When first looking at the term 'power from below ' my mind immediately thinks about politics, more specifically corruption although it is also commonly associated with situations where the little guy stands up against the big guy. A David versus Goliath battle. When we talk about power from below we often think of it as a lower 'level' person tries to voice and act on their feelings and beliefs while attempting to make a difference for the better.
When writing this blog , I found myself thinking of a recent situation I faced. The idea that power from below can change structures is true yet sometimes difficult to achieve. During my first year of the course myself and a couple of other students failed a subject which was one of the most difficult subjects Being used to a systems for as long as I can remember where resits are held around two months later I was now faced with the impossible. For some reason the Institute wanted the student who failed to re do their work from scratch and resubmit the new work within 10 days. Now this is difficult to do with just one subject let alone having two or more within the same period. Even if it was just an exam and we had to study for it the deadline was impossible to reach whilst presenting work of good quality. Not knowing why other students never said anything about it I decided to take a stand. It was also the perfect opportunity to do so since when the resit brief was issued, the particular lecture took a mistake in the deadline date and wrote September so students started asking questions. As mentioned in the previous blog post, students at Mcast most of the time have no say in things so this was a win or loose situation. We were either going to make them listen and ask for the deadline to be extended hoping it will or else fail the subject again. After numerous emails and meetings with some members of the administration we managed to extend the deadline till September. Today, all students at the institute who fail a unit can submit their resit work in September, same as almost all the schools in Malta and Gozo. This shows how even though students are treated as the lowest level in the system's triangle, if they have enough courage and good intentions they can manage. References Piven, F. (2008). Can Power from Below Change the World?. [online] Asr.sagepub.com. Available at: http://asr.sagepub.com/content/73/1/1.abstract [Accessed 4 Nov. 2016].
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Rita Curmi2nd year Student Archives
May 2017
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