# Chris Searle > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Chris_Searle > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Chris_Searle.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Searle > Source revision: 1346880847 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|British writer and educator (born 1944)}} {{about||the English cricketer|Chris Searle (cricketer)|the British television presenter|Chris Serle}} {{Use British English|date=November 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2017}} {{Infobox person | name = Chris Searle | image = Chris Searle.jpg | image_size = 220px | caption = Searle in May 2017 | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=yes|1944|01|01}} | birth_place = [Romford](/source/Romford), Essex, UK | death_date = | death_place = | years_active = | education = [University of Leeds](/source/University_of_Leeds); [McMaster University](/source/McMaster_University) | occupation = Teacher, writer | spouse = | children = }} '''Chris Searle''' (born 1 January 1944) is a British educator, poet, anti-racist activist, and socialist. He has written widely on cricket, language, jazz, race, and social justice, and has taught in Canada, England, [Tobago](/source/Tobago), [Mozambique](/source/Mozambique), and [Grenada](/source/Grenada). He has been associated with the [Institute of Race Relations](/source/Institute_of_Race_Relations_(United_Kingdom)) since the 1970s, and is on the editorial board of ''[Race & Class](/source/Race_%26_Class)''. He writes a weekly column on jazz for the left-wing newspaper ''[Morning Star](/source/Morning_Star_(British_newspaper))''. ==Life== Chris Searle was born in [Romford, Essex](/source/Romford%2C_Essex), in 1944. He was a young cricketer for England, and graduated in 1966 from the [University of Leeds](/source/University_of_Leeds). That year he went to [Hamilton, Ontario](/source/Hamilton%2C_Ontario), Canada, where in 1967 he completed an M.A. in English Literature at [McMaster University](/source/McMaster_University), which included a thesis on the [East End of London](/source/East_End_of_London) poet [Isaac Rosenberg](/source/Isaac_Rosenberg).Christopher R. Searle, [https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/9768/1/fulltext.pdf "Isaac Rosenberg: Glimpses of a Plan Terrific"] (thesis), McMaster University, August 1967. He became a schoolteacher in Canada, and then in 1968–69 taught English at a secondary school in [Tobago](/source/Tobago), in the [West Indies](/source/West_Indies). His 1972 work ''The Forsaken Lover: White Words and Black People'', which won the Martin Luther King Prize, is based on his experience in Tobago.Biographical blurb in ''The Forsaken Lover''. ===Stepney School strike=== On returning to England in 1970, Searle taught in the East End, and was involved in the Stepney School strike of 1971{{cite web|url=https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/11/09/the-stepney-school-strike/ |title=The Stepney School Strike|website=Spitalfields Life|date=9 November 2015|access-date=8 July 2025}} in the borough of [Tower Hamlets](/source/Tower_Hamlets). He was dismissed from the [John Cass Foundation and Red Coat School](/source/Sir_John_Cass_Redcoat_School) when he published ''Stepney Words'', a collection of his pupils' poems; however, he was reinstated after his pupils went on strike in protest.{{Cite journal|last=Searle|first=Chris|date=4 April 2017|title=The story of Stepney Words|journal=Race & Class|language=en|volume=58|issue=4|pages=57–75|doi=10.1177/0306396816686281|s2cid=151317625 |issn=0306-3968}} ===Later life=== He spent 1977 and 1978 working in [Nampula](/source/Nampula) Secondary School in northern Mozambique during the [Civil War](/source/Mozambique_Civil_War) there. His book ''We're Building the New School! Diary of a Teacher in Mozambique''', published in 1981, presents his experiences in diary form.''People's Power in Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau'', Issue 19. Mozambique, Angola, and Guiné Information Centre, 1982 Searle spent time in the early 1980s in [Grenada](/source/Grenada), and wrote and edited several books about that [Caribbean](/source/Caribbean) island, including, in 1981, ''Grenada: Education Is a Must!'' with Grenada's Prime Minister [Maurice Bishop](/source/Maurice_Bishop). Bishop had been involved in March 1979 with a coup by the [Marxist](/source/Marxist) [New Jewel Movement](/source/New_Jewel_Movement), which suspended the country's constitution, and established a [People's Revolutionary Government](/source/People's_Revolutionary_Government_(Grenada)). Searle also edited ''In Nobody's Backyard: Maurice Bishop’s speeches 1979–1983''. He taught at the [Earl Marshal School](/source/Fir_Vale_School) in [Sheffield](/source/Sheffield) between 1990 and 1995.{{cite news|first=Chris|last= Burn|url=http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/one-in-six-roma-students-excluded-from-school-in-sheffield-1-8349035 |title=One in six Roma students excluded from school in Sheffield|newspaper=Yorkshire Post|date= 23 January 2017}} Later he was a lecturer in education at [Goldsmiths College](/source/Goldsmiths_College), London.Carrington, Ben, and Ian McDonald (eds), ''Race, Sport and British Society''. Routledge, 2002. In 2007, Searle was a visiting social sciences professor at [York University, Toronto](/source/York_University%2C_Toronto).{{cite web|first=Daniel|last= Girard|url=https://www.pressreader.com/canada/toronto-star/20070322/283545151231351 |title=School Bags Packed Full of History|newspaper=Toronto Star|date= 22 March 2007}} According to [John Berger](/source/John_Berger): "At his best Searle's compassion, anger and sense of historical morality as a storyteller are reminiscent of the early [Gorki](/source/Maxim_Gorki). I can see no other writer in Britain with whom to compare him."[http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/1842/s/lightning-of-your-eyes/category/74/ Profile of Searle] at Inpress publishers. ==Bibliography == *''Stepney Words'' (editor), 1971 *''Firewords'' (editor), 1971 – a national anthology of children's poetry *''Poilu: a novel'', 1971 *''Elders: a collection of poems by elder citizens'' (editor), 1972 *''The Forsaken Lover: White Words and Black People'', Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972 (Penguin Books, 1973) *''This New Season: Our Class, Our Schools, Our World'', 1973 *''Mainland'', 1973 – poems *''Ferndale Fires: a children's story'', 1974 *''Classrooms of Resistance'', [Writers and Readers](/source/For_Beginners%2C_LLC), 1975 *''The Black Man of Shadwell: four stories'', 1976 *''The World in a Classroom'', 1977 *''Beyond the Skin: How Mozambique is defeating racism'', 1979 *''Grenada: "Let those who labour hold the reins"'', 1979 – interview with [Bernard Coard](/source/Bernard_Coard) *''Red Earth: Poems'', 1980 *''Tales of Mozambique'' (with Chaz Davies and [Ruhi Hamid](/source/Ruhi_Hamid)), 1980 *''Bricklight: Poems from the Labour Movement in East London'' (editor), 1980 *''Grenada: Education Is a Must!'' (with [Maurice Bishop](/source/Maurice_Bishop)), 1981 *'''Is Freedom We Making': The New Democracy in Grenada'' (editor), 1981 *''We're Building the New School! Diary of a Teacher in Mozambique'', [Zed Books](/source/Zed_Books), 1981 *''Sunflower of Hope: Poems from the Mozambican Revolution'' (editor), [Allison and Busby](/source/Allison_and_Busby), 1982 *''Grenada Is Not Alone'' (editor), 1982 *''In the Spirit of Butler: trade unionism in free Grenada'' (editor), 1982 *''In the Mainstream of the Revolution'' (editor), 1982 *''To Construct From Morning: making the people's budget in Grenada'' (editor), 1982 *''Common Ground'', 1983 *''Grenada: The Struggle against Destabilization'', 1983 *''Wheel Around the World'' (editor), 1983 *''Words Unchained: Language and Revolution in Grenada'', Zed Books, 1984 *''In Nobody’s Backyard: Maurice Bishop’s speeches 1979–1983'' (editor), Zed Books, 1984 *''Calalloo: Stories from Grenada'' (editor), 1984 *''Our City'' (editor), 1984 *''All Our Words'', 1986 *''Poems for Peace by Sheffield Schoolchildren'' (editor), 1987 *''Children of Steel: A Sheffield Anthology'' (editor), 1988 *''Racism and the Press in Thatcher's Britain'' (with Nancy Murray), [Institute of Race Relations](/source/Institute_of_Race_Relations_(United_Kingdom)), 1989 *''Your Daily Dose: Racism and the Sun'', 1989 *''Grenada Morning: A Memoir of the "Revo"'', [Karia Press](/source/Karia_Press), 1989 *''One for Blair'' (editor), 1989 – tribute to [Blair Peach](/source/Blair_Peach) *''Remember Hillsborough: a memorial anthology'' (co-editor, with Steve Chew), 1990 *''Freedom Children: a tribute in poetry to the children of South Africa from the children of Sheffield'' (editor), 1990 *''[https://archive.org/details/blindfoldethiopialiteracy A Blindfold Removed: Ethiopia's Struggle for Literacy]'', Karia Press, 1991 *''Outcast England: How schools exclude black children'' (with Jenny Bourne and Lee Bridges), 1994 *''Living Community, Living School: Essays on education in British inner cities'', 1997 *''Changing Literacies'' (with Colin Lankshear, James Paul Gee and Michele Knobel), 1997 *''None But Our Words: Critical Literacy in Classroom and Community'', 1998 *''Pitch of Life: Writings on Cricket'', Parrs Wood Press, 2001 *''An Exclusive Education: Race, Class and Exclusion in British Schools'', Lawrence & Wishart, 2002 *''Lightning of Your Eyes: new and selected poems'', Smokestack Books, 2006 *''Cosmopolis Toronto'' (editor), 2007 *''Tell It Like It Is: How our schools fail black children'' (with Bernard Coard and others), 2007 *''[http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/forward-groove/ Forward Groove: Jazz and the Real World from Louis Armstrong to Gilad Atzman]'', Northway Publications, 2008 *''Toronto Generations'' (editor), 2008 *''Mandela, Manchester'' (editor), 2009 *''[http://www.irr.org.uk/news/revolutionary-poems-from-chris-searle/ Doodlebug Boy]'', 2011 *''[http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/5075/s/red-groove/category/74/ Red Groove]'', Five Leaves Publications, 2013 *''[http://www.smokestack-books.co.uk/book.php?book=78 Footprints: Poems by Peter Blackman]'' (editor), Smokestack Books, 2013 *''Isaac and I: A Life in Poetry'', 2017; reprint Five Leaves Publications, 2022, {{ISBN|9781910170809}} *''The World is in Our Words'', Five Leaves Publications, 2022. {{ISBN|978-1910170915}} *''Talking the Groove: Jazz Words from the Morning Star'', Jazz In Britain, 2024. {{ISBN|978-1916320673}} *''Global Groove: Words of a Jazz Cosmos'', Jazz In Britain, 2026. {{ISBN|978-1916320697}} ==References== {{Reflist|30em}} ==External links== *[http://www.irr.org.uk/publications/issues/chris-searle-the-great-includer/ ''Chris Searle: The Great Includer''], October 2009. Special issue of ''[Race and Class](/source/Race_and_Class)'', a festschrift on his 65th birthday. *[http://spitalfieldslife.com/2011/08/16/the-stepney-school-strike-of-1971 "The Stepney School Strike of 1971"], ''Spitalfields Life'', 16 August 2011. *Michael h Baldwin, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9DK8d6N7Yg " Tales for Perspiring Teachers. Chapter 2. Revolution in the air"] - In which 900 children go on strike and march to [Trafalgar Square](/source/Trafalgar_Square). *Fran Abrams, [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sacked-radical-head-doomed-to-repeat-the-lessons-of-history-1527916.html "Sacked radical head doomed to repeat the lessons of history"], ''[The Independent](/source/The_Independent)'', 31 December 1995 *[http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/what-s-on/former-head-chronicles-a-passion-for-jazz-and-justice-1-449202 "Former head chronicles a passion for jazz and justice"] (interview), ''[Sheffield Telegraph](/source/Sheffield_Telegraph)'', 14 November 2008. {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Searle, Chris}} Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century British male writers Category:21st-century British male writers Category:Alumni of the University of Leeds Category:Anthologists Category:British activists Category:British educational theorists Category:British male poets Category:British poets Category:British socialists Category:People from Romford --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Chris Searle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Searle) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Searle?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.