When The Grade isn't worth it

The dubious present state of the labour market makes it apparent to those from low income backgrounds early on that their options even within an affluent society like Britain are extremely limited.

In such circumstances it seems to be the case that the right response is to compete harder for jobs. Within collective enterprises like classrooms or even macro environments like nations the idea that some are not "pulling their weight" is therefore a potentially frustrating turn of events.

I once set a class the task of giving group presentations. One group delivered theirs and, as sometimes happens, one student had evidently done the majority of the work. At the end we reflected on the presentation as a class and tried to work out what we thought had happened and why. The student who had done least I will call Tobi. Tobi had said nothing whatsoever during the presentation. During the reflective questions at the end he also said nothing. Others were more vocal, they spoke of the frustration of being in a group where one member is not pulling his or her weight., and the language was very reminiscent of anxiety around "benefit cheats".

"They just take everyone else's hard work"
"Lazy"
"If they can't be bothered..."

I didn't share my view but I was sympathetic. Perhaps because I was silent one girl, Senay, spoke up dissentingly. To my regret I can only paraphrase from memory her extraordinarily original point.

"Sometimes you are in a group and someone wants a level six (equivalent of an A grade in this class) and they want it sort of TOO much and they are rude to you and you just think 'get it in your own then I won't help' if it means that much to them"

This sophisticated introduction of a categorical imperative, a refusal to be treated as a means to an end, completely altered the room. Even those who had previously towed the line now revised their views in some cases, agreeing that being decent to one another actually came before success. Senay had successfully reasoned an alternative interpretation of Tobi's nonparticipation, one that convinced her whole class including me.

At this point and without introducing any big theories I would like to quote Paul Willis on counter-school culture amongst students. Willis was studying working class male students in the Midlands in the 1970s, but his sympathies are recognisable in Senay's point:

"It is through a good number (of the working classes) trying (to succeed in high stakes certificate testing) that the class structure is legitimised. The middle class enjoys its privilege not by virtue of inheritance or birth, but by virtue of an apparently proven greater competence and merit. The refusal to compete...is therefore in this sense a radical act: it refuses to collude with its own educational suppression."
- Willis "Learning to Labour" 1978 p.128

I do not mean to suggest that counter school culture or idleness is any kind of useable programme. Tobi does not have the answer. I do deliberately imply, however, that in the words of one contemporary writer "The only way to win is not to play".