Could The Emporium Be a Micro-brewery?

The Emporium will shortly reopen as we start to plan next year’s extravaganza.  Though it’s a loose sort of plan, never really knowing what will happen and what key themes will emerge.   At the moment all we know is that it will happen in June, and we need to keep it dangerous. Please use this forum to highlight the issues and ideas that matter to you, as this keeps the events relevant and meaningful.

We are still working on both the evaluations and creating a virtual tour where you will be able to access some of the videos and materials  that were produced over the two weeks. Already we have a sense of how important the concept of the Emporium is and some of the comments are outlined below: 

·         The concept captures the imagination, making you feel empowered, liberated and that anything is possible.

·         Great concept, brilliant to keep pushing forward with education and to keep encouraging creativity, also great to offer inspiration and motivation for people working in the sector

·         It gives you ‘permission’ to try things in a new way, and the guts to talk about things that are often taboo – it’s unique, refreshing and vital for the sector

·         It’s a much needed concept which should enable the education sector and beyond to challenge their understanding of current and planned practice

This is at the heart of the Emporium; the need to challenge orthodoxy, whether this is in practice or in policy.  However, the Emporium is only open in June and we need to ensure that this ethos or spirit exists throughout the year, particularly in light of the national frenzy around employability and the development of initiatives that will embed the employability skills into all areas of the school and college curriculum.  At the same time we also have a national agenda for developing the creativity skills of all young people.  So we now have to evidence how we are promoting and embedding the development and value of creative skills​ within the context of the employability.

This has an impact on the professional development (CPD) offered in schools and colleges and on those who manage it. A concern highlighted in numerous conversations is that a managerialist and reductionist approach could become prevalent resulting in a series of limited CPD offerings, with traditional pedagogical approaches on  how to embed creativity and employability into the curriculum, paradoxically further diminishing the creativity of teachers/lecturers and the innate creativity and passions of learners.  Much could also be said about the dominance of a discourse that infers that the reasons young people are not in employment is due to their lack of ‘employability skills’ rather than focussing on  the economic system, and the privileging of a   curriculum which prioritises subjects that are deemed to be relevant to the current employment , but that will be for a future debate.

As someone, whose  raison d’etre  is to lead and support professional development, with a particular focus on creativity I’m been reflecting on my own learning and development , and what this means for the coming academic year, and more particularly for the Emporium.  Last week I met up with Paul Gorman from Hidden Giants, ostensibly to reflect on some of the Emporium events and also consider some changes to another leadership programme we work on together. As with all good, enriching conversations we meandered from one subject to another, until Paul told me about his current interest in micro-breweries. He knew little more than I did (though he had a book), but was both curious and intrigued by micro-brewers’ ability to create a range of diverse, specialist beers that appealed to an equally diverse and discerning customer.   Perhaps we both just liked the quote from the book 'I always saw CAMRA (campaign for real ales) as political, as a radical movement, challenging entrenched and powerful interests' ( Christopher Hutt, 2013). This sparked off the most wonderful of conversations about teaching/lecturing as a micro-brewery activity.  It was fantastical, imaginative and challenging.  It made me reassess all the recent creativity workshops I had delivered, with a consideration that all I had been offering was a Tennents Special approach (apologies to Tennents).   Was I focusing my teaching on fixed notions of creativity, and whose interests were being served? Could I have  supported each individual to develop their own sense of creativity in how they approached their teaching practice.  I could tell you more, but it’s Paul’s idea, his creativity and his exploration – I’m just nicking a bit.

Conversations like this are vital, to not only  the development of creativity in learning, but also the personal and professional development of  practitioners. They are born out of trust, a willingness to be challenged, to take risks, to consider that we can all learn from one another.  There is a joy in sharing ideas, building on those ideas, watching them flourish, whilst also knowing they may not actually go anywhere.   Even if Paul doesn't take forward his micro-brewery approach to creative learning, my ideas have changed, my understanding of my practice has developed and I feel that I have been part of a creative process.  Was this a nationally, validated and certificated CDP session organised by my HR department? No. Could the Emporium become a micro-brewery of creative learning next year?  Let me know what you think, while I nip off to visit Leith’s micro-brewery, all in the name of research.