Category: Banging on about… Education

Resistance isn’t Futile! Telling our stories of the Labour Movement

The Aspire Trust is one of the first groups in the UK to receive a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) All Our Stories Grant for its challenging and inspiring new project “Resistance Isn’t Futile: Combination, Mutuality, Solidarity and Aspiration”: an exploration of the history of labour movements and trade union activity in the North West between 1830 and 1950..

The project will access the collection of Keith Hackett, who has amassed a significant archive of labour related artefacts from the region. This currently private collection will be made into a public resource through a process of researching, cataloguing, digitising and a series of community-focused research and story telling events.

All Our Stories – a brand new small grant programme launched earlier this year in support of BBC Two’s The Great British Story – has been designed as an opportunity for everyone to get involved in their heritage. With HLF funding and support, community groups will carry out activities that help people explore, share and celebrate their local heritage.

The popular series presented by historian Michael Wood and supported by a programme of BBC Learning activities and events got thousands of us asking questions about our history and inspired us to look at our history in a different way through the eyes of ordinary people.

The programme and HLF All Our Stories has proved a real hit and Resistance Isn’t Futile is one of hundreds of successful projects around the UK to receive a grant. The project will begin with the digitising and cataloguing of more than 400 items from trade unions, mutual benefit societies, friendly societies etc which will be made available online. 12 key pieces will be identified for further research and each of these will provide the focus for a community-led research project. The Aspire Trust will work alongside each community group to examine the stories and histories related to each artefact.

TV presenter and historian Michael Wood, said: “We British love our history, and no wonder: few nations in the world, if any, have such riches on their doorstep, and so much of it accessible to all of us. It is really tremendous that the people of the North West have been inspired to get involved to tell their own story and to dig deeper into their own past. It’s brilliant that so many people are being given the chance to get involved through the All Our Stories grants. Having travelled the length and breadth of the British Isles this last year filming The Great British Story, I am certain that fascinating and moving stories will be uncovered which will not only bring to life the excitement of local history, but will illuminate and enrich every community’s connection with the national narrative.”

Keith Hackett said: “I have collected and kept these items safe – some for almost forty years – because for me they give testament to the efforts of extraordinary ordinary people to improve their worlds – and make them better for their own generation and for generations to come. Every items has a story to tell, and most name the people whose efforts they valour-ate. Whilst the objects themselves are in their own ways stunning, beautiful and inspiring …. behind each one lies the efforts, beliefs and achievements of real people …. and it is their stories that will truly bring these objects back to life and relevance in today’s world.”

We were delighted to be approached by Keith to play our part in telling the stories of the labour movement’s history in the North West. The notion of public service is taking a hammering in these days of cut backs and recession, and we hope that our “Resistance Isn’t Futile” project will rebalance many of the stories that are being told in Britain right now about the role the labour movement and working people can play in making this a great country to live in.

For further information please visit http://www.aspire-trust.org

Paddy Masefield: still sending out shock waves and unsettling foundations

It’s been a hectic few months what with Treasured at the Cathedral, the Serbian and Macedonian visit, the business start up work at Liverpool Vision and the myriad of other activities we are musing about, thinking of and trying to lay the foundations for. Paddy’s commemoration means that I can get away for a few days and think about all that fragmentation and stresses and strains in an environment which is a little quieter and offers the opportunity to reassess exactly what it is we want from the world ahead.

This was Paddy’s legacy for me. Working with him both at LIPA and within Aspire during times of organisational growth and stress and challenge meant that you had to step back from the common place, the usual, the humdrum, and completely reassess what we were doing, how we were doing it, and why we doing it at all.

His work with us at LIPA on establishing Solid Foundations sent powerful shock waves through the organisation, challenging established ways of thinking about disability, ability, arts training, arts development and who had a right in the first place to stand on stage and command attention.

His work meant we had to rethink everything about the student experience; how they got into HE, what he meant by accredited prior learning, the integrated curriculum and student progression. This of course had a direct impact on the students who joined solid foundations – but it’s impact and his influence were more wide ranging.

It meant that students on the so called mainstream programmes had to address their own concepts of identity, of ability and what was being asked of them when it came to not only developing and devising new work, but what it meant to rethink traditional ways of acting, of music making, and of dance for example. It meant that staff had to rethink how impairment might inform the student assessment process for example and whether there were other insights that disabled staff could bring to the process that couldn’t be accessed by their nondisabled counterparts. Far from providing solid foundations, Paddy was instrumental in rocking the very foundations which we thought held up conservatoire arts training in the UK.

Paddy’s influence was felt by many students and staff, although many may not have met him in their times at LIPA. Many of them are still working and have gone onto great things, Mark Rowlands, Mandy Redvers Rowe and Jaye Wilson Bowe to name just a few. I’d like to thank you Paddy for giving me that space to rethink, to replay and regalvanise. Your shock waves are still rocking our foundations to this day.

Testimonial for Paddy Masefield, 20 October 2012
Battersea Arts Centre, London

Taxi wisdom: give a guy a Satnav and he thinks he’s Robert De Niro. Number 7 in the series: Knowledge, traffic and arts based research.

Whilst taxi drivers seem to losing their abilities to know where they are, where they’ve been and where they’re going, they have no shortage of knowledge about the state of the world we’re in and where we all should be.

What is it about taxi drivers that means that for better for worse, we feel obliged to engage in banter about celebrities, footballers, politicians and the dog across the road who is urinating into the nearest macdonalds burger wrapper? Do they have some mystical power, sat there in front of their cab, staring at you with one eye through the rear view mirror, which means they can hold forth on any subject under the sun whilst reducing you to a mumbling wreck who will agree with almost anything until the ride stops, you pays your money and insist on a receipt for the journey from hell and back?

There are some honorable exceptions though. A driver this morning, whilst opining on the terrible story that is unravelling around Jimmy Saville, offered the astute observation that the only thing he believed in the newspapers was the date at the top of the page. A breath of fresh air from the usual polluted atmosphere you find in the backs of cabs.

There must be a great business opportunity out there for someone to set up a cab firm who employed drivers who knew where they were going, how to get there in the shortest possible time and in a manner which was both civilised and civilising.

More travel knowledge here.

Calling teachers interested in educational and cultural exchange in the Caribbean

Over the last two years, Aspire has organised international  conferences for Principals and Head teachers from India, Nigeria and the UAE to visit UK schools.  We have also produced student exchange programmes for students from Nigeria, Serbia and Macedonia.

These events have been very powerful in establishing links between UK and overseas schools, developing educational exchanges, facilitating visits by UK Head teachers to India and offering unique insights into our mutual educational cultures.

Next year we are planning a similar programme of conferences in the Caribbean in conjunction with schools and universities there. To set up those programmes, I have been invited to visit Barbados, Trinidad and St Lucia in the first week of February to participate in a trade and culture mission with schools, the University, teachers and other colleagues.

If you would like your school to benefit from my visit – e.g. by making links with schools, connections with head teachers and pupils, curriculum developments, CPD opportunities or other possibilities – then please get in touch to discuss how I could facilitate connections and exchanges between those schools and your own. I can be contacted at nick@aspire-trust.org.

What are the narratives of the Paralympics?

Well, if we were any doubt about some of the underpinning narratives of the Paralympics over the last 2 weeks, the closing ceremony has given us a strong clue about one of them: the military story.  The story which emphasises impairment as a result of military action: the story which emphasises heroism; the story which emphasises the successful melding of  metal and human.  Coe himself draws on the 7/7 story to describe why the Paralympics have been important: as closure on terrorist acts (carried out in the name of god only knows what). And  with the director emphasising that we shouldn’t be looking for narratives, this should make us even more alert to what is being peddled under the banner of disability.

So, is there a correlation between achievement at the Paralympics and levels of militarily or industrial induced  impairment caused by  the countries who are at the top of the medal table?

AspireAustralia – welcome to our arts, education and regeneration programmes

Greetings to the AspireAustralia blog, a one shop blog spot with information, offers, proposals, hunches and ideas about our forthcoming arts and creative education programmes across Australia. We’ve been working in Tasmania since 2012, and are building relationships with schools, artists and educators across the country.

Our work in Tasmania started here:

And carries on here:

Watch this space for further action!

AspireBalkans – MISIM ZNAŠ, TAJ RAD; BRATE!

Greetings to the AspireBalkans blog, a one shop blog spot with information, offers, proposals, hunches and ideas about our forthcoming arts and creative education programmes across the Balkans. We’ve been working in Serbia since 2010, are building relationships in Macedonia, and looking forward to making new friends and colleagues in Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, Slovenia and across the region in the years to come.

Our work in Obrenovac, Serbia started here:

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https://drnicko.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/poetry-on-the-serbian-hoof/

And carries on here:

http://pascotd.weebly.com/index.html

Watch this space for further action!

It’s WORLD CREATIVITY WEEK! 8 articles to get you going…

World Creativity Week! And about time to.  You can never get enough of all things creative.   Because creativity‘s great isn’t it?  Like apple pie, Christmas and Easter bunnies all rolled into one?  Well, yes and no.  Not really.  ‘Creativity’ and our recent glamorisation of all things creative really needs a good shake up.

And here’s some places to start:

The concept of The Creative.  https://drnicko.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/are-you-a-creative-or-a-non-creative-for-everyone-in-world-creativity-week/

The benefits of Useless Creativity. https://drnicko.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/5-tests-to-measure-u-creativity-useless-creativity-for-world-creativity-week/

The concept of M-Creativity. Creativity in all places at all times. https://drnicko.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/introducing-a-new-form-of-creativity-m-creativity-especially-for-world-creativity-week/

The Creative School as Creative City. https://drnicko.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/how-does-a-creative-school-become-a-creative-city/

The Perils of Schools becoming Creative Cities. https://drnicko.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/here’s-how-a-creative-school-becomes-a-creative-city-2/

Unleashing the unwanted on the unexpecting. https://drnicko.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/unleashing-the-unwanted-on-the-unexpecting/

Reasons to be uncreative. Part 3. https://drnicko.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/poetry-on-the-hoof-best-excuses-dedicated-to-the-end-of-world-creativity-week/

How to get rid of it altogether. https://drnicko.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/2-easy-routes-to-killing-creativity/

Welcome to the Surprise Zones – start here…

Surprise Zones are literal, metaphorical and temporal spaces which arise through the mining, merging and melding of various engagement and participation principles:

Relaxed working relationships
Informal learning structures
Encouragement of innovation and risk taking
Participant centred and directed
Suspension of disbelief
Welcoming complex results

Surprise Zones offer spaces of amplification where progression and achievement can be accelerated.  They catalyse surprise: of young people in their own potential and capabilities; and of peers, adults and the wider world in their expectations and perceptions of what those young people can say, do and achieve.

Surprise Zones offer spaces and possibilities for magic and miracles.

Find out how Surprise Zones emerge from the transformation of space and time by clicking here:

http://web.me.com/aspiretrust/SURPRISE_ZONES/Welcome.html

The Surprise Zones
© Aspire Trust 2010