Michele runs two subject-centred Saturday schools for Civitas’ Supplementary Schools Project in Keighley and Bradford, where he teaches English and maths to primary and secondary school pupils. He has an MA by research in English from Leeds University, with a dissertation on James Joyce’s Ulysses and Petronius’ Satyricon. A critic of child-centred education, he has written articles for several publications, including the Guardian, Spiked and Culture Wars, and is the author of the chapter on English teaching in The Corruption of the Curriculum. With the Manifesto Club, Michele campaigns for high standards in education. In September 2008 he launched the Hands Off Poetry! petition against examination board AQA’s ban of Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Education for Leisure’ from the GCSE syllabus. Michele is the co-organiser of the Leeds Salon which holds public debates on current political and cultural issues. |
The Corruption of the Curriculum (Civitas, 2007)
"Just when Kant's formulation that 'the public exercise of reason should be free' had begun to seem so remote and exhausted, the Battle should reinforce one's faith in the enduring worth of dissent and of the free traffic in ideas"
Swapan Chakravorty, professor of english, Jadavpur University