THE WINDS OF CHANGE
First published in The Gruniad, the day that The Guardian’s ‘Hope is Power’ campaign broke and the day that Gina Millars court case won the day, proving change is possible
What a week, with reports of a culture of fear sweeping though Downing Street and down Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament, led primarily by one man, Dominic Cummings, reminiscent apparently of a similar tidal wave that swept through the Department of Education about ten years ago when he had a similar role working with and advising Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education.
I’m just a dad and like many people I had no interest in, or awareness of, the importance of education until I had kids, let alone who makes the big decisions behind how and what we teach and why.
As Elton John and John Travolta both said, ‘Saturday night was for dancing’ not dinner parties.
The penny dropped a couple of years ago, during the build up to the Brexit vote, when I read how the leader to one of the most extreme (off the scale) right wing groups had tweeted about how they had a plan to infiltrate the country’s teaching community to get their Xenophobic ideology embedded into future generations, such is the impact and importance, strategically, of education.
Indeed Nelson Mandela famously said “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”
WHO CARES?
I’ve been banging on about it for years. But who cares?
The biggest insight I stumbled upon is that few people care much about education and that has informed my every move for over five years now.
To educate, inspire and action creativity.
To bring the critical conversation out of education’s many echo chambers and connect it to the world of business, the creative industries and wider society.
To identify and connect with Creative Carers.
People who care about children, creativity and all our futures.
It’s a right old slog, but moments like this, seeing films like this, keep me going.
(I originally had this film at the bottom of this blog, but fearing you won’t bother reading it all, moved it here as I really want you to watch it. The irony will become apparent.
UPDATE: The Guardian have since hit us with a YouTube content strike for ripping their ad off and adding subtitles, even after one of their Directors approved it by email too… will get back to them on that when we have a moment)
EDUCATION. EDUCATION. EDUCATION.
Seems it’s not rocket science and neither was Tony Blair’s declaration of strategic intent in 1995 with calls of ‘Education, Education, Education’ before embarking on a plan to give all our children the best start with SureStart and our schools, economy and society in general the biggest boost, through an investment in art and creativity in education.
His government’s Creative Partnerships Programme connected the creative industries and artists with schools through . All scrapped with the last change of government.
This isn’t really about politics, but I have to say I like the sound of a Creative Partnerships Programme, don’t you?
With a career behind me in the Creative Industries, I watched with horror the Number 1 TED talk (above), by a bloke from Liverpool on how schools can kill creativity in children. It’s had over 300 million views so someone must agree with it I thought.
If you haven’t seen it, watch it now and you might see why it changed my life and many others too.
I had no idea how contentious and divisive that TED Talk would be in our schools and how many enemies just talking about it would make me, but I pressed on, buoyed by the words of another dad and indeed Grandad, Winston Churchill who said:
“You have enemies? Good. That means you have stood up for something, sometime in your life”.
I was delighted when that Scouser, since Knighted for Services to Education, Sir Ken Robinson offered to speak at an event we ran in his home city for parents, teachers and other creative carers five years ago.
He spoke from his home in Los Angeles, as Sir Ken has been as good as exiled from the UK for his views and since been very busy advising countries and companies across the world on how they might educate their children and workforces to meet the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
To beat us at our own game, because we literally invented the first Industrial Revolution
As a result countries like China and Singapore have joined long visionary countries like Finland to put art and creativity at the heart of their education systems while countries like the UK and USA lag increasingly behind.
JOIN THE CLUB
But I wasn’t the only one to be inspired by that TED Talk to do something, to advocate for art and creativity in our schools, work and lives.
In his retiring speech the UK’s leading creativity ambassador Sir John Sorrell spoke about how Sir Ken’s work had inspired him to launch the national network of Saturday Art Clubs as well as the Creative Industries Federation representing companies and organisations as diverse as Google, ITV, Vodafone and Barclays, University of the Arts London, UCL, The Roundhouse and The Tate - Organisations united by one thing, a belief in art and creativity, whatever their motive.
Indeed, last week the attention of the world turned to The London Design Festival, another of Sir John’s projects to not only showcase the capital’s creativity but the contribution it makes to the UK’s economy of over £100 billion from the creative industries.
Our Inspirators film featuring Dominic Wilcox and the ‘Creativity is Great Britain’ poster that STEAM Co. designed for UKTI to celebrate his art
COLLABORATE
Yesterday we hosted #CollaborateForCreativity - a Pop-Up Fringe Event in a pub at the foot of the Exhibition Road Day of Design to showcase the creativity, generosity and collaboration of one artist and our first STEAM Co. Inspirator, Dominic Wilcox.
A debate saw us discuss the #CreativityCrisis building in our schools, and soon to impact or work and lives, which featured the Principal of The Global Academy, one of the UK’s most creative schools, sponsored by one of the UK’s biggest media organisations
The other panelist, the CEO of the Design and technology Association recalled, off camera how, as a guest of the Chinese government he had been toured around a complete dormitory city they’d built ready for occupation in the event of a crisis in any other Chinese city, the stuff of the shiniest tin hatted conspiracist!
Another country no doubt inspired by Sir Ken’s work and a country that I have just been contracted to work with. Yes, me a dad advising the Chinese on how to educate their children and connect their communities!
So how shocked I was to see Sir Ken Robinson described in the Times Education Supplement as a ‘Butcher given a ticker tape parade by the National Union of Pigs’ by Department of Education sponsored ‘Tsar’ and highly paid Education Consultant, Tom Bennett.
DIGGING DEEPER
I was stunned and on further research discovered some fascinating insights into ResearchEd – the supposed ‘grass roots’ movement for teachers set up by Tom Bennett allegedly according to one evidence-based blog at the behest of people like Dominic Cummings and Michael Gove’s right wing think tank Policy Exchange, which according to a blog by one of the UK’s most followed education consultants Ross McGill, recently came at the bottom of a list of such organisations for its lack of transparency on its sources of funding.
A similar group with a similarly Orwellian DoubleSpeak-type titled ‘Parents and Teachers for Excellence’ is led like ResearchEd by an equally charming, media friendly and go to guy in Mark LeHain who tried to resist disclosure of their sources of funding too.
A fantastic piece of investigative journalism by Schools Week magazine traced it back to one of the backers of the Brexit campaign.
Another key figure behind ResearchEd is Jonathan Simons, former Head of Education at Policy Exchange and since at many of the world’s largest education organisations including the $1m Global Teacher Prize. He is now head of education for a PR agency called Public First whose stated aim on their website is ‘Helping organisations change public policy’ which I find concerning when that policy might affects our kids education, art and futures.
This was all revealed years ago by the ever intrepid Graham Brown Martin on his blogs but not only did hardly anyone listen, but he was as good as hustled out of town so, like Sir Ken, he got a job advising corporations and countries around the world on how to beat us at our own game.
Education’s pied piper
A few week’s ago around 1,500 of the country’s most dedicated, inspiring and hard working school teachers, leaders and educational consultants gathered for ResearchEd’s Annual Conference in a School in Stratford, East London. Given that few if any of the 100 or so speakers probably got paid, at £90 or so a ticket that’s £135k gross revenue to Tom Bennett’s ResearchEd which adds to the other events he now runs across the UK and the world. Quite a grassroots business or movement.
A quick search of the hundred or so talk titles at the last two years’ Researched conference, reveals that none include the words creativity, art, design, drama or music. Having said that I have seen some fantastic speakers at their events on these subjects, but these subjects clearly are not championed as much as the more academic subjects and traditional pedagogies. ResearchEd appears to have a clear bias towards the educational pedagogies and ideologies favoured by its principal backers.
Rather like a recently infamous Brexit ferry company, Tom Bennett’s own hastily set up consultancy was recently awarded what many think was a multi million pound contract to start delivering the no excuses, zero tolerance or, to quote the latest Orwellian double speak catchphrase ‘warm strict’ behaviour training recently put at the heart of the government’s education policy under our new prime minister.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb and ResearchEd CEO and DfE Behaviour Tsar Tom Bennett at a ResearchEd annual conference
Many of the delegates and speakers at the ResearchEd conference probably have no idea of the back story to ResearchEd and what many think it’s real agenda is.
If it’s pointed out to them, as in this explosive blog complete with screen shots of tweets as evidence, they either choose to bury their heads in their hands or go back to complaining, understandably, about teacher workload, crippling accountability and the mental health and wellness crisis sweeping class rooms and staff rooms which many feel is a direct result of aspects of the government policy implemented by those behind ResearchEd.
And why would they when, a little like with Brexit, many have become so supportive and sold on its democratic grassroots ‘by the people, for the people offer’ that they may not want to know or be proved misled or even wrong.
Some have a lot to gain from supporting it and many ex and current teachers and school leaders have built highly lucrative publishing and consulting businesses on the back of it and good for them, everyone deserves a living and the market decides.
One former head teacher has joined the Sir Ken Robinson bashing circle, himself literally fired it would appear by the high stakes accountability system brought in by this government which affects teachers as much as it does our young people in terms of both livelihood and mental health.
Any criticism of ResearchEd and other so called ‘Astro Turf’ organisations is seen as an attack on the dedicated, inspiring and hard-working school teachers and leaders that support it so is only done by those brave or foolish enough to.
NO EXCUSES
A look at the aim of ResearchEd. Parents and Teachers for Excellence and these events reveals it seems to be to advocate in line with government education policy for what is often called ‘traditionalist’ education – knowledge rich, intensively tested and an increasingly narrow curriculum with a zero tolerance policy to the poor behaviour that many feel is grounded in part by the low levels of engagement and enjoyment in schools that can result from this approach.
Which feed behaviour issues and the cycle repeats, quite nicely it seems. And lucratively.
Of course wider social decay plays its part too and schools are under immense pressure picking up the pieces from that. I have been staggered and appalled by some of the scenarios I have heard described around safeguarding and abuse of children in our communities that schools have to pick up.
What teacher, parent or member of society wouldn’t want excellent schools and for our children to acquire knowledge, be well behaved and engaged in and enjoy their learning. None I know, but they also want them to be equipped with the critical and transferrable skills needed by this Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which employers cry out for skills like creativity, collaboration and communication. For children and young people to be treated with respect and empathy. Love even.
Creative educational approaches such as project-based learning, which mirrors how companies work, academically researched thinking on growth mindsets and even educational technology and computing are marginalised and often rubbished by ResearchEd. In the same way that Tom Bennett and other ResearchEd followers consistently rubbish the work and thinking of Sir Ken Robinson and others.
Free membership of the National Union of Pigs anyone?
DELIBERATELY DIVISIVE
Anybody who doesn’t agree with all of the ‘traditionalist’ views above is labelled a ‘progressive’ in seemingly deliberately divisive binary thinking and decision making similar to that pervasive in politics at the moment. These views are aggressively put online in Twitter attacks driving many so-called progressives offline and completely hiding the fact that most teachers don’t think or work this way or even identify with these labels and just get on with it. I work with many of them.
A lot of people in the country at the moment seem to have their head in their hands around the state of politics and leadership in Parliament.
Maybe by not looking, caring or acting, we just got what we deserved and what our education system was redesigned for – for children and young people to learn to sit still in factories in offices as we rolled out the British Empire and Industrial revolution.
But those times and those jobs are gone, or at least going very quickly.
JOBS FOR THE BOYS
Organisations like the innovation foundation Nesta report that as many as 70% of current jobs will be taken by automation, robots and artificial intelligence, yet that the same percentage of jobs in the creative industries should be safe.
If the only purpose of school is to educate people for the workforce, maybe someone decided isn’t worth wasting austerity pennies on education when the jobs won’t be there, and those that will be can be filled by privately educated kids, with grammar schools topping it up by providing a social mobility style knees up for a gifted and talented few from the rungs below.
Does that explain the funding crisis in our schools? Does that explain why independent schools offer the broad and balanced curriculum many state schools can only dream of, indeed as Geoff Barton, Head of the Heads Teachers Union ASCL said at one of our conferences “Cuts in the arts aren’t happening in private schools, because it’s what the parents pay for”
IGNORANCE
There is little doubt that for whatever reason, aspects of government policy are partly responsible for the creativity crisis that we see brewing in our schools: downturn in creative and art GCSE’s, downturn in teacher training, schools cutting the arts.
Most of this comes down to accountability measures like Progress 8 which enables schools to be measured against each other, and the EBacc which prescribes certain core subjects, that don’t includes arts or tech subjects so why would a head teacher spend limited budget offering subjects her school, and importunity, she is not being judged on.
These issues are well documented by organisations like the Cultural Learning Alliance. I was a co-signatory, with many others, to an open letter from the Creative Industries Federation to the new Education Minister Gavin Williamson.
And yes, this is very personal. Within 2 years of my eldest son being offered one of 25 coveted art aptitude places at what is considered to be one of London’s, if not the country’s finest secondary schools, newly built at a cost of £87m, they closed and dust sheeted the state of the art DT facilitites and stopped his art for two years to focus on the EBacc subjects.
But a bigger issue I feel is the lack of awareness among many parents and teachers/leaders of the value of the arts in raising attainment across the range of academic subjects which why a lot of our work at STEAM Co. is about connecting communities with schools, particularly parents.
With recent research showing that 26% of parents actively discourage their children from pursuing creative subjects and career pathways, the Creative Industries Federation just last week launched a campaign to primarily target secondary aged people and their families to consider them.
Great work, though as Professor Robert Winston said a few years back “We have to get them in primary” which is what we do at STEAM Co.
GETTING THEM IN PRIMARY
In the last three or so years I have worked in the widest range of schools imaginable, from top independents to the most challenged community schools and been stunned by the dedication, professionalism and caring shown by teachers and school leaders.
At STEAM Co. we quote Seth Godin saying that:
‘Art is what we call it when what we do might connect us’
We help connect our kids with their art.
And our communities with their schools.
One school community leader that puts his art at the heart of everything he does is Chris Dyson, the larger than life head teacher of Parklands Primary School in Leeds, on one of the most challenged communities in the country.
I was humbled by a visit to Morecambe Primary School (clip here), where Head Teacher Siobhan Collingwood summed up the #ARTofTEACHING and how she weaves a curriculum to meet the needs and attention span of children who are hungry and often don’t know where they will be sleeping that evening.
Also David Wearing who completely rewrote the curriculum of Keshall Primary in Cheshire West around STEAM Creativity after my half day #RocketKids session there (clip here)
What will you, we, do about it?
There’s an old and often used, almost overused, phrase “It takes a whole village to raise a child”
At the London Design Festival last week, the non-profit, non-political community enterprise STEAM Co. which I co-founded called on creative carers in companies, schools and society to #CollaborateForCreativity.
We want them to help fund our half day #ARTofROCKETS sessions in UK schools (£300) or pay for a STEAM Co. Day Creativity Festival in a Primary School (£750) and not only pay for them, but send a few staff along to help too as staff from Barclays and Google have. We promise them the best day they ever had at work.
We’ve been doing this for 8 years now. We know it works. We’ve been told it’s changed lives. We now need to prove it can scale and be sustainable and are looking for 6 founder sponsors to fund a two year program of work to put three people with a Pop-Up STEAM Co. Drop Truck based out of enterprising secondary school base to work with primary school communities in the South West, The North West and Yorkshire
We want them to help us help connect our kids with their dreams, their passion, their art (whatever it is) and to connect our communities with their schools.
As a senior board director at one of the world’s biggest and possibly most contentious companies that we work with said to me recently “we will come out on the right side of history”
Will you?
Is it your turn to stand up for what you care about?
For all our children. For all our futures?
CHANGE IS POSSIBLE : HOPE IS POWER
The above blog was written a week ago and left on the shelf, but dusted down after the most remarkable weekend. Having had our first planned #CollaborateForCreativity event fall through at the V&A the weekend before, last Thursday we secured a pub venue for it, Chelsea’s Five Star Local Pub the Hour Glass (highly collaborative and recommend for events like this).
With none of the speakers available that we had confirmed for the weekend before – Designer Morag Mysercough, Educationalist Kate Robinson and Fashion Entrepreneur Stuart Trevor – we were delighted to secure three more, if frustrated they weren’t more diverse.
We had a great day in the pub with a chat with Artist, Designer, Inventor and Inspirator Dominic Wilcox and Creativity Crisis panel discussion with Tony Ryan, CEO of the Design Technology Association and Jonty Archibald, Principal of the Global Academy. Podcast follows.
The Gruniad to the rescue
Then the next day I saw the new ad campaign for The Guardian which connected with an idea I had the other week.
I have read and believed in The Guardian and its journalism man and boy.
I’ve had the vouchers.
I’ve joined their club.
I was grateful to be featured in a half page article when we launched STEAM Co.
I was even more grateful when they supported the crowd funder project for our #ARTCONNECTS19 Festival of Creative Schools, work and Lives.
These opportunities came to me after introductions from people I know to people they know at The Guardian.
As the powerhouse Dame Julia Cleverdon might say, they “connected the unconnected”.
OR DID THEY?
I’m afraid I cancelled the vouchers and ripped up the membership card after the umpteenth rebuttal from their Education Editor.
Seeing him at a conference once, I asked him whether he’d be interested in finding out more about STEAM Co. and how we connect with education, art, culture, technology, community, society, politics, media, etc, etc.
He said he couldn’t see why any Guardian reader might be interested in what we are doing.
Today their fantastic ad ‘Hope is Power’ broke.
It felt made for us, for this moment, so we mashed it up slightly, as we did the John Lewis Ad with Elton John last year and look what happened.
I’ll be showing them both to children in a school in South London this week to see what they think of them.
I won’t invite The Guardians Education editor, I’ve only ever seen him at one education conference, the same one, three times: ResearchEd. Go figure.
On the web page launching the ‘Hope is Power’ campaign, The Guardian says:
The way things are
Isn’t the way they have to be.
But knowing what to challenge
And how to change it
Isn’t always clear.
That’s why independent journalism has never mattered more.
When we are free to follow any lead
And question any authority.
We can confront the status quo,
Uncover vital alternatives
And bring clarity to the world’s most complex issues.
We can help our readers understand the world
So together, we can fight for a better one
Love it. Really hope it sells some subscriptions.
But we’ve read enough clever words, seen enough inspiring talks, we’re walking the talk at STEAM Co. to fight for art, for creativity.
For all our futures.
Are you with us?
Will you #COLLABORATEforCREATIVITY ?