Thursday 30 November 2006

exciting minds

just been to the Creative Partnerships conference, exciting minds, in Manchester..
The event was in two parts - the Arena and the Conference and for a while on the Monday the y competed for attendance which was a shame.
The overall event was very good, and it was brilliant to have an education expo of the calibre of the arena.. some excellent connections were made and network conversations of the highest order.

The example of creative work I observed on Tuesday left me worried and underwhelmed. If the young people from the school involved had not been there I would have voiced my concern.

Let's take a look.. we send a couple of film makers to an African nation, let's say a country that has experienced recent civil war, with bitter factional fighting. And let's film an interview with a young teenage man who has been caught up in the conflict in the most inhumane and brutalised way - that almost defies imagination and certainly horrifies. In recruiting him into an army of boy soldiers his family has been murdered, his sister raped and killed. He now fears for his life and sleeps on floors. His history and current circumstances are truly at the edges of humanity.
Now let's return to the UK and show this interview to a group of year 9s. And then let's interview them and record their responses.
You can imagine their reactions all too easily (and therein lies the problem). What else would you expect them to say? 'It's terrible what has happened to him, he has to beg for shelter and work for water and food, and we don't.'
But where is the learning? where is the self-directed learning through the arts? indeed, where is the art or creative thinking?
The project was presented as a creative learning intervention into the citizenship agenda.
Creativity in a learning context is about engaging with young people's sensibilities and then allowing them to direct the growth in their understandings; here there was no connection and nothing unexpected.

Thursday 23 November 2006

Navigating the unknown

Attended the launch of the ResCen book 'Navigating the Unknown' - an inspirational work of art in its own write (as John Lennon once put it).. as well as a collection of essays, both visual and linguistic. The importance of the work and the research project that produced it can not be over estimated. These are essays in the truest sense, and about creativity - what it is, how it can be deployed through events, space, time and activity, and why it is important.

Creativity is a powerful tool for making society, not just a reflection of it.
And
Science and technology, and their outputs in innovation can supply the tools of progress; but it is art and creativity (applied imagination) that guide us in their use, humanely and for our common well-being.

Sunday 19 November 2006

more worrying reports of young people

Panorama has some alarming reports about binge drinking among young people.. and almost inevitably took some stock film footage from the streets of Nottingham.

It is hard to gain a proper perspective on this; one point of view is to recall our own youthful experimentation with alcohol, reckless, risky. We would end up in a village pub in rural Lincolnshire, welcomed by the landlord with a cheery, 'hello children..'

Now we hear of young people drinking to obliterate pain.

'When cider is as cheap as coke, why would you choose coke? You can quench your thirst and get pissed..'

I wish I could offer an answer.

Thursday 16 November 2006

change is good

I've been packing boxes to move out of an office..
Always useful to take the opportunity to have a bit of a clear out; but also good to take the time to reflect on the thousands of words you've committed to paper over three years...
The pilot project I've been working on is no longer a pilot - but it is still a programme of action research; and action research as we know is the formal way of making it up as you go along.
What have we learned? That creative characteristics can be identified, and can therefore be developed.
And now we head off into new directions, new territory where young people discover their creative capacities, often for the first time.
And I have boxes to unpack...

Tuesday 14 November 2006

rehearsal

The first entry in the rehearsal blog is by way of welcome...
I hope that you find some interest here as I use this space to post random thoughts and links and references that catch my eye..
And further ideas about improvisation and experiment.