Tony Hoare and Wendy Larner from Geography; Mario Novelli from International Education &
Development,University of Sussex, and Susan Robertson, Graduate School of Education, Bristol. Chaired and introduced by Geography postgraduates, with opportunity for questions and debate.

With drinks to follow provided by the School.

(Flyer available<https://fluff.bris.ac.uk/fluff/u/ns6801/LaxxSSMW3O_W6oANP5mlwALo/>)

3. *Coaches to Manchester and London for demonstration against education cuts*
Please contact [tnelson86 _at_ gmail _dot_ com] to reserve spaces.

4. *Bristol Demo against tax-dodgers*
1 – 5pm, meets at The Band Stand, Castle Park, Bristol. BS1 9QE

Please see the facebook page for further info:
<http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=183244181708357>
(Flyer available <http://ifile.it/yziuc51>)

5. *Workshop on ‘Representation’*
1.00-2.00pm, Front Seminar Room, 12 Woodland Road, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS)

A lunchtime opportunity for re-evaluation of political representation. All are invited to come and discuss the current student movement around the
following introductory questions: What does ‘representation’ mean now? What politics is enabled (or disabled) when we speak of representatives or representing? Are we content to elect or give our approval to representatives, or do we need a more participatory model at this juncture?
Is even our discourse around political representation outmoded; and do we need to reimagine the notion of ‘representation’ in general? Come and join SPAIS staff and postgrads for what is sure to be a lively debate!

6. *Film night: Implanting Ideology*
7:30pm, BCCS (corner door) 1-9 Old Park Hill

Films:
- *Clyde Geronimi – Education for Death Runtime: 10min*
A Walt Disney wartime propaganda look into the mind of Hans, a boy born into a German family. Watch as his attitude about the value of human life degrades as he is exposed to Hitler Youth and other Nazi organizations and attitudes.

- *William Peters – A Class Divided Runtime: 55min*
An expanded edition of William Peters’s classic study of the unique eye-color lesson in prejudice and discrimination taught by Iowa schoolteacher Jane Elliott. This new edition continues the story of Elliott and her sixteen third-graders of 1970, eleven of whom returned to their
hometown in 1984 for a reunion with their former teacher. Peters reports on that meeting and its evidence that the long-ago lesson has had a profound and enduring effect on the students’ lives and attitudes.

- *Fred Wiseman – Highschool Runtime: 75min*
The high school, located in Philadelphia, is a mostly white institute. The students are shuffled between various classes. In the normal classes like English, teachers can be found doing such things as extolling the virtues of Paul Simon, poet. In less worthy classes, female students model clothes and receive unflattering comments from the teacher about their bodies. Come sex-ed time, boys are informed by a gynecologist, casually, that he gets paid to look at girls’ hymens. The auditorium applauds. In a rare moment of student discussion, many discuss their dissatisfaction with all but the technology available at the school. Indeed, students are rarely heard from in the film. We here an awful lot of
lecturing and hectoring, though. The only time students really get to talk is when brought into conflict with a parent or administrator. One girl is
brought in with her parents for “messing around” with a teacher, which included locking the poor soul in a closet. A teacher stalks the halls
looking for students out without a hall pass. The same stern individual reprimands students for a variety of offenses, ranging from punching someone to not showing up in gym clothes just because they’re medically unfit for phys ed.

7. *Film night: "F**k the System Before it F**ks You"*
7pm, BCCS (corner door) 1-9 Old Park Hill

Films:
- *Ken Loach – Sweet sixteen Runtime: 101 min* Liam is a young, restless teen struggling to realize his dream in the gritty and dismal streets of Greenock, where unemployment is rampant and little hope is available to the city’s youth. He is waiting for the release of his mother, Jean, from prison where she is completing a prison term for a crime that her boyfriend actually committed. Her boyfriend, Stan, is a crude and
obnoxious drug pusher is partnered by Liam’s equally rough and foul-mouthed, mean-spirited grandfather. Liam is determined to rescue his mother from both of them, which means creating a safe haven beyond their reach. But first he’s got to raise the cash—no small feat for a young man It’s not long before Liam and his pals’ crazy schemes lead them into all sorts of trouble. Finding himself dangerously out of his depth, Liam knows he should walk away. Only this time, he just can’t let go.

- *Alan Clarke – Made in Britain Runtime: 72min*
‘You ain’t takin’ bugger all from us, we hate you.’ This is the challenge thrown down to authority by Trevor (Tim Roth), a 16-year-old skinhead with a fierce intellect, soured by bitter racism. But as he stomps from Job Centre to juvenile detention pen, Trevor’s biggest threat to the system is that sometimes he’s right. Making his screen debut, Roth is astoundingly good in what is surely Clarke’s finest film, written by David Leland and superbly shot on Steadicam by Chris Menges.

8. *Open debate: “This university believes that the cuts will be both socially and economically damaging to the country”*
6pm-9pm, MR5A in the Union.
Are the cuts proposed by the coalition government a rational response to the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, or an ideologically driven program which exploits the crisis? Will the introduction of free market principles into areas such as health and education improve efficiency, or lead to the deterioration of those services? Is the ‘Big Society’ a revolutionary way of empowering communities, or a cynical attempt to shift the burden of welfare onto volunteers?

This will be a formal, chaired debate with balanced teams of three on either side debating the most pressing issue today. Come along to MR5A in the Union from 6pm, listen to the speakers, and field them questions when the floor opens!”

9. *Film night: Dystopic Revolution*
7pm, BCCS (corner door) 1-9 Old Park Hill

*Patricio Guzman – The battle of Chile Runtime: 96min*
On September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende’s democratically-elected Chilean government was overthrown in a bloody coup by General Augusto Pinochet’s army. Patricio Guzmán and five colleagues had been filming the political developments in Chile throughout the nine months leading up to that day. The bombing of the Presidential Palace, during which Allende died, would now become the ending for Guzmán’s seminal documentary THEBATTLE OF CHILE, an epic chronicle of that country’s open and peaceful socialist revolution, and of the violent counter-revolution against it.

*George Lucas – THX 1138 Runtime: 85min*
The film is set in an underground city of the future, where sexual intercourse is outlawed and use of mind-altering drugs is mandatory. Narcotics are critical both in maintaining compliance among the city’s residents and also for ensuring their ability to conduct dangerous and demanding tasks for long periods of time. The inhabitants worship a godlike being known as “OMM 0910”, with whom they commune in telephone booth-like
areas known as “Unichapels”. We see SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence) and LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) at their jobs, which involve keeping surveillance on the city’s many residents and fielding questions from them (most questions deal with drug intake).