Kendra Brea Cooper
Molly Logan and Elise Van Middelem have created a Kickstarter project to fund The School of Doodle, a free online high school for girls encouraging creativity, collaboration, and big voices. There is potential in a blank piece of paper, it's waiting for the doodles of a better future written by the teenage girls of today.
The School of Doodle is another way of learning outside of a giant, stifling system. Creativity isn't something done after the "real" learning is over and you've managed to dig out an old box of crayons stuffed behind the math book. Television shows like Daria and zine movements like Riot Grrrl offer a glimpse into another world. It's a way girls can see a future constructed by their own ideas.
One of the things the internet can give us is the opportunity to close the space gap, and create a community with people who are out of arms reach. Free schools are one of the ways we can dismantle not only the walls that keep people out, but also change the power structures that maintain the status quo. The School of Doodle could very well be part of that revolution.
In the Riot Grrrl era of zines, girls expressed themselves through arts like collage and poetry. The world was taken to task by the dreams of girls as soon as they had the chance to fill in a blank piece of paper and use a photocopier. Once that happened, gender was challenged, constructs were crushed, and girls found a voice.
Art has the ability to show us things we might have never thought of, stuff outside of any sentence we could string together in language, and that's why it's important. It's cathartic, it's expressive, and it changes perceptions.
This isn't a space where someone stands in front of class and preaches their version of history to a group of kids all faced forward. This is a collaborative space, where everyone teaches and contributes ideas, making a community of people rather than competitive individuals.
Some of the supporters and contributors to this project include Kim Gordon, JD Samson, Natasha Lyonne, Courtney Love, Yoko Ono, Pussy Riot, Sia, and Chan Marshall. It's definitely the crew to encourage expression, feminism, and self-empowerment.
Sharing work with one another instead of hiding it for the teachers eyes only is another move into a different kind of learning, one that encourages collaboration and growth. It's an act of solidarity.
Especially for girls, not creating a scene and keeping quiet is encouraged by our society, but projects like The School of Doodle could build the very confidence that will bust down the walls with loud fury. This isn't a place where one has to look to authority, the rules are made by you.
Pop culture and all that ideology sitting in the blind spot. Also crafts.
