learning

I really want to support the film Freedom Writers (see previous post) and am waiting to get a copy.

Interestingly, StoryMakers Studio found my blog entry and contacted me with an invitation to an event in support of the film. It’s in Hollywood at the Chinese Theatre and I won’t be popping over for it (funnily enough) but here’s their info for anyone wanting to follow up on this powerful film and what’s happening around it.

“a live conversation with a whole bunch of people who made the movie, including writer/director Richard LaGravenese, several cast members, at least one of the original Freedom Writers and Erin Gruwell…

“For those of your members who can’t get to Hollywood to attend the live event, we’re considering videotaping the evening and making it available for viewing later….Anyone who would want to watch program on a tape delayed basis can sign up by going to:

http://storymakersstudio.com/freedom/viewpage

Since a big part of this evening is all about raising awareness for Erin and the Freedom Writers Foundation, we’d really appreciate your support.

Let’s make something wonderful happen.

Gordon Meyer
StoryMakers Studio”

Important independent films like Freedom Writers (eg. early Micheal Moore, Super Size Me, What the Bleep) are doing much better now a days thanks, in part, to the promotional power of the internet to spread political messages virally.
To find out more, just go to http://www.storymakersstudio.com/freedom

More power to them. And as the man says… let’s (keep) making wonderful things happen. Why not tell your own stories and get them out there.

“i have been full of steam

for months

for years”

“to shut yourself up

would be the hugest crime

of them all”

“let’s celebrate now

all this flesh on our bones”

from Volta - Clips of the Mind

Currently looking into the viability of teaching blogging to academic staff and students, at Sussex University initially. It’s certainly the way things are and need to be going. Heck, Universities created the internet for these reasons in the first place, but long-lead-time dead-tree journals seem to have taken over the publishing side of things and there is not a lot of deep content out there.
Specific (participant) outcomes expected:

- Your own free weblog site for individual or group publishing.

- Instantly and easily publish your own or a group’s academic /
creative work (in progress or completed) online, without having to wait
for it to be updated by webmasters.

- Share thoughts and work with an extended learning community for
feedback and discussion.

- Collect thoughts, notes, longer pieces / items and reflect on your
own learning with private or public posts.

- Support the development of student and staff voice and collegiality

- Develop greater confidence in expressing yourself

- Be heard!

- Enhance your public profile for media and public speaking.
So far the response has been great. Will see what doors starts to open…

Increasingly my teaching practice is focussing on blogging for a wide range of learners and contexts, including:

• Adult education
• Young adult learning enrichment
• Academics
• Early years (group blogs to display a range of creative outcomes).

Here is a general, introductory message about the tailored courses available.
Come and join the global conversation. Blogging is a profound, effective new way to express yourself, connect, learn and be heard. It’s a process and an outcome, supporting personal, academic, business or organisational growth.

Many and diverse people, all around the world, are successfully blogging online about their:
- learning
- lives
- diverse interests and hobbies
- businesses
- electorates
- public roles, and
- creative pursuits.
Blogs (or web logs) can include words, images, sound and links as well as comments back from your new-found audience.

This is your chance to find out what blogging is all about and get your very own (or a group) blog working for you. Suitable for anyone that can use a basic word processing package that has used the internet before. You do NOT need to be an experienced writer, as you will be developing this skill in your own style. Within three sessions you can have your own free blog site up on the internet.

By the end of the course, you will have found your voice and be confidently blogging. Join in and watch yourself and/or your business grow. Plus, learn how to have people find your blog when you are ready.

……………………………………..
About your Teacher

Libby Davy has over 15 year’s experience working professionally and teaching communications – for individuals and organisations. She contributes to several blogs and was a pioneer blogger at www.barkingowl.com/learning and other spaces.

Currently studying a Masters in Person-Centred Education at the University of Sussex, Libby is interested in how blogs support life-long learning through their open, reflective and communal nature. Libby is a co-founder of one of the internet’s most exciting new online communities www.scouta.com, where she hosts groups on Education and Brighton.

After gaining a degree in communications and media Libby eventually went on to teach writing, editing and publishing at a university and community level. She is a published and awarded short-story writer, and has had her work broadcast on national radio. For many years, Libby worked in strategic communications, marketing, organizational development and business coaching.

Libby is a fun, friendly, Australian mother with a passion for education and human potential.

Contact 01273 540 023 or 07968 687 107 to book a place or arrange a tailored workshop series.

Are you a curious person? If so, does this help you learn more? Do you think it is a blessing or a burden? How can you harness it to educate yourself, in the fullest sense of the word. What is learning?

These questions and more are examined in the learning biography I’ve just submitted to Sussex University’s Institute of Innovation in Education towards an MA in Person-Centred Education.

The language is somewhat academic, but there are lots of poetic moments. That’s integration for you!

It was a transformative process of deep learning, and testimony to the benefits of person-centred education, despite the university’s inevitable challenges in embracing the whole person.
Here’s the first page and the full .pdf

Towards Integrated Learner Curiosity

We need to create a culture that leaves room for the constant “contamination” of a hundred subjective and objective experiences, in an atmosphere of reciprocal help and socialisation. Implicit in this thesis is a decisive response to a child’s need to feel whole.

Feeling whole is a biological and cultural necessity for the child (and also for the adult). It is a vital state of well-being (Malaguzzi in Reggio Children 1996, p 34).

Synopsis

This learning biography uses narrative to explore personal knowledge being formed about the cause, nature and function of curiosity and its relationship to learning, within a cycle of inquiry into spirituality.

Looking closely at pedagogues Paulo Freire and within the Reggio Children project, along with psychologists and philosophers such as Carl Rodgers and John Macmurray, it begins to articulate a vision of integrated learner curiosity and a personal expression of an ancient way of looking at knowledge.

It also critiques a university’s early beginnings in practicing emerging theories of person-centred education and challenges academia to embrace the potential of the Reggio “hundred languages” in understanding adult learning.

…………………..

Having lived a life rich with curiosity and learning, I am now curious about curiosity. From my earliest memories, I engaged deeply with the world around me. I have been highly motivated to learn through being curious. I have felt great joy and great sadness through this trait and state, and have come to embrace it – and consciously, carefully harness this Promethean flame.

More…
Learning Biography

Dear mum got me to check out the new film Freedom Writers. Powerful stuff. Check it out yourself (trailer). We all have a voice.

The production notes within “About the Film” tell me a hell of alot about authentic education, biography, community, student voice, about the noble calling to teach, to listen, to find a way in, to make it real.

[Update: see new post here.]

And now I reeeally SHOULD be in bed. But just found these very inspiring people linking to this blog and wanted to return the link.

Younger World (in with Sound Out, CommonWorld and The Free Child Project) are doing great research on Student Voice and, not surprisingly, referencing Jean Ruddick and Michael Fielding.

Loving the feeling of connection and global community regular blogging brings me back to.

It’s one big, dynamic conversation! Here’s cheers to the social construction of meaning.

And here’s a cool contest they are running. No direct link available so will quote in full… Will follow up soon and let you know what happened.

Contest!

There are many issues that youth voice can address. While my analysis has been widely casted, covering everything from social justice to youth rights to education reform, it is important for me to be informed by the broadest ideas out there.

The possibilities for engaging young people throughout society are endless, both in terms of what can be addressed and what can actually happen. In an interesting blog from the UK an author considers what it would take to use “An Inconvenient Truth” to teach students; another blog from the US discovers that young people have important considerations for the future of schools. Its an interesting thing, coming across these reflections from folks with different perspectives. In my regular research into the broad perspectives of Americans towards youth, I find a wide range of ideas about what young people can and cannot do. As I’ve grown a little more familiar with this landscape, I have found its important to acknowledge that each of these ideas is important. While some are more genuine or authentic than others, they each allow adults an important connection point to understand the possibilities of youth engagement.

The Contest

You have to find two examples of engaging young people that have never been acknowledged before. Share them with me, and then my challenge is to find examples of where they have been.

If I can’t find an example within a month, then I will give you a prize - A first edition copy of the brand new Washington Youth Voice Handbook, along with a copy of Hip Deep, a new collection of writing from youth connected to What Kids Can Do.

I I can find an example, then I get to use what you found on our websites, if applicable, and attribute you fairly.

Good luck! Send entries by clicking here.

Imagine all the regular fancy language about contests inserted here. If there are any special considerations, let me know. Contest entries must be recieved by 12/1/06. Etcetera.

YoungerWorld.org

I could talk passionately about all the reasons why this new post-grad degree at Sussex University lured me, finally, back into ‘formal’ learning. Reasons both internal and external.

Suffice to say it sang out loud and clear. Right place, right time.

Speaking of which, it’s time for bed, so will just post a short excerpt and leave a .pdf for the course outline for those that like to look further into such things.

What is Person-Centred Education?

Person Centred Education puts people at the centre of the educative process.

Our current systems of schooling have drifted too far away from this belief about the centrality of broad and deep notions of educating the whole person and this programme seeks to recentre and rearticulate a more holistic approach within a 21st century context.

Through ways of working in a learning community as well as through research and academic study this Masters Degree will both draw on and extend our knowledge and practice of person centred education in a range of organisational settings.

Will be writing lots more about it and within it over the next 2 or so years as the learning journey continues.

MA Person-Centred Education - Course Outline MA course outline

About Michael Fielding (Prof.) - who was a major catalyst and founder of the course, and still a beautiful and active member of our extended “Learning Community”.

About The Guerrand-Hermes Foundation for Peace - co-sponsors of the course through their Secretary/Research Fellow Dr Scherto Gill.

About Sussex University, Centre for Innovation in Education.

MA Curriculum Vitae

Academic Interests (2006)

… as you can see, evolving steadily from this point. I guess the categories created for the posts will be one obvious way to access updates on this.

Scanning back over the two (sporadic) years of blogging here, I can see the learning biography theme has been in place from the very beginning. From the Reggio experience and beyond. No wonder I was so attracted to this MA in Education and the very special approach it is taking.

I just have to wonder, could the University establishment be able to accept the blog as my learning biography down the track? …after closer links with relevant texts has been made more distinct. I guess the futurelab folk might like to help us reflect on this.

Hmmm.

We shall see…

Well it’s been a week since we were inducted to the MA in Person-Centred Education at Sussex University.

In addition to the welcoming and procedural stuff, we had a great session lead by my new postgrad supervisor called Dr Carol Robinson. Carol has worked with that dear Michael Fielding (Prof.) chap on Student Voice and other erudite, emancipatory matters.

Carol got us thinking in new ways about the benefits of keeping a learning journal, in preparation for our first 5,000 words - a Learning Biography. (All of which links into the MA so I will update a previous post with more on what that entails. Wonderful.)

So when to right in the private learning journal, when to write on the Learning blog, and how to start linking with critical theory and practice in putting together the assessment piece (Learning Biography)? All links with the Reggio project’s strong focus on documentation and social construction on learning/meaning making.
Private v public. Who are we writing for and why? How do personal and communal utterances of ’self’ create identity. Is it all just irrelevant navel gazing? These seem to be recurrent themes as a writer, communicator, activist type… now budding academic? The blogosphere offers a rich site for these questions.

Scroll to the end of About this site re: this too.

I’ve had an abstract accepted for a conference in Denmark this March too. European Society for Research on the Education of Adults - Network on Life History & Biography - “Concepts of Learning?”.

For better or for worse, this will NOT be the Australian Denmark where Lee Loo’s wine making love now resides, but far colder climes.

So that is a whole other dimension on who to write about the self, about one’s thinking and journey for a whole different audience. But not so much writing as conceptualising.

I guess I’m having a bit of a quantum leap in human becoming when it comes to the formalisation of my learning and thinking.

I guess it is important to head for whatever outlet, audience, medium feels the most compelling write now (intended).

I guess I will continue to learn and become in communal connection with you all around me - friends, family, colleagues, learning partners.

One of the key aspects of the session at Concepts in Learning will be to look at this notion of how we learn in community. And I will be inviting everyone that attends the session, and others, to call a Danish number I have booked on Skype, or come to this blog, and enter the conversation. The abstract is here for those that are interested. ESREA 2007 paper

I guess I will hoping this blog has been given a little better attention before 3 March then. But the biggest question… do I go back and edit out the bits that are not part of the identity I wish to portrait to these new colleagues (eg. Dorking, England oh England) or offer up the whole lot.

I guess the answer is here.

Suffice to say, it’s a tricky line to walk. I come back here sometimes and think… “Hmmm, maybe life would be easier if I was willing to sign up to a unified, codified discipline of identity,” eg. never reveal a thing until it has been fully researched, processed, articulated, edited, peer-reviewed and put into dead tree for posterity.

Looking back over the journey, I guess that’s not to be.

Phew.

School’s Forum Learning Communities

Project idea that’s been brewing for awhile now… A new, democratic approach to creating dialogue within and between school communities.

Social software that brings together:

• Learners/students
• Parents
• Teachers

to learn how to listen to each other’s ideas and opinions on any thread created by any participant.

Would definitely want to talk with futurelab about this. A bit big to take on for the MA (Person Centred) Education but something to keep brewing on the back burner for now.

Read about the proposal in (very first draft) detail here.

School’s Forum

Reading the Times Education Supplement in bed this morning, after a mind-opening cup off coffee, I found myself leaping up and reaching for pen and paper.

This small item caught my eye…

“Creative Skills Get Results: Children who worked with actors, fashion designers and writers under the Government’s Creative Partnerships scheme behaved better, worked better and became more mature at school, said an Ofsted report…”

For years now I have been thinking about ways we can work with and listen to young people better. Ways we can go beyond paying lip-service to consultation and move into a world where children and young adults are empowered to stand up and speak out about what matters to them.
To speak out about what their world is like, what needs to happen in it - and how it’s going to happen. Ways we can help young people shape their world, be causal and active in it. To let them grow braver and stronger through that process.

Without doubt, young people have the potential to develop revolutionary new ways of thinking, of offering practical, creative and innovative solutions to their own and the world’s problems. (See previous post “Kids Creating New Paradigms”.) That’s if apathy doesn’t get them first.

So why don’t we listen?

The research is clear. If you kids get shut down, shut up and told they don’t matter often enough, they’ll end up believing it. If they think they’re not being heard, they’ll stop speaking out. It’s the worst thing to watch. Disengaged. Alienated. Beyond caring. You’ve all seen the t-shirts and the hand signals..

LIKE.. WHATEVER!

Surely that’s what we’re really fighting.

We need to educate tomorrow’s leaders today. Damn it, they have basic human rights in this stuff. See the United Nations Rights of the Child on this for a start.

Article 12

1. …assure to the child …the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child…

Article 13

1. …the right to freedom of expression… freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice.

Plus just about every other Article enshrined in this foundational document signed by nearly every country in the world.

So does the Climate Crisis affect children? I guess the answer it clear.

So here’s the idea… I thought I may has well blog now and keep it fresh.

At its basic level, it’s about developing a process to:

• engage a group of young people in actively watching the seminal film “An Inconvenient Truth” (Participant Productions 2006)
• capture their initial thoughts, feeling and ideas in response
• inviting them to participate in the development of a film script that extends these thoughts into their own response. To enter into deeper dialogue within and between themselves and with others. To be heard.
• documenting the process (within a person-centred research context) into class materials that can be replicated for other issues, other films in other settings, linking it to curriculum, eg. media studies, environment studies, english.

Potentially then - and why not aim high, when the future of the planet is at stake and progressive education might be one of the only ways to save and shape it - the project also looks at…

• the participants working alongside leading script writers and educators to develop these responses into a film script, with a high degree of creative control being maintained in order to ensure their “voice” comes through. Kids as auteurs, but in a collective sense… although individual voices might shine through.
• for this script to be considered by Participant Productions for full production and an international release - with fine cinematography, indeed a superb team to bring the work to the world stage. Unlike student films, where production quality is often so low that the story can’t adequately be told, the vision here is for young people to get the full support of a genuine auteur. Hey, Robert Altman never had to do his own costumes, lighting and editing - even if he did hold the camera occasionally.
• or, if not, for a team of local film makers to work collaboratively for an international release through a viral campaign, community group screenings and other ways to achieve the project’s goal of making sure kid’s voices are heard. Of making sure the kids know they’re being listened to.
• to extend the pilot project into several continents, then feed this work back in to a follow-up film or other communications outcome, keeping the dialogue (and hope) alive.
• to document the process and share it with educators, film makers and other people working with children and young people. We will always be looking for the multiplier effect, through online social networks (my husband is a gun at this), developing class materials for download and by making it entertaining and real.

Yes, an ambitious plan. But nothing ventured, nothing gained as the old saying goes. Of course it could not happen without the input of a great many talented people. When you realise that we already know and/or are working with everyone on the “Dream Team”, or know someone who does, then it starts to seem possible.

I have a background in film and cultural studies, creative writing, stakeholder relations and communications - now moving into an educational context. The basic aim would be to embed the journey in the MA in Person Centred Education, with supervision from Michael Fielding. Taking it step be step, recognising the need for sustainable funding for each stage and that everyone involved need only put in what they can and want to (eg. Ben & Richard might just drop in once or act as advisors, the major work of script development would be done with talented local volunteers, for example)… then you start to see it really could happen. If nothing else, I am a good project manager and can be very practical. Plus I have embarked on similarly ambitious projects in the past and learnt a lot along the way…

So, our “Dream Team” of advisors, supporters and collaborators (and the reasons why we would want them involved) are:

Prof. Michael Fielding (educator, poet) - a perfect fit for the radical, student voice aspect, for learning in community and for his emancipatory approach to education and communication.

Jeff Skoll (Skoll Foundation, Participant Productions) - For his ‘can do’ approach to harnessing the power of film as an agent for social change.

Kate Mundle (founder, Education Television Network) - for her proven track record in running participatory educational / communication projects, internationally, and her passion for young people and music. For her connections in the music industry.

Ben Elton (writer, comedian, activist, impresario, film maker) - for his social, environmental and political intelligence, for the inspiration he can offer young people and just for the laffs!

Richard Curtis (writer, activist, film maker, all round good guy) - for his remarkable ability to deeply connect people through film, for his social conscience and his public commitment to activism.

Jamie Catto (musician, script writer, creative catalyst) - for his ability to manifest astounding, innovative projects involving music, film and politics - connecting us globally. For being groovy.

Guerrand-Hermes Foundation for Peace - for their deep commitment to peace through education and dialogue.

BBC Innovation Unit - for being champions of innovation, being willing to take risks and for connecting to audiences.

Commissioner for Children (UK) - for getting young people and children to stand up and speak out.

Creative Partnerships - for commissioning the kind of projects referred to above.

What do you think?

I was reminded of this again recently in working with a group a young adults from The Dharma School (ages 9-11). We were having a look at school transport and how we could find greener ways to get to and from school. Wow! Was this a hot topic. They were straight into it.

Looking at the question from every angle. I had already spent many hours in previous settings looking at this question. The local council had people working fulltime to help schools develop Green Transport Plans, and these kids, handled the problem to workshop for themselves, came up with stuff we had not even begun to think of.

And because it was coming from them, it had much more potential to be accepted than a ‘top down’ approach, for which there is so much evidence.

Millie was one collaborator that stood out. Not only did she have a practical, realistic solution (school bus), but she and her equally bright partner moved on to explore the systems that would be needed in suppport of this (bus driver, well researched route map, petrol etc) AND the way to fund it (ticket price compared against cost of driving to and from school, in a user pays model, plus top up funding from school community, council and other potential sources).

They all went on to prepare their own research methodology to determine whether their ideas would work throughout the school community. Ripples become waves.

There was no direct, measureable outcome from the process perhaps (ie. we have not started a new bus service yet or measured the change in how people get to school) and parent’s were a bit confused about the handwritten questionnaires, but I can intuit what came from it.

What I saw was huge potential for a project to develop out of the provocation. A project that could have helped shape the thinking of many within the web of relationships that exist in and around the school.

Every time I see Millie in the corridors now, I see this positive experience of herself as a capable co-creator of her world beaming from her bright face. My sense of her potential is greatly enhanced. We reflect this back to each other. Again, it’s about relationships. Yes, I’m definitely a social constructivist.

And none of would of happened if not for their teacher Bekky getting so much behind the idea, and Peter the head teacher encouraging us to explore the concept of Green Transport when I first approached him.

Just a quick note to link to Bea’s new school in Brighton, UK (we have just moved here, hence no posts for a while).

The Dharma School at www.dharmaschool.co.uk

More news soon, including the MA in (Person-Centred) Education Studies I have just discovered and might be starting in a few weeks at University of Sussex! Thanks to Dr Scherto Gill at the Guerrand-Hermes Foundation for Peace and Prof Michael Fielding from Uni of Sussex for helping to get this wonderful course up and running.

Bestest

Libby

There is much being discussed and thought about the profound implications of the work being done in the infant toddler centres and preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy.

For an introduction to this educational project, which is an essential point of reference for anyone looking at early learning, start by going direct to the source.

If you ever have the chance when travelling near or far to experience The One Hundred Languages of Childhood exhibition, do. It can change your life and ideas about what children are capable of.

“This exhibit
opposes any prophetic pedagogy
which knows everything before it happens,
which teaches children
that every day is the same,
that there are no surprises,
and teaches adults
that all they have to do is repeat
that which they were not able to learn.”

Loris Malaguzzi

“Children have a hundred languages, and they want to use them all. They learn very soon how difficult it is for this right to be recognized and above all respected. This is why children ask us to be their allies in resisting hostile pressures and defending spaces for creative freedom which, in the end, are also spaces of joy, trust, and solidarity.” (from Reggio Children website).