What does 'Back to School' mean to you?

I imagine many of us didn’t get on with school at all, and the phrase 'back to school' likely brings up all kinds of panic, anger, and shame. Others of us might've heard that phrase as a return to safety - a place where there was structure we were perhaps missing elsewhere, as well as external validation for 'getting things right'...at least for a bit.

Either way, many of us have come to understand that the structures and expectations of mainstream education and academia can be harmful, to the point of dampening (or even stomping out) our creative impulses, critical thinking skills, and innate desire to learn, and attempting to replace these with blind obedience, shame, and competitive individualism.

Personally, I loved school right from the start. From the ages of 4-9, I attended a small, private Quaker school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Class sizes averaged around 10 students, teachers were referred to by their first names, and there were no letter or number grades assigned to anything. I thrived here. I understood what was expected of me and what I needed to do to get things ‘right’. I was good at maths and an advanced reader so was often praised by my teachers, parents and other adults for being ‘smart’. I had friends, and if I was a bit ‘overly sensitive’, this was easily attributed to my parents' divorce, and eventually the death of my grandmother, with whom my mother and I had been living.

When I was transferred to the local public school in fourth grade, I instantly felt ‘different’. I no longer had friends. I spent my recesses reading novels on the swingset or inside, helping the teacher. I was a ‘teacher’s pet’, a ‘know-it-all’, a ‘chatty Cathy’, a nerd, a dork. But I was also ‘gifted’, ‘mature beyond my years’, ‘a talented writer’ with a ‘bright future’. In lieu of social interaction, I relied on keeping the adults happy to feel safe. I met or exceeded all the expectations, I obeyed blindly, and I felt incredible shame about myself for reasons I couldn’t articulate.

About midway through high school, things started to crumble. I started pulling Cs in maths and sciences, which I could no longer easily grasp. I never had my homework completed or the right book with me. I couldn’t concentrate in boring classes or wake up on time. But by then, I’d been labelled ‘advanced’, ‘gifted’, ‘full of potential’ (that I currently wasn’t living up to). So I was on a track towards university; there was never any question of it.

So I did a bachelor’s and then even went on to do a master’s. Then I became a published writer and an associate tutor and then a lecturer, and I embedded myself, my life, and my creative practice into these structures and expectations that I thought I understood. That I thought would keep me safe.

I spent almost 15 years teaching creative writing and literature in a UK university, and I learned a great deal in my time there. Mostly from my students. As I became more experienced and more embedded in the creative writing programme, I realised that a very specific kind of student was drawn to me, and would come to me when they were struggling, which was often. These students were usually queer and/or gender non-conforming (or would later realise they were), and were almost always neurodivergent. Many people of around my age (elder millennials) only came to understand their own neurodivergence through their children. For me, it was through my students. My students were both my queer elders and my neurodivergent models, even while being 20 years younger than me.

And it was then that I really started to realise just how damaging the structures and expectations of traditional academia really are, not just for the students, but for those of us who had attached our work and creative lives to these institutions. Like many school teachers I’ve talked to, many of us ‘academics’ stay in it for the students. We genuinely care about them, their well-being and the quality of their education. But eventually, we realise that the systems we are trying to mitigate for them are destroying us. We realise that the institutions we are working so hard to ‘de-colonise’ are the very foundation of capitalism, white-supremacy, and colonialism - the triumvirate of oppression.

So, we leave. I walked away from a full-time lecturer position in a well-regarded university because I honestly felt incapable of continuing. It was as if, now that my brain consciously knew just how damaging this space was to me, it physically wouldn’t allow me to do it to myself anymore. Like how a baby will happily place its hand on a hot stove, but as an adult with knowledge, we cannot bring ourselves to do it.

Instead, I have tried to create a space that builds curiosity, knowledge, and community with other creative people, who maybe also have been damaged by, or want to escape from, these oppressive structures. I aim to take what I’ve learned, what I’ve unlearned, and what I’m still learning (from experience, from others), and share it in ways that are generative, communal, and accessible. And just like back in academia, I learn the most from being in learning spaces with all of you.

I aim to offer all the learning of a degree programme, with none of the:

• arbitrary marks

• frustrating deadlines

• archaic rules of creative production

• crippling debt

• weaponised shame

But with the addition of:

• supportive, long-term creative community

• encouragement to lean into what and how you create

• loose structures within which there is a great deal of freedom

• a truly 'neuroqueer' (ie, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist) lens and pedagogy.

So instead of going ‘back to school’, I invite you to consider coming ‘back to learning’ this autumn. Maybe start to build your very own 'anti-degree'. Together, we’ll create our own supportive, spirally, neuroqueer learning spaces, where we can really explore the things we care about and want to create, without oppressive expectations and shame getting in the way.

Come Back to Learning this Autumn with KR's 'Anti-Degree'

"Core Modules"

Writing While Neurodivergent (Sept 2025)

10 September 2025 at 12:00 – 5 October 2025 at 14:00 BSTZoom

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Neuroqueering Your Creative Practice (Sept 2025)

16 September 2025 at 18:00 – 2 December 2025 at 20:00 BSTZoom

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Writing the Radical Self (Oct 2025)

15 October 2025 at 12:00 – 14 December 2025 at 19:30 BSTZoom

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"Capstone/Dissertation"

Write Your Novel (Sept '25 - July '26)

12 September 2025 at 12:00 – 24 July 2026 at 14:30 BSTZoom

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"Academic Advisor"

• Individually tailored 1:1 Mentoring and Support

"Study Groups"

• Writing Sprints 

"Electives"

• KR Presents:

  • Art for Activism & Radical Well Being, both coming later this Autumn

  • Register (or re-register) your interest now to get new course announcements & updates, and so we know which courses to run!