Chris Searle: Funk Brother number one

The working-class pedagogy, or ‘resistance education’ of Chris Searle; his identification of linguistic colonialism; his practice of critical literacy as embracing the lives, experiences and imaginations of his students; and the massive body of work, from Stepney Words onwards, in which he has set this down, comprise an unparalleled resource for radical educationalists seeking to develop the practice — and theory — of critical literacy and working-class pedagogy. Yet, while concepts such as linguistic colonialism have been elaborated to furnish the careers of more high-profile intellectuals and academics on the cultural Left, that same cultural Left, in its concern with a self-limiting identity politics, has sidelined the challenging, revolutionary implications of Searle’s approach and methods. In the process, Searle has been left ‘standing in the shadows’, much like the musicians who originally crafted the Motown sound — the Funk Brothers — and made that phenomenon possible.