Festival of Education 2016, Day 1 – Greenwood, Greer and Young
In the second of Helen Mulley's reports from the Festival of Education, Will Greenwood talks leadership, Germaine Greer talks equality and Will Young talks language concerning the LGBT community…
- by Helen Mulley
Replacement session
Will Greenwood – ‘The School of Hard Knocks’
Former rugby union player Will Greenwood (roped in at the last minute to fill the stage while the audience waited for a delayed Germaine Greer) explained how ‘The School of Hard Knocks’ started out as someone at Sky’s idea of good telly, but has since grown into something much deeper and more far-reaching than that.
75% of participants in the programme go on to get back into work and become part of a functioning family. He’s an engaging speaker; eloquent, funny, self-deprecating but poised, and sincere.
He made an interesting association between Hard Knocks and the EU Referendum, which apparently came up over lunch with Rory Bremner – after the Scottish independence referendum, David Cameron came out and effectively said, we’ve heard the Scottish voices – now let’s hear the English ones. But as Greenwood observed, surely he should have said, ‘We’ve heard the disaffected voices – now what can we do for them?’
If it’s a remain vote today (as the bookies are predicting; but I’m certainly not going to make any assumptions), that’s what he needs to do tomorrow – he needs to ask how the government can reach out to the Leave voters, and make them feel less excluded. Greenwood said this applies to disenfranchised kids, too.
The first two questions from the floor were, predictably, all about rugby, though the third moved on to transformative leadership, on which Greenwood came across as both listenable and convincing…
Session 5
Germaine Greer – ‘Equality is not enough’
Wellington College is ‘delighted to give Germaine Greer a platform today’, announced the MC pointedly, before Greer finally took the stage against background noise of a deluge outside. Anyone expecting controversy would have been disappointed, however.
Greer spoke for around half an hour to 40 minutes on the topic of ‘equality’, pointing out that it doesn’t simply mean replacing 50% of men in various roles and positions with women. Drafting women into the army, as could now happen in the US, isn’t a triumph of equality, she insisted. That was never what feminism is about. We need to be thinking about liberation – and particularly, personal liberation.
She talked about how far we still have to come – about reproductive rights, pay inequality and the lack of status of female-dominated professions. She touched, albeit briefly, on language, including the term cis-woman, commenting that this is the latest in a long line of prefixes that have ‘shafted’ women.
The biggest cheer from the audience came when she described the advertisement featuring the Canadian national goalkeeper, Stephanie Labbe – in which she is said to be ‘Defying expectations’ by playing really well even when she’s having her period‘ – as “A fucking liberty”.
All in all, though, a rather gentle and tame performance from Greer. Not subdued, exactly, but perhaps just a little… disengaged?
Final session
Will Young
Due to be interviewed by Piers Morgan in the main marquee, Will Young instead found himself on his own in the Student Zone (another consequence of Greer’s late arrival), and gave a charming, passionate, personal speech that served as a call to action.
His main aim? To achieve the same with language surrounding the LGBT community as we have with language used by, around and about other minority groups. ‘Gay’ is still widely used as a pejorative term amongst people of all ages, and we need to make that not okay, he urged. He mentioned some of the statistics concerning levels of suicide attempts and self-harm amongst young gay people and young transgender people, which are terribly concerning.
He also called for more funding from the government, but primarily called those present to consider their language more carefully. “It’s about education,” he insisted. “It’s not ‘shaming’”.
Although clearly a little out of his comfort zone – and as another Wellington alumni, possibly seeing his younger ghost drifting past the open marquee door – he spoke fluently and softly. Apart, that is, from one point when he spotted a massive camera lens lurking at the entrance.
‘Take a picture? Come in and have a listen. It’s not just a photo event!’ he called, his voice suddenly gaining a subtle but definite edge. He may be quietly spoken, I concluded, but Will Young definitely wants to be heard…
More 2016 Festival of Education coverage to follow soon – click here to read part 1
