“Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back… she would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.” - Aslan, C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Showing posts with label classroom rebellion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classroom rebellion. Show all posts

Language, Movement, and the Ethics of Unapologetic Intelligence


⟡ Matilda as Method: Teaching Rebellion with Rhyme ⟡

Filed: December 2022
Location: Cambridge Theatre, London
📎 Download PDF — 2022-12_SWANK_FieldStudy_MatildaMusical_EducationResistance_LanguagePower.pdf

I. Language, Movement, and the Ethics of Unapologetic Intelligence

This educational field study chronicles SWANK’s pedagogical excursion to Matilda the Musical, conducted as part of our aesthetic curriculum in literature, moral resistance, and performative defiance.

We went not for entertainment.
We went for evidence.

Of what happens when a girl reads too much.
Of what systems do when confronted by eloquent disobedience.

II. What We Observed

  • Syntax weaponised by children

  • Revolt staged in meter and rhyme

  • Adults flailing to contain girls fluent in footnotes

  • The tyrant undone not by violence — but by literacy and choreography

The children were not taught to behave.
They were taught to correct the record.

The message wasn’t subtle.
Neither was our applause.

III. Why SWANK Filed It

Because art is evidence.
Because theatre teaches what school erases.
Because Matilda is not a story — it is a method.

Let the record show:

  • Intelligence was punished in the plot

  • Language was the liberator

  • The villain was a headteacher

  • And SWANK — filed the fieldwork with academic contempt

This wasn’t a musical.
It was curriculum — with better lighting.

IV. SWANK’s Position

We do not accept obedience as educational outcome.
We do not permit institutions to demand silence and call it support.
We do not redact musical theatre that trains children in rhetorical rebellion.

Let the record show:

Matilda read the books.
She saw the pattern.
She rewrote the ending.
And SWANK — taught the class.

This is not extracurricular.
It’s resistance — set to music.




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