Category: Knowledge

Banging on about HS2: how can we help them prevent a PR disaster?

The HS2 team held a PR event in Liverpool recently where assembled movers, shakers and hangers on were invited to hear the latest news on the HS2 developments. About 50 of us gathered expectantly to hear what it’s really all about Alfie, and to get it straight from the horses mouth.

To say it was a non event would be kind to non events. There were a couple of short introductory speeches – the first of which apologised for the name of the project – HS2 – and made it clear that there would be nothing particularly HS about HS2 as it was much more about moving freight off the roads, on to the rails and down the current West Coast line. The need for the new line was as much about providing capacity for passengers to travel at speeds greater than 15mph – the average speed they would be travelling if they were stuck behind a mile long freight train carrying glass from St Helens to the city of London.

The second contributor marvelled at the current 15 apprentices who are currently were working on the designs of the line. He pointed out, this project could last their life time and it would be more than likely that they would be grandparents by the time the line was operational.

That fact sobered many of us in the room as it became clear that we were being asked to endorse a project which would outlive us, and perhaps even our children. The project will be alive and kicking when many of us in the room will be consigned to our graves, ashes urns or deep at the bottom of the sea – or even under the rails at Rainford for the enthusiasts amongst us.

The final contribution to the non-event was a glossy promotional video which showed a lighting fast cartoon train whizzing through an empty countryside in all its shiny happy people mode. The absence of people in the video emphasised one of the core problems to the HS2 marketing campaign. It doesn’t have any people in it who will be alive when the line supposedly opens. It’s emphasising its audiences mortality with a ya boo sucks approach – this project is more important than you here and now, and more important too than your children and grandchildren in the there and then.

What’s it all about Alfie is freight, freight and yet more freight trundling through the countryside at the dead of night, rattling by the graveyards of the movers, shakers and hangers on who are currently being asked to cough up in TB type spasmodic fits for its ever spiralling costs.

One way to prevent a PR disaster would be for the team to be honest about the purpose of HS2 and acknowledge that not many of us are going to be around to see the first train leave the new Manchester station which will be built just outside Skelmersdale some time in 2033.

Banging on about HS2 – a really meaty subject to bang on about

High Speed 2 – HS2 as it’s popularly known as in the UK (albeit not with a huge degree of popularity) – is proposed by the the UK government as being one of the most significant infrastructure projects to be produced in the UK since… Well, I don’t know, since ever.

As such, it is a perfect subject to bang on about given it will touch every raw nerve ending in English civic life: trains and the railways, urban regeneration, the North:South divide, town vs country, the nature of our national identity and every other political agenda item imaginable.

One of the exquisite features of this debate is that it will run and run well beyond the life time of any one political party’s tenuous hold on power – more than likely for the next 30 years. I may well be dead by the time we see its official opening. All the more reason to devote part of this blog to a subject which will transcend party politics, local and national allegiances and personal preferences for sitting in an aisle seat, a window seat, a quiet zone, facing the direction of travel or where you’ve come from.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, unborn children of the next generation, I give you my next blog subject: Banging on about HS2. Future posts are likely to be late, diverted via Crewe or cancelled. And certainly not likely to be completed before 2043. Your news and views are very welcome! The journey (dread cliche) starts here…

The taxi driver as the eiptome of post-modernism. Number 8 in the series: Knowledge, traffic and arts based research.

I reached a new level of taxi driver – passenger complexity tonight.

I get in a cab.

“Where do you want to go?” he asks. I tell him.

He says: “How do you want to get there?”
I say: “The shortest journey possible.”
He says: “What’s the shortest to you is not the shortest to me.”

I say: “The quickest you can.”
He says: “What’s quickest to you is not the quickest to me.”
I say: “You’re the driver, you know best.”
He stays silent.

I say: “The cheapest route possible.”
He says: “What’s cheapest to you is not the cheapest to me.”
I say: “I think we can agree on a price of what constitutes cheap.”
I name a price.

It’s a ridiculously stupid low price. He grunts, puts his foot down and we get to my destination having jumped 2 red lights. The journey is £1.50 cheaper than it cost me earlier in the evening to get to the destination he collected me from.

But that last fact is not the most significant aspect of this transaction.

What’s significant is that everything we think we know about a taxi ride, is from the point of view of the taxi driver, uncertain, relative and open to dispute. Your putative knowledge about your desired journey is, from the point of the taxi driver, a pointless conceit.

The taxi driver is the epitome of post-modernism: nothing is stable, nothing certain, nothing definable and there are no foundations at all upon which we can agree to define a taxi journey by. No wonder they know nothing. They operate in a world which is fundamentally unknowable. They have reached the stage in human existence where the will to know about the universe meets its comeuppance. This allows them to say to you:

“Forget it. You know nothing. I know nothing. I may be a taxi driver with a satnav but deep down I am utterly ignorant. You are utterly ignorant. The sum knowledge of the human race wouldn’t fill the back of a postage stamp. Assuming we could agree on what a postage stamp looked like. So lets agree to disagree about our ignorance. There are no other valid philosophical positions. You might at least get a cheaper fare out of it. Or you might not. Who knows?”

He drops me off and I respectfully salute him as he drives off into the night, unsteadily weaving his way back and forth across the duel carriageway. I finally understand why taxi drivers never know anything at all. It is a position borne of deep wisdom, not a lack of familiarity with the mechanics of the taxi, the road, the Highway Code, of the A-Z of your home town. Respect.

More travel knowledge here.

The disappearing knowledge of the Hyperloop passenger: schools beware! Number 6 in the series: Knowledge, traffic and arts based research.

The hyperloop has hit the news again with dreams of tubing it from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than 10 minutes. Everyone around the world will have their equivalent journeys and will marvel at the apparent ease at which such previously long journeys have been reduced to bats of eyelashes. In the UK, we will wonder how a hyperloop journey could take us from London to Liverpool in just under 30 seconds: although given the magnetic pull London has on all things economic, political and social in the UK, it is a wonder that anything ever leaves London at all, never mind in a hyperloop tube.

But the greater significance of the hyperloop proposal is on how we understand knowledge of traffic flow and our place in the civilised world and how we engage with passengers, train spotters and irate cows on the line.

Because make no mistake, in hyperloop world there will be no room for any of these travel distractions. In a hyperloop tube, you will be strapped to your seat, asked to brace yourself and before you know it you will have been shot across the planet with the equivalent of a ton of TNT shoved under your backside. You will know nothing of the experience and your sum knowledge of the world and all its wondrous creations will not have improved a jot.

This is why we should worry – and worry hard – about the proposed hyperloop project. No longer will students be able to revise on trains before exams; no longer will commuters be able to improve their literary knowledge and no longer will we see people frowning over Sudoku puzzles and other complex numerical machinations. The nation’s literacy, numeracy and emotional intelligences will all suffer enormously.

Where arts based research can help however will be on the hyperloop platforms, both pre and post-TNT backside kick. Artist researchers will offer passengers new ways of consolidating their knowledge before they take the fatal kick up the backside. These researchers will remind commuters of their 12 times table through pretty graphics; confirm proper grammatical construction of sentences and offer new ways of reminding ourselves of our Shakespearian heritage. Whilst the journey will be over in a bat of an eye, our memories shot to pieces, the learning will continue for ever: and for that, Michael Gove will be proud.

More travel knowledge here.

Finding Faith: 500+ Reasons to be Cheerful at All Our Futures, Rio De Janeiro, October 2013

Reason 51 – 52: finding faith.

The significance of faith schools in Brazil demands you take a closer look at the very notion of faith itself than you might feel comfortable with in the confines of the familiar secular set up we have in the UK. But whether you agree with the principle of faith schools or not, there’s no getting away from it: education demands that the educator starts from a position of faith in the first place.

Whether this be the acts of faith that presupposes that young people will benefit from the actions of well meaning adults; that the teaching of knowledge, skills and wisdom can be learnt in a predictable way within the confines of a regulated and structured system of activities; or the belief that education has to be a force for the greater good all the time: these are all acts of faith that we as educators subscribe to in any educational venture.

We feel this regularly and intensely on the first day of any course or intake of new students: the day is marked with a surge of optimism, of possibility and of great things about to be achieved. Without these faith symbols, the actions of the educator are merely empty vessels of meaning; habits devoid of substance, intent or purpose.

And Brazil – with its social, economic and ecological challenges – is arguably one of the best places in the world to come and see how faith in education is being played out in the streets, the favelas and the mountains.

We’re especially looking forward to working with Colegio Santa Marcelina in October and seeing how they marry their world of faith, the world of the streets in their educational acts of faith. More at http://www.marcelinas.com.br/riodejaneiro/index.asp

More here too: http://www.aspirecreativeenterprises.com/ACE/aof_rio.html

More on our travel partners here: http://www.govie.co.uk/events/

Calling Small Business in St. Lucia: Website Design and Development for E-Commerce

We’re delighted to announce that following support from the Ministry of Commerce and Business Development in St. Lucia, Aspire will be providing a five-day training programme in Website Development to be held at the GAMA Learning Institute located at L’Anse Road, Castries, St. Lucia.

The course will provide learners with a step by step guide that will enable them to get online cheaply and easily, with minimal cost and provide impressive, trustable websites that will enable you to trade on-line securely, confidently and with style. They should be tutored through WordPress: a free, open source content management system that enables them to build your own customisable, updateable websites. Using professional templates, they will, by the end of the programme, be able to set up the appropriate website for their online shop, venue, restaurant, creative enterprise, church, school, charity or any sort of business.

Small business owners will develop the capacity to create and maintain their own E-Commerce website using a software package that will enable them to update their website as necessary. It will also facilitate online transactions or payments.

All eligible businesses are encouraged to register early as limited spots are available. For further information, feel free to contact me at nick@aspire-trust.org

Welcoming young volunteers from Europe interested in Arts, Culture and Battleships

Aspire has received accreditation from the European Union to host young volunteers from Europe to come and work with us over the next two years on a range of community arts projects and productions.

The volunteers will take part in the development of a live site-specific performance inspired by and based upon the silent film Battleship Potemkin that Aspire is producing with the director and composer, Patrick Dineen. In particular they will be involved in the creation of a Russian-style choir who will provide the chorus for the performance.

The Trust has recruited two volunteers – Srdjan Grubacki from Zrenjanin in Serbia and Rezeda Muchtarullina from Russia – to take part in the project.

We are thrilled to have been awarded accredited EVS status as it will mean that we will be able to expand our network of cultural projects further across Europe and build on the cultural regeneration work we have been undertaking in the Balkans since 2009.

The EU’s Youth in Action Programme is managed in the UK by the British Council. The Programme helps young people to become active citizens and better equipped for the world of work, promotes solidarity, social cohesion an co-operation within Europe and neighbouring countries.

Head of EU Programmes at the British Council Ruth Sinclair-Jones said: “Youth in Action aims to prepare young people for life and work in our global society.International volunteering helps to build trust and understanding between people in different countries, as well as enabling local communities and organisations to benefit from the volunteers’ work. It broadens young peoples’ horizons and equips them with the skills and understanding they need to become global citizens.”

All Our Futures: International Educational Study Visit to Liverpool in partnership with the British Council Bulgaria and Aspire-India

All Our Futures is Aspire’s annual conference for international head teachers took place in Liverpool between 11 and 14 June 2013. The event aimed to introduce pedagogical practices which are being applied at various levels in English schools by providing participants with exclusive, intense immersive experiences in schools and do generate unique, high quality insights into teaching and learning.

All Our Futures was produced in partnership with both the British Council, Bulgaria and our sister company, Aspire-India based in Bhubaneswar, Orisha: and so have welcomed Head teachers from the Indian subcontinent and introduced them to our schools in Liverpool, Wirral and Knowsley.

Further details of our programme in March with Bulgarian Head teachers and the British Council, Bulgaria are here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151543038237812.1073741827.657337811&type=1

More on the June conference as it happened here:

https://www.facebook.com/nick.owen.3781/media_set?set=a.10151732950132028.1073741829.686222027&type=3

and here:

Give Us This Day: a Toast to Miracles.

Ambling through the back streets of a market in Port of Spain, Trinidad, you come across a church – modestly rebranding itself as the Jesus Miracle Centre – with the claim that should you wish to visit it, you can ‘come expect a miracle’ no less.

Expecting a miracle is perhaps something we’ve gotten out of the habit in recent years, depending as we do on rational, positivistic ways of thinking that persuade us that without ‘x’ input, then ‘y’ output is impossible: that the imagination and dream land are concepts best left in the hinterlands of the Australian outback and that everything in this world is determinable and forecastable, if only we had enough clean data available at our disposal.

We don’t talk often enough about miracles and we certainly are encouraged not to expect them – and perhaps we should. Expecting a daily miracle might just help us deal with the imminent threat of economic melt down, global warming up and Liverpool failing to win the Premier League for one more season.

My Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen and Members of the Jury, please raise a toast to Miracles.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Toast: read all about toasting here