1st Edition
In and Out of School The ROSLA Community Education Project
Originally published in 1978, reissued here with a new preface, this book describes a project based outside the school institution, but in co-operation with it, exploring methods and courses which might offer meaningful education for groups of fifth-form leavers. Though the project had been primarily concerned with developing a survival curriculum for the non-academic urban adolescent, the format of living, experiential teaching and learning it exemplifies would be appropriate to the education of children of all ages and abilities.
The authors identified community resources and offer suggestions as to how these might be better employed. They show how education could be taken out of the classroom to extend ‘schooling’ beyond the schools, and in this context they point to the vast, untapped resources of both people and buildings outside the school walls which could profitably be incorporated within the existing learning framework. They show, also, how the training of ‘professionals’ – particularly trainee teachers and social workers – by involvement in such an experiment could constitute a fundamental preparation for their future roles.
Finally, the authors urge for an extension of social policy with regard to education; an extension of provision which they argue could be achieved largely through the re-allocation of existing resources, such as had already demonstrably worked in the city of Bristol. The perspective throughout is ideological as well as practical, and the book is both a polemic and a procedural manual suggesting workable approaches and ideas, many of which are still relevant today
New Preface to the Reissue. Preface. Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. Introduction: Setting the Scene. Part One: The ROSLA Project 1. The Fifth-Form College Club 2. A Theory of Approach 3. One Year with a Group Part Two: Towards a Survival Curriculum 4. Expressiveness 5. Participation 6. Self-Sufficiency and Self-Reliance 7. Situations, Vacant Part Three: Resources 8. ROSLA Project Resources: A Do-It-Yourself Guide 9. A Programme for Teacher and Social Worker Training 10. Summary. Appendix 1: Advice on Courses, Approaches and Materials for Use with Groups. Appendix 2: What They Say: Comments by ‘Graduates’ from the ROSLA Project.
Biography
Roger White and David Brockington
Reviews for the original edition:
'Good books on education – and there are not too many around – may be either interesting, provocative or soundly academic. Rarely are they all three. Even more rarely as in the case of In and Out of School are they also exciting.’ – Cyril Poster, Youth in Society
‘This book will give welcome reassurance to those of us who want to help schools change for the better without destroying their present virtues … an entertaining and thought-provoking book to read.’ – Dr W. A. Gatherer, Education.
‘The case histories of boys and girls recorded here are utterly convincing.’ – Colin Ward, New Society
‘The authors’ radical assumptions and goals gain credence from their practical … and above all realistic approach … especially valuable at a time of cutbacks and reactionary trends in education. As profitable for all social workers concerned with the young as for those in education.’ – Time Out
‘When you read In and Out of School … you feel sorry for the thousands of schoolchildren whom 11 years of compulsory education have labelled “failures”.’ – Daily Telegraph
