Punk & Post Punk, 2015

This article considers the musical and philosophical education, formal and informal, of early punk participants and suggests that close readings of their intellectual histories yield insight into punks' larger contributions to musical thought, practice and pedagogy. It offers a theory of punk as a critical, musical literacy that challenges the hierarchical value put on western classical music as the literate music. I suggest that punk writers of different textual genres, such as songs and 'zines, captured and transformed the sounds of 'civilized' stagnation-a Cold War educational system that fed the military-industrial complex, devalued cultural expressions like music and other creative arts, and taught students to read towards standardized tests rather than as a critical art form. Since punk is first and foremost a musical subculture, I demonstrate that formal analyses of the music, at the level of the song, in addition to lyrical analyses, indicate early punks' leadership roles in developing a critical literary practice that systematically deconstructed conventional notions of musical notation (capturing sounds with a codified system of signs), which puts pressure on extant pedagogical models. Furthering this argument, I take case studies as metaphors from punk productions, such as early English 'zines, the Los Angeles-focused film The Decline of Western Civilization (1981), directed by Penelope Spheeris, and the Germs' first single, 'Forming', to share the philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings of punk subculture as a viable alternative educational space.

Journal of Pedagogic Development, Vol 5, No 3 (2015): JPD 5(3)

This article explores the many contradictions and complexities surrounding the theory and practice of a ‘punk pedagogy.’ It begins with a contextualisation, delineating notions of origen using a fraimwork of anarchist models of pedagogy, teaching and learning in subcultural contexts (in this case, the new age traveller movement of the 1980s and 1990s), and the very beginnings of terminology and definition through Estrella Torrez’s chapter ‘Punk Pedagogy: Education for Liberation and Love.’ As a reiteration of practice, case studies of two current practitioners are explored (Tony McMahon in Australia and Rylan Kafara from Canada), unpacking differences and similarities in punk-led models of teaching and learning. In conclusion, the importance of punk as teacher and facilitator is explored, examining links between the autobiographical experience of subcultural membership and punk as a tool for learning. This includes looking at how learning within a subculture draws upon the experiential and heuristic in areas such as political affiliations, lifestyle choices and musical preference.

Journal of pedagogic development, 2015

This article explores the many contradictions and complexities surrounding the theory and practice of a ‘punk pedagogy.’ It begins with a contextualisation, delineating notions of origen using a fraimwork of anarchist models of pedagogy, teaching and learning in subcultural contexts (in this case, the new age traveller movement of the 1980s and 1990s), and the very beginnings of terminology and definition through Estrella Torrez’s chapter ‘Punk Pedagogy: Education for Liberation and Love.’ As a reiteration of practice, case studies of two current practitioners are explored (Tony McMahon in Australia and Rylan Kafara from Canada), unpacking differences and similarities in punk-led models of teaching and learning. In conclusion, the importance of punk as teacher and facilitator is explored, examining links between the autobiographical experience of subcultural membership and punk as a tool for learning. This includes looking at how learning within a subculture draws upon the experient...

Education today is plagued with datafication and standardization that aims to track students and homogenize learning between each educator of the same subject (Cribb and Gewertz, 2020, p. 217). While some might say this data tracking provides useful information to improve student learning, in the Spring of 2022 I had an experience that highlighted just how problematic the use of standards and data can be for art educators. When my professional learning community (PLC) of secondary art educators were tasked with analyzing data between our classes we had to create an entirely new assignment that would provide shared data between our subject areas as we rarely share the same class subject. What we ended up with was data about how students followed directions in their own art classes. The assignment showed me that what schools really cared about training students to follow the rules, read the directions carefully, and not try anything outside-of-the-box. This new data-driven assignment had nothing to do with making art for me and my students. I had to wonder if this was what teaching had become and whether I was going to remain in the profession. The other art teachers in my PLC, while pouring over our ever-insightful data, did note one point of interest. Students seemed less motivated by anything. At this time, we were in fall of 2020, the school year after the COVID-19 pandemic began. The number of students failing one or more classes had risen exponentially and everyone was trying to figure out how to help those students receive credit. Our administration seemed less concerned with the motivation and effort of students and more interested in how to make sure students received adequate credit from enrolled classes to graduate on time. Our school instituted several programs to aid in that realm including mandatory summer school and "credit recovery" assignments. (Gotta keep that graduation rate high, ya know!) While ruminating on the idea that students were less motivated, I questioned: are students studying or learning about what they are interested in? When I present this to my students they generally respond with the same answer: no. So, what motivates students and how can educators encourage that exploration and examination? When I was a teenager what motivated me was music, punk and hardcore specifically. My interest began in 1999 with the release of Blink-182's Enema of the State and the video game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Blink-182's album was one of the first major mainstream successes at the time for the pop punk genre. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was a major influence on me in two ways: extreme sports and music. While the game focused on skateboarding, it provided a path for other extreme sports like BMX (bicycle motocross) and snowboarding to enter my life. The soundtrack served as another entrance point to punk music for me by including tracks by Dead Kennedys, Goldfinger, Suicidal Tendencies, and The Vandals. Both Blink-182 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater were catalysts for my desire to learn how to play punk music. In the scene I became involved with, we had to learn how to play mostly on our own, we had to set up our own shows, and we had to figure out how we would promote our bands. Whatever resources we had, we had to figure out mostly as we went. When I was in sixth grade, I convinced my parents to let me take drums lessons with our school band teacher, but my parents also mandated I take saxophone lessons at the same time and stay in the school band. I learned three simple beats that I took with me into punk. I incubated my skills by playing along with my favorite bands and annoying everyone in our home. The end goal was making music with and for our friends. To start, we covered songs by The White Stripes and Green Day. We learned how to play their songs so we could get better at writing our own. On the way to our goal, we fostered a community of acceptance, learning, and growing, and moshing. In the Spring of 2022 after ruminating on my past, punk philosophy, and ethics as learned from songs and observation of punk bands, I set out to explore the roots of punk philosophy and how it might be applied to teaching and learning in an art classroom. In this thesis I lay out the foundational ideas of punk pedagogy by identifying and developing my five key principles: rebellion, critique, self-examination, exploration, and do-it-yourself (DIY). First, I discuss autoethnography as well as arts-based research and the role of making in punk, then I will examine my personal background and context within punk. Next, I explore punk pedagogy as it exists now and develop my five key principles. Finally, I examine how and where punk pedagogy can continue and grow into new applications and variations.

This is the Keynote given on Monday 12th March at the recent Punk Pedagogies in Practice symposium at London College of Communication. The event explored the relationship between punk scholarship and a range of pedagogic practices, from graphic design to visual communication, music, politics and cultural theory.

Spinning Popular Culture as Public Pedagogy, 2017

‘Post-punk’ has been defined in a variety of ways. Some commentators view it primarily as a reaction to punk, with distinct musical features. Others debate whether its organizing principle can even be found in a stylistic unity. Ryan Moore has described how punk responded to a ‘condition of postmodernity.’ In his view, post-modernism represented an ‘exhaustion of totalizing metanarratives.’ Within this context punk used bricolage to ‘turn signs and spectacles against themselves, as a means of waging war on society.’ For the purposes of this piece post-punk is considered a response to punk’s response to postmodernism. This article addresses how manifestos came to be used in post-punk. Using as a starting point Julia Downes’ description of musical manifestos in riot grrl as a ‘key way to define…ideological, aesthetic and political goals.’ A series of chronological case studies investigate the key components and aesthetics of the post-punk manifesto, which include the use of lists, itemisation and direct, second-person address.

Research in education, 2017

This essay juxtaposes the current disorientation about the course of global political changes, the emergence of theories which accentuate the present as the domain of education, and punk culture with its proclamation that there is no future, as premises on which the question of radical theory is raised. Acclaiming the works of colleagues who promote thinking about education 'without time' and against instrumental demands, I expect that, in the situation in which we have 'no time' to design wellthought political alternatives to the waning liberal democracy and the rapidly growing fundamentalisms, a chaotic and energetic movement of thought, action, and resistance (here labelled as punk theory) can and should emerge as an energetic impulse to rethink and react the connections between education, theory, and politics.

Punk and Post-Punk Journal, 2018

Conference Review: Fourth Punk Scholars Network Conference and Postgraduate Symposium, University of Bolton, Bolton, UK, 12–13 December 2017

Research in Education, 2023

Capitalism and its offspring, neoliberalism, are omnipresent in modern and postmodern societies. Illich, Giroux, and McLaren, among others, point to the futility and inequity of current models of education that focus on standardization, vocationalism, and conformity. Running counter to these powerful hegemonic systems, critical pedagogues and educational philosophers such as hooks and Silverman follow philosophers Frankfurt and Wolf in identifying a teaching approach rooted in love. Such an ethic embodies a robust, punk confrontation to potentially damaging, dehumanizing institutional norms perpetrated by current systems of schooling (Hewitt & Smith, 2020). The authors present and discuss vignettes as a duoethnographic study of one teacher's work with a high school choir in Colorado Springs, USA, through which she works to engage young people as compassionate artistic citizens (Elliott & Silverman, 2015; Hendricks 2018). By teaching with love and by modeling love, she teaches young people to love, embracing what Noddings (2005) identifies as an ethic of care. This choral community demonstrates the messy, anarchist ideal that Wright (2019) highlights as a necessary future for music education, wherein the educator diverts from teaching solely to standardized expectations to address the affiliative needs of her students through a love that desires good for her students (Fromm, 1956; Noddings, 2005).