Editors notes.

“If everybody dared to be honest with each other all the time, our present school system would collapse very rapidly.’ – The Little Red Schoolbook

The manual you are holding in your hands is incomplete. It does not feature well formulated lesson plans, a history of art education or a step-by-step guide on how to set up your own radical education co-op. It’s a messy collection of ideas: contributions our friends and colleagues sent us, our own learning experiences and rumours we heard.

You might ask yourself who this manual is for, is it for teachers? Is it for students? Is it one relevant for teaching art? The answer is: Yes and no. We don’t know. Probably both. As self-employed artists, we have become used to performing our services anywhere, for anybody who books us. One day we might be doing a happy crafty afternoon in a primary school, the next day a post graduate seminar on exhibition making, the day after were making soup for the reading group we organised. And our methodologies need to work in all of these contexts.

So this manual has come out of the frustration an the joy of never having what our grandmothers would call a ‘permanent position’. It has come out of years of being on-call teachers, trouble shooters, assistants. Working on one year contracts that never get extended. Traveling for 2 days to give a 45 minute lecture. Grading students according to criteria we disagree with.

This manual encourages us to find out what happens if we don’t deliver. if we don’t give students the standard slide show, but instead make them take off their socks and rub their feet with mustard.

We know that spicy feet will not in an instant salvation, but we believe in going outside in using our bodies and not only our brains, in absurd interventions, in silly jokes, in creating atmospheres, in learning in the gap, in destabilising our position, in talking about money.“

Miriam Bayerdoerfer

Rosalie Schweiker