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THE SCHOOLOF POTENTIAL ENGAGEMENT POTENTIALThe School of Potential Engagement Po-tential (SPEP) is a transient space for col-laborative learning. It is and always will be unaccredited. Its walls are temporary, its curriculum is ad hoc, and its occupants col-lectively assume the roles of students, pro-fessors, and administrators at once.

This free experimental education model, in a perpetual state of redesign, is oriented towards the radical supplementation and re-definition of higher education during an era of actualized academic capitalism.

SPEP was conceived as a by-product of creative research conducted by The Naught Collective. It was founded upon a firm be-lief that higher education should be free and accessible to all, and a dedication to the di-verse ways knowledge is made.

GATHER>>>BUILD>>>CLASSES>>>DISASSEMBLE>>>REPEAT

GATHERINGestablishing collective- Who will be participating? [ATTN: each collaborator should be willing to strive for a level of commit-ment that transcends that of our nor-mal institutions--i.e. school, work, ect.] [ATTN: be wary of sameness/es-sence] [ATTN: relatively small groups work best (3-10)]- Who will be the facilitator(s)? [ATTN: the facilitator(s) are respon-sible for making sure agenda items are being covered and that decisions are being made] + will this role be filled permanently, or will it rotate?- When and where will the first meet-ing be held? + is food and drink going to be a factor? [ATTN: the communal activity that is coming together around food and/

or drink helps to build solidarity within the group]

FIRST LOGISTICAL MEETINGgreetings/praxis/communication/pre-curric-culum/micro-commons-Does everyone know each other? + what are the individual intellectual interests/areas of expertise? [ATTN: this conversation will begin to inform the content of the curriculum, and how it could be constructed. note overlapping interests]- How will decisions be made?- How will the group communicate outside of meetings?- Will this iteration of SPEP be docu-mented? + if so, how and to what extent?- How will the curriculum be construct-ed?- When will the second meeting be held?

SECONDLOGISTICAL MEETING(budget)/site/architecture/curriculum/mi-cro-commons

- Will there be a budget? [ATTN: establish monetary mi-cro-commons] [ATTN: having even a miniscule budget makes scavenging compo-nents for the classroom much easier] [ATTN: most or all of this potential budget will be returned after the class-room is disassembled]- Where will the classroom be con-structed? + how much space is needed? + what sites are accessible? [ATTN: at this point the spatial mi-cro-commons, will be established] - What will the architecture of the classroom look like?

+ based on the preliminary curricu-lum discussions and (BUDGET), what are the group’s architectural needs? + where will the classroom compo-nents be scavenged from, and who will be getting what piece? *how will scavenged components be transported to the site? - What the will curriculum be? [ATTN: find a skill/line of inquiry/point of critical engagement/etc. that is of mutual interest] [ATTN: creating a course title may be helpful] + what is the scope? - How will intellectual resources be accessed? + who has access to what (public or private libraries, databases, etc.) [ATTN: establish intellectual mi-cro-commons.]

BUILD[ATTN: before the build, all compo-nents of the classroom should be collected and access to the site should be verified]- Will each component be assembled/constructed collectively or will tasks be delegated? [ATTN: make sure that components that have been purchased are not damaged during build so that there will not be any trouble returning them] [ATTN: taking photos of the pur-chased components as they are being unpackaged will help in repackaging them for returning] [ATTN: make sure to save all pack-aging]- What is the group expected to do in preparation for CLASS TWO (read-ings, research, bringing materials or food, etc.)?

CLASS TWO/INTO CURRICULUM[ATTN: get into it] - How will the group present the curric-ulum (a reader, syllabus, performance of research, etc.)? + how and why?- Is there interest in holding another class session?

CLASSES THREE THROUGH... [ATTN: make sure a time-line for finishing the course is established and agreed upon] [ATTN: don’t forget that if you have scavenged materials that are going to be returned to stores, most return policies are restricted to 90 days]- Is there interest in holding another class session? [ATTN: repeat at the end of every class]- If the group has decided to produce something (curriculum presentation) when will it be completed? + how will tasks be delegated?

FINAL CLASS/DISMAN-TLEMENT/REFLECTION[ATTN: make sure that all damage to store-bought materials is repaired before returning them]- Who will be responsible for disas-sembling what components of the classroom?- Who will be returning what piece(s) and to where?

FEEDBACK- What aspects of this method were beneficial and what aspects were not? + why?- How can the administrative formula be improved?- How can The Naught Collective help your group share what was accom-plished during your class?

Y O U / W E A R E H E R E

0 8 / 0 1 / 2 0 1 4HOW TO SPEP:

SPEP4 FIRST TEXT(S): I n t r o d u c t i o n & C h a p t e r I f r o m

Afflicted Powers:Capital and Spectacle in a New Age

of WarRETORT

From the introduction: It bears repeating. On February 15, 2003, and again on March 15, with the first wave of bombing by that time a matter of hours away, millions of people took to the streets to voice their opposition to the oncoming invasion of Iraq. The marches began in Melbourne and Sydney, and swept westward with the sun. The centers of Rome, Tokyo, London, Paris, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Dhaka, Barcelona , New York, San Francisco, and a thousand other communities were choked with banners and echoing with rejection and disgust. Believable estimates the day after put the number of demonstrators in February between fifteen and twenty million, maybe higher; even the networks and newspapers of record - desperate as ever to keep the Great Refusal off the front page - were not able to shrink the figure by more than a factor of two. The “embittered few” had become the disbelieving and contemptuous many. In common with almost everyone, the writers of this book could hardly believe their eyes as they swung with the crowd into San Francisco’s Market Street. Out of the torpor and humiliation of “ politics” in Bush’s America had come, abruptly, a foreshadowing of a different form of life. The crowd itself - the feeling was palpable at the time - seemed to shake its head, wide-eyed with aston-ishment, at the unlikeliness of its own corning into being. Where had this energy been sleeping? Why had the months-long combined operation of Republicans and Democrats, aimed at making opposition to empire unthinkable - unrepre-sentable - so signally failed? How could it be that the idiom of the chants and placards, which for a moment made a world, had so unerringly decided on the proper form of reply to the predawn barrage of lies - a reply so apt and incisive, inflected so variously and yet so consistent in its venom? As if all of us had sat brooding nightly over CNN, rolling the latest sound bite round our tongues, savoring it, entering deep into its banality and untruth, until an absolute negation had emerged for each demonstrator, shadowing the official slogans, parodying them, feeding on their emptiness, giving them monstrous form....

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