GFTU BGCM 2017

Motivational learning. GFTU’s programme draws heavily on what Nicholls describes as ‘a rich tradition of informal learning theories in Britain’. “We learn from each other – there’s no substitute for face to face learning. Youth and community education techniques have been motivational for generations.” The ‘radical’ adult tradition has drawn on progressive teaching methods from around the world, he adds. GFTU has been working with, among others, colleagues in Latin America to reform teaching styles. It’s also forged new partnerships in higher education - with Leeds Beckett University and Newman University, Birmingham - to offer new ways of training the trainers in particular. Most of GFTU’s courses, webinars, festivals and seminars are free to members of affiliated unions. A forum recently opened on its website for people to swap notes, share best practice and ‘sharpen minds’ (see www.gftu.org.uk.) “A generation of trade unionists have had the political content stripped from their learning,” says Nicholls. “It’s all very interesting knowing the detail of redundancy and health and safety legislation, but irrelevant if the workplace is closing down as if because of forces of nature or fate. “While most people feel austerity is wrong, very few can articulate why it’s come about and the political and economic alternative. People have been decapitated from the knowledge of our movement’s history for too long. We have to reconstruct a living appreciation of our past to accelerate a better future.”

One joy of education is stumbling across stuff you never knew. Those who think they’re familiar with milestones of working class history can expect some surprises in the GFTU’s Our History programme. People may have heard of the 1381 peasant revolts, but fewer, almost certainly, of those in 1549 led by Norfolk yeoman farmer Robert Kett against land enclosure. With this uprising came some of the first demands for a more equal society. Students can now find out all about it. New content, new methods. Drab content and uninspired educational methods are, says Nicholls, a peculiarly British curse, whereas Labour movements overseas ‘have embraced radical learning theories and methods’. “The way learning is delivered is as important as what’s delivered, sometimes more so.” Informative, informal day schools and stimulating discussion is the way forward, the GFTU believes. So, when it comes to understanding Britain’s complex political machine, rather than listen to a lecturer wielding class notes, workers will travel to Westminster to meet union colleagues in the Lords and Commons. The course will be led by former MP trade unionists who know all about the arcane world of Early Day Motions and Private Members’ Bills. Parliament is full of people who appear born to rule - a disproportionate number schooled in self-projection at public school and Oxbridge. Yet public speaking rarely comes easily to the majority. A new course on offer is designed to help redress the balance for trade unionists lacking the self-confidence and know-how to hold an audience.

AndrewMourant is a freelance journalist who has contributed extensively to the Times Educational Supplement and Education Guardian.

Below: Rebecca Hillman, Exeter University, supporting GFTU’s arts’ work

Photo courtesy of Kevin Hayes

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