A new, off-the-wall book puts the education system starkly under the spotlight

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Source/more: A new, off-the-wall book puts the education system starkly under the spotlight | The Canary

Quote:A radical author has something to say in his latest novel on the state of the education system. Joss Sheldon’s third book, The Little Voice, paints a dark picture of just what controlled schooling may do to us all. And Sheldon doesn’t pull any punches with his appraisal of what he calls “indoctrination”.
A work of fiction?

Sheldon, 34, from Barnet, released The Little Voice on Wednesday 23 November. It follows the protagonist, Yew Shodkin, as he recounts his life. The reader is taken on a journey in the book through Shodkin’s early years up to the present day. He recalls the effect that schooling and discipline had on him from a young age, and how it shaped his future. But all the while there’s a “little voice” talking to Shodkin, inside his head. And this little voice belongs to a character named “Egot”.

The Canary spoke to Sheldon exclusively about The Little Voice. He said that, while not autobiographical, there are some striking similarities between himself and the main character:

The book is still a work of fiction, it’s not an autobiography, but I looked in on myself for it and a lot of things in it did happen to me. I did get into trouble at school (I got expelled twice). My parents did always side with my teachers. Together, they did encourage me to behave, and punish me whenever I misbehaved.

Sheldon says that a lot of the anecdotes in The Little Voice are based on events from his own life. But moreover, it’s the theme of conditioning to conform from such a young age that is true to his own experiences. “The narrator, like myself, is an adult”, Sheldon says. “He’s able to look back on his childhood. To understand what happened to him. To analyse it. And to understand why he acted the way he did”.

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