The launch came and went in the blink of an eye. Suddenly
all was visible, but was it what participants (and speakers) expected and did
it live up to our expectations of creating something that was challenging,
unlike a traditional launch, and would it shift the axis in education?
Unlike a traditional format, speakers did
not appear on a podium one after another to provoke or inspire. They were
hidden in the shops on The Street in the Riverside Museum - an Emporium of
Dangerous Ideas. Each shop became a den of danger, with merchants selling their
ideas, but more importantly engaging in conversations about enterprising
education, public services, town centres, international cooperation, the
importance of failure and what the future for Scotland could be (regardless of
the referendum). In one den, only one person could enter at a time, and
without even a merchant present, they were invited to enter a dream like state
that will unfold throughout the rest of the Emporium. It certainly wasn't
a traditional launch.
The photography shop hosted some stunning
images of Glasgow captured by students at City of Glasgow of students.
They could have sold many, but they didn't. Why not? Across
the street Elinor Vettraino , from Fife College was inspiring every customer
with her account of Team Academy and a whole, enterprising movement that using
coaching instead of formal teaching and students set their businesses up from
the beginning. In talking to the art students the thought of making their
art a business was far from their minds, but should it be this way?
A man who certainly challenged our
thoughts about the status quo and the role we all play in creating change was
Nick Carter. More, more used to exploring the heights of mountains and polar
icecaps Nick found himself in the 'subway', and played the nearest thing to the
role of traditional speaker. His tales of adventure and challenge, with
equal doses of risk taking and failure were captivating and exhilarating.
He was also extremely challenging in his endeavour to make us take
responsibility for our failures. None of the "it wasn't
me"," I told you this wasn't going to work"," it will all
work out in the end"," well we did our best" , if circumstances
were different". The point was - take ownership of your failure and learn
from it! Don't allow yourself to remain in the blame culture that would be
appear to be endemic in our culture, including our education.
At the physical and metaphorical heart of
the Emporium was the real David Cameron, holding court in the pub, as customers
came and went. As David himself said, never has he seemed so comfortable
in a role. He played the part excellently, as if he was chatting to a bunch of
regulars about every aspect of life: their thoughts; gripes; hopes; ideas;
aspirations. I am sure there were punters in there for the entire
duration of the launch. David's skill and ability to include everyone in
a discussion, to remember people's names, jobs and ideas, and demonstrate
interest in them goes unparalleled. He demonstrates what it means to be an
excellent teacher.
The Launch was demanding of its
participants - they had to negotiate the Street, decide which emporia to visit,
consider what this meant to their contexts and how they could take this further
(if desired) into their future work. Some, I think we have preferred to be
talked at, to be inspired from afar.
However, that is not in the ethos of a
Curriculum for Excellence, or a move towards developing a more creative and
enterprising culture in education.
In his final words for the day David
Cameron persuaded us to reconsider where learning takes place: not
only in the institutions set up for this purpose but also in the magnificent
public buildings like the Riverside Museum. How can we use public spaces
differently? With a finale that ends inside the most iconic of public art
in Scotland: The kelpies, he also reminded us that "while others
talk about imagination, adventure, risk taking The Emporium of Dangerous Ideas,
run by College Development Network, goes ahead and delivers all of that!"
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