What is a teach-out?

Teach-outs are teaching sessions that take place on the picket line (physical or digital), outside the usual structures of the university. Picket lines are places where we discuss the state of higher education and re-imagine what it could be. Teach-outs are a forum for these conversations to happen, for support, solidarity and resistance to grow. See Katherine Weikert’s History Workshop article: On the Radical Potential of Teach-Outs

A teach-out can be a talk, a workshop, a performance, pretty much anything. Kingston staff and/or students can run them or we can invite outside speakers or organisations. They are friendly informal spaces, a good way for people to participate in the strike, a way to build staff-student solidarity and breakdown hierarchies in the university. They can involve music, poetry, crafting, conversation, theatre, reflection, reading.

They can be about the issues the strike is over (equality, insecure contracts, unsustainable workload, the cost of living crisis), connected issues in higher education (e.g. fees, course cuts), worker’s rights and the history of worker’s struggles around the world, wider related issues like anti-racism, climate justice, the hostile environment for migrants, mental health, housing.

On past strike days we have had teach-outs on student activism, the hostile environment and universities, embedding worker’s rights in the curriculum, why standing up for your rights isn’t always easy, sustainable education, art strikes, recycled archaeology, cartooning and worker’s rights, queerness, and the war in Ukraine, proxy wars and displaced people. We’ve had tufting, cyanotype, protest song, zine and theatre workshops, pilates, workload acronym bingo, and sessions for BIPOC & international students, trans & non-binary staff, and post-graduate students. We’ve had sessions led by Kingston students, Kingston staff, and outside guests including Kingston XR and student mental health mentor Hana Conevska.