Taking responsibility

One of the things that annoys me most is being told by my more right-wing acquaintances that poor people should "take responsibility" for their circumstances. Most galling of all is being told that if they'd only saved something each month instead of "squandering it on luxuries", they wouldn't have any financial problems.

Just save 10% of your income each month, I'd get told. That's a great plan, except that it shows a complete lack of understanding of the reality of the situation when you're on a low income.

For a start, even in the best situation, it doesn't really solve the problem. After a year, you've saved about one month's income, so when you lose your job, you've got one month's buffer. Since it can easily take four to six months to find a new job, that doesn't last anywhere near long enough. If you've got a nice, safe, secure job, then it doesn't occur to you how often low-income workers get fired without warning, or how often they find their hours cut and their weekly pay packet drops unexpectedly. And when everything's that tight, you can expect little emergencies every month or two - vets' bills, car repairs, or basic household maintenance.  You can count on having to dip into that savings pot frequently, and it doesn't build up to a nice healthy reserve.

And then there's the question of how the hell you actually make savings when you're living hand to mouth, week to week, and you're barely making enough to cover the bills, let alone food, transport or clothes. Cut back on luxuries, is the inevitable answer. What damn luxuries? As I said in a previous post, even a $5 treat once a month is no longer an option. Several people suggested cutting out health insurance. One suggested fasting two days a week. So, in other words, they're talking about "luxuries" like medical care and food. (And for the record, health insurance isn't an option when you're poor anyway - you have to pay for medical care as you need it, and hope you don't get sick or have an accident.) One particularly distasteful, but common, response is that poor people shouldn't have kids: so what happens when your income plummets and you already have kids? Are you supposed to get rid of them like unwanted kittens?

When money's tight, you raid every single one of these jars for  essentials. Is that irresponsible?

What puts the final seal on the total unreality is when real numbers get bandied about. You should be putting aside a couple of thousand a month, I'd hear. Not just once, but many times. Seriously? If you're on a low income, you don't even earn a couple of thousand a month. If someone honestly thinks that a couple of thousand a month represents 10% of my (after-tax) income, that would imply that my gross salary would be somewhere in excess of $300,000. How disconnected are these people?

On a similar note, I heard frequently how poor people should take responsibility for bettering themselves and get a proper education, then they could get a better job. Go to college - it only costs twenty or thirty grand for a degree. Where the hell do you get twenty or thirty grand when you can barely afford to eat?

Or else there's the often-made suggestion that you should move to where the jobs are. That's easier said than done when you don't have the spare funds to go somewhere new. Not only do you need to cover the cost of getting there, you probably need a couple of months' rent in cash to get a new place. It's feasible when you're single and have friends who will let you crash on a sofa for a while - not so easy when you have a family.

People on a low wage would love to be saving money every month. They'd love to go out and get a college education. They'd love to be earning enough to make that possible. They'd love to move out of areas with high unemployment. But they can't do it on what they earn: every single dollar is needed to cover the essential basics. They aren't the ones who make the decision to pay them so little they can't afford to save: it's their employers who make that decision. It's the government that sets the minimum wage and the tax rates. It's businesses that decide how much the basics cost. It's financiers who created the recession that caused massive unemployment and forced millions into unemployment or low-paid jobs. Blaming the poor for being poor is the economic equivalent of blaming rape victims.

Taking responsibility for your financial circumstances is all very well as a political mantra, but you can't do it if you don't have any flexibility at all in where your money goes.

Impressionable young minds

I've been getting more and more involved with education over the last few years. First there was the games design course at NSAD (now NUCA), where I helped to design the syllabus and was an examiner, then Short Fuze got involved with NESTA Futurelab, and were invited to consult on various aspects of using technology in schools, and now we're doing Moviestorm workshops in schools and colleges, and I'm actually finding myself teaching. This, of course, is something I promised I'd never do. My mum was a teacher (and still is), and I decided that I really didn't want to do the same.

But - and please pardon the cliche - it really is a rewarding job. As I wrote over in the official Moviestorm blog yesterday, there comes a moment in every session when the students suddenly "get it". As Johnnie so neatly puts it (and he's done more of these and is a better teacher than me):

"During every workshop, and for every single user, there was always a moment when they moved from an attitude of “Talk slower – I'm trying to take all this on board” to “Would you shut up for a second? I'm trying to make a movie here!”. The moment that the user realises that Moviestorm will let them tell whatever story they wish is the moment that the concept is sold to them. Although different users reached this moment at different points, every user got there."

It's not like we're trying to teach these people geography or the history of the Suez crisis. Learning Moviestorm genuinely is fun, and within an hour, our students get a skill that most of them never believed they would ever have. When you see that moment, it feels good. And you know you've made a difference to someone's life. It was the same when I was coaching rugby at Castle Cary RFC: when you watch a child finally learn to catch a ball, and then become part of a team, you know you're doing something that matters. I still don't want to be a teacher, but every so often it's good to get out of the business environment and see the effect that you can have on real people.

Which got me thinking about all the teachers who made me who I am. Most of them won't ever read this. Half of them are probably dead. And these names won't mean a damn thing to most of you either. But I wanted to say thanks to them anyway. Teachers don't get nearly enough respect in this country. They work bloody hard, they do a vital job, and our government knows it can get away with paying them crap because most teachers do the job out of love. Teachers, not politicians, priests, celebrities, journalists or businessmen, are the people who are shaping the next generation. The knowledge and the values they pass on to our children is what will determine who they become. I was lucky. I had a lot of good teachers. And I never appreciated that at the time.

So, thanks to you all, in particular: Geoffrey and Charlotte Wass, Don Clarke and Simon Ransome, Peter Yerburgh, John Thorn, Martin Scott, Nick Fennell, Peter Partner, John Durran, and Alan MacFarlane. And most especially to Stephan Hopkinson, the kindest and most caring man I have ever known, who taught me how to subvert the system without malice, and how to think from other people's points of view.

What are (film) schools for?

Fascinating post by Mike Jones over at Digital Basin about the relationship between film schools and the film industry.

Should Film Schools service the 'industry'? Cater to its demands and provide it with what the school perceives the industry needs...? Or Should Film Schools lead the industry? Challenge it, change it, reshape and guide it...? In other words, Should Film Schools be the forward scouts leading the industry or the rear-guard supporting the industry.

Of course, I never went to film school. I'm completely self-taught, so I have no direct experience of either the professional or educational side of the film world. However, it's a very similar debate to how universities should teach games, which I have been involved with. On the one side, they are under pressure to turn out graduates ready to go into the games industry, but on the other they want to teach people to break new ground and help drive the industry forward. It's much the same with other arts subjects: should art schools be teaching graphic designers to create cornflakes packets or to be challenging, independent, and original, even if this makes them unemployable?

There are serious problems with both these approaches. I've been grappling with them for about five years now, ever since getting peripherally involved in some aspects of higher education, and it's become more and more important to me, professionally and personally, as we start getting Moviestorm into schools, universities, and film schools. What should we be teaching our kids?

The dilemma is this:

If you try and churn out industry-ready junior staff, you risk stifling their talent and originality, and you have a real problem knowing what to teach them in a fast-moving technical world. When I worked on the games course at NSAD, the hardware and software that is now standard in the industry didn't even exist at the start of the first year: there was no PS3, and no Wii. As a result, they'd trained on platforms and with techniques that were obsolescent by the time they were sending out CVs. In my view, you learn on the job far more, and far faster, than you learn by studying for three years. Compare that to the hot-house training establishments in India and China where they give you seriously intensive training for six months for one very specific role - using Maya to create faces, for example - and then you're ready to go straight into the industry as a character artist, totally up to speed with current generation tools and techniques. Imagination isn't important - just the ability to deliver good quality product on time to a tight brief and fit in with a team.

On the other hand, if we do teach people to design amazing new game concepts or direct controversial movies or design immense public buildings, we may well be wasting their time and giving them false hope. When they go into the real world, they'll probably find that their actual job is to load a camera on a reality TV show, build part of the map for the fourth mission of a low-budget FPS, or do the plans for my loft conversion. And frankly, as an employer, I don't necessarily want to hire a visionary to work on my project - I want to hire someone who will fall in with my vision of what we're building and just do the job I need them to do. There can be nothing more dispiriting than coming out of three years' training with the verve and the desire to change the world and then realise that you're never going to get that chance.

As a teacher, I want to expand my students' horizons and help them reach their potential.
As an employer, I want schools to provide me with the staff I need.
As a parent, I want my kids to get an education and a job and be happy.

Those aren't necessarily compatible.

The only answer I can come up with - for the UK, at least - is to scrap the current philosophy of treating all education the same. We don't need to turn every poly or art school into a university or A levels in how to sell beds. Bring back apprenticeships, and expect employers to take on some of the burden of training staff rather than expecting the state and the individual to furnish them with ready-made employees. (We might even revive some notion of loyalty to one's staff then, if we actually invest in them.)

Why not make a distinction between places where you learn a trade and places where you learn a craft? Make it clear from the start - to students and industry alike - whether you are training for a job or learning to think. Let some places lead, and others follow.

The world needs both.