Miriam: I was talking to the people from writing our rhymes down. They talk a lot about this idea of empowerment and how that worked and what it meant. As a person within education system and dealing with this community where I think that a lot of what is missing is the sense that ...

Allannah:

There are lots of words that they use to talk about empowerment, engagement is one, but essentially I think we're talking about is the process by which people do something because they want to and not because they're made to. So I think that is, if you get there, if you get to the point where kids are reading because they want to, not because they're made to, if they have curiosity not because they're made to look into things but because they want to, the battles won. It doesn't matter whether it's in school or out. If you have curiosity, if you have a desire to know something then you don't even need to be in school hmm.. Perhaps I shouldn't be quoted on that (laughter)

Miriam: Do you see the CLC as being sort of primary in that?

Allannah:

In a perfect world if I were to say one goal that I would have for a CLC it would be to make people curious. You know it's that - "what if" - that would be great. And I think that's one of the things that I find kind of sad about a lot of the adolescents that come through, they're not curious they take things from the internet as received wisdom, they’re not necessarily true, they don't want to find out if they're true. They don't have that 'gee I wonder' impulse. If there was some way through experience to bring that about it would great, it would be wonderful.

Miriam: That's interesting to me, I mean have to get back to the question soon, but it's, to me it's one of those really difficult stumbling blocks is to see that blank stare and that like "I have no interest in anything beyond what I already have"...

Allannah:

You know and you can hear yourself talking more and more trying to, be interesting, and you're just not, just not. It's like; "okay I'm here until 3:22, whatever you wanna say is fine, but I'm outta here at 3:22 cause that's all I owe you."

Miriam: But it's yeah, it's - is curiosity a class attribute?

Allannah:

I don't know. Sometimes I think it's because there's so much sensory overload on the street, that there's just no more room. I mean curiosity is not a good idea in certain situations, so I am not sure. For myself I was always really curious, you know, I was a kid sticking things in lightboxes and you know taking things apart just to see how they worked.

The other thing is, if we look at this environment where there's so many pollutants in the air and the water and the soil just in this particular southwest sector, I wonder sometimes what the impact is on kids growing up. I wonder sometimes about all those attachment things that happen when they're very very young and families that are somewhat chaotic and over-stressed like there's a whole stew of things that goes on I think before they even get to school.