Talking About Art

From Fishtown to Gimmerton, Education as a Social Mobility or The Tale of Boreas, a case study. Boreas is a young man, sensitive, quietly spoken and shy. One of our Non-Traditional students from a white working class broken home in coastal Fishtown, a depressed post-industrial area of the Northern coast line. There is high unemployment and few opportunities in Fishtown and so after an uneventful and unheroic schooling with few aspirations Boreas moved to Gimmerton. He is a softly spoken gentle soul that life ‘happens to’ rather than having any agency of his own, or that was the case at the beginning of the Access course. Boreas’ issues run deep, abandoned by his Dad, left in the care of a step parent, he drifted and turned to drink and recreational drugs. The cat’s eye glimmer in the road to change was community education and night classes in Gimmerton. Being in a new town away from detrimental influences he was able to switch paths. Without inspiration and encourageme...

Chapter 1:  Anthony the Croupier Barriers to Success for Adult Learners. The problem.  Anthony is a croupier taking bets seven nights a week in a local casino. Supporting a young family and elderly parents. He has a couple of vocational qualifications in catering and food hygiene but he is also a very talented and as yet untrained artist. His heartfelt desire is to go to art school and university. So he applies for and is accepted onto the level 2 diploma in art and design.  He excels at illustration and Graphic Design and is good at speaking about art, has opinions and joins class debates. He realises he has a stark choice to make, that of a well-paid career in five years time (after graduation) in a graphic design company or back to the Roulette wheels. This choice rests on a resistance to reading and writing, a fear of failure, past catastrophe and defeat haunting him, blocking his ability to succeed, or even ask for help as well or because o...