Thursday 29 September 2011

TEDx London - Education Revolution: a few thoughts

Thanks to the generosity of The Camden Roundhouse and my obsessive twitter addiction I was lucky enough to score myself a place on the guestlist to the TEDx London Education Revolution conference hosted by the Roundhouse on 17th September. You can find details and (I think) vids of many of the talks through TEDx London but I wanted to talk about a few of my personal highlights and some thoughts on the issues they raised.

 Our lord who art in LA; Sir Ken Robinson opened the conference with a video talk and a nice comparison between Dramatist Peter Brook's theory of the primacy of the actor/audience relationship and the same in the teacher/learning relationship - that when this relationship is of the highest quality, there is no need to add anything unless it enhances this. A good anchor as we delved into the world of flashing, beeping new apps and technologies (my position towards which can be best defined as warmly sceptical).

 Youth campaigner Adam Roberts began the live talks with a nice point about our current need for children to be literally and figuratively 'in line' because of the current inadequacies of the education system. This chimed with one of my current hobby horses; which is the question of how many structures exist in schools because of their educational worth and how many exist for the purposes of crowd-control and money-saving?
 Carmel McConnell from the excellent Magic Breakfast underlined this issue of basic inadequacies by revealing thousands of children in the UK misbehave and struggle to learn everyday because they are hungry. For 1 in 4 children the only hot food they are EVER given is school lunch. Perhaps I am being naive, but I find this staggering. For this to be occurring, it is clear our young people are being failed in much bigger ways than by the education system and therefore to be focusing on the redeeming properties of music apps or drama workshops seems to be widdling in the wind until we can be assured the children we teach have this basic level of care.

 One of my personal high points though has to be Ken Spours burning a righteous flame on the stage, stating that a true education revolution would involve education ceasing to be a political football for career politicians; creating false polarities within teaching practice in pursuit of highlighting their clever new idea. Echoing a common sentiment for this conference, Spours ended by pointing out good ideas don't prosper because they're good, but because conditions are there for them to prosper.

 Dougald Hine's talk on creating a new university had me wriggling excitedly on the edge of my seat - the PhD lives again! Hine's central point that 'learning is not a commodity to be exchanged, it grows between people over time' and his talk of the current existence of a 'university in exile' were eloquently made and I will be following developments on The University Project with interest.

 Artistic Director of The Southbank Centre Jude Kelly gave the final talk of the day, and well deserved the standing ovation she received for it. Her commitment to breaking down the false dichotomy that 'adults appreciate, children learn' and passion that everyone should have access to the arts was smartly brought home by placing herself in the continuum of pioneering individuals who have opened previously closed cultural doors to ever-widening spheres of society. In the same way it is a staggering crime young people are not fed, it is a similar crime many people still believe elements of our arts and culture are not appropriate or accessible to all our young people and I'll be watching The Southbank Centre with interest to see how Kelly's pledge to work towards ending this inequality becomes reality. My last PhD proposal set out to explore how arts-based practice effects learning, and I find myself wondering if Kelly would have an interest in this research.

 For a natural optimist like me, nearly every conference has that moment when you give yourself up to the collective wave of euphoria and mine was during Kelly's talk when she spoke of how through childhood ballet lessons 'I have become the person that I have been ever since'. That experience of yourself, and therefore the world, suddenly making sense though a particular field or craft made perfect sense to me. It felt clear to me in that moment that there is something in the world that does this for each of us: a door we walk through to find ourselves. As educators we have been lucky enough to find the ones that work for us and surely our commitment has to be to patently, rigorously and creatively opening as many of these doors as possible to as many young people as possible. You will never know if it's the door for them, or even if they are in the right place to walk through it. But if we all - subject teachers, artists, sportspeople, techno-types, business moguls - aim just to try - to 'pass it on' as The History Boys Hector would have it; then surely that's not nothing?

 Of course, revolutions of the past have taught us it's relatively easy to give rousing speeches and feel your heart soar in the company of your peers. But as we headed out into the balmy Camden night how much of what we had heard and seen would stay with us, would continue to make sense in our everyday practice and become reality, and what would be left behind? David Price addresses this issue more fully in his excellent blog on the day, however the impression I am left with following this conference is that education is certainly going to exciting new (and exciting old) places, but does the underlying structure of our education system, and the support society as a whole affords it through the care and valuing of it's young people, provide the conditions for these good ideas to flourish?

Thursday 28 July 2011

Onwards and Upwards

The news in brief:



  1. No PhD funding from the ESRC this year :( Dissapointing, but not deterring. The plan is to continue improving my academic and research skills and refining the ideas for my proposal (possibly by getting an article published in an academic journal - any advice RE this on a postcard please!)

  2. With the end of the summer term work is winding down and I'm taking the opportunity to engage in some career development - had a wonderful day with Sound Connections today developing my use of singing, voice and music with early years. Next week will see me dusting off my ballet pumps and heading to The Place for a week's intensive Introduction to Ballet (in an attempt to improve my flexibility, agility and creativity with physical work) If anyone knows of any other exciting training/courses happening over the summer, please let me know!

  3. In a recent holiday to Cyprus (visiting the girls who I studied with on my MA) I read Mike Alfred's book on acting and directing Different Every Night. I'm really excited by his approach to the rehearsal process, and as I've always believed the reheasal process has the most to teach drama and theatre facilitators on curriulum and pedagogy I'm excited to look over my own practice to see where I can intigrate some of Alfred's ideas....

And that's really all for now folks - a few ideas cooking for the next term, but can't give it all away up front, so watch this space!

Monday 2 May 2011

May?!

I've been neglecting you for far too long. So before I leap out of my house to take advantage of this continued gorgeous weather with a jog round Peckham Rye Common (I have recently signed up for a 10k charity race, lord help me!) I thought I'd update you on all recent happenings...

Deadline for PhD application is tomorrow, so the current cadaver's head balloon following me around is finishing that and drawing all the many MANY disparate parts together. Im applying for four years' of full time funding, the first year being taken up with a masters in research methods (known as an MRes) before beginning my PhD research the following year. More on the exciting content of this research later - for now I'm superstitious about jinxing it.

A busy spring term of freelancing, and summer term now gearing up. After little luck last term have managed to secure myself on the freelance books of another TIE company, this time one based in North London; who have a fantastically specific approach - maths through music, history though drama, storytelling through dance. Simples. I have some training with them this week and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in to something new.

I've also been trying out a non-curriculum path a little over the past term - children's discos and birthday parties. It's been a massive challenge, but really interesting do to work so far removed from my usual fare and also great to have a platform to be unashamedly silly. The company I've joined is run by one of the most enthusiastic, personable individuals I've ever met, who manages this company alongside holding down a part time job in the finance sector and running a professional development company for creatives. Inspiring freelancing!

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Musings from Morocco

Just returned from a cheeky start to 2011 surfing, sunning and stuffing my face with tagine up and down the Moroccan coast. My winter sun reading was Pat Kane's The Play Ethic and I've been musing on it's meanings for me - both professional and personal.

The book written with a verve and energy that is inspiring, and while much of the theory occasionally feels fuzzy in that it's quite broad and doesn't rough out a clear way forward, the underlining message: that by rejecting the work/play binary of the Protestant work ethic we can allow ourselves to fully embody our lives and be creatively in control of every aspect of it - felt very right to me. My partner, who is also freelance, could not understand why this was such a strong and (for some) radical message - all those successful in his field are by necessity those who are successful 'players': combining commercial popularity with artistic integrity.

I think it's really exciting to live this way - I often feel frustrated by those who can only see the instability and financial uncertainly in my freelance lifestyle. Living by the 'play ethic' doesn't mean having to work within the arts, or being self employed or freelance. But it does mean having a sense of authorship over your life - a feeling that your life has meaning in it, and you are able to control and manipulate the elements of it to some extent.

My life's motto for several years has been 'Nothing worth doing will ever be easy'. After a fascinating training session on inclusivity* recently I came to realise the main generator of exclusion was FEAR. True inclusion will always involve taking risks - on the part of the participants and the providers. And so: 'Anything worth doing will always be difficult and scary'. Doesn't scan as well as the first motto perhaps - but I think there's a fair bit of truth in it. I've now been self-employed for nearly 6 months and 'difficult and scary' certainly sums up many moments - particularly facing my financial realities - but the challenge of seeking out work, being creative (nearly!) every day and getting involved with some great companies has made it worthwhile - here's to 2011!

*This training was run by the same youth theatre I've been volunteering for and blogged about last time. Just to keep you updated we've now halved the group size and no longer use the library as part of the sign in procedure. The group is now working on a performance of Hansel and Gretel. No more bookshelves have been jumped off. So sometimes you do need to say no (and step back, rework until you can say yes again)