Category: Banging on about… Education

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

Driving down standards? Why it might be better than driving them up!

Who on earth would want to drive down standards in schools these days? In our target ridden output obsessed culture, the mantra of driving up standards is never far from the pursed lips of school bursars and head teachers. Increasingly from the bursars in fact as they are only too well aware that if standards are seen to fall – or worse, be driven down – then their school’s future health and well being is not the bright sunny road that’s painted in the school prospectus and which resembles that Start Rite shoe graphic of many years ago.

So we’re all on message when it comes to standards. They are to be driven up, not ratcheted down. They are to be maintained, not devalued. They are to be hoist up high, and their benefits proclaimed to the hills. So far so ok.

But your standards may not necessarily be my standards. You may want your kids to reach level 5 in their literacy by the time they are 10; I would prefer it if they could actually read a sentence; or even better a string of sentences that take the form of what used to be called a book. You may want your kids to take home 10 A* GCSEs this June; I would prefer it if rather than have a clutch of certificates they could demonstrate amongst other things – they had read the whole of Hamlet – including the difficult bits – and could write some semblance of an argument about it.

The standards you hoist high on your academic mountainsides may be nothing more than flags which flutter in the wind but are then swept away in an avalanche of real life challenges which the Level 5 literacy and A* in English have done nothing to prepare you for. By all means drive up your standards – but know too when its time to take them down and replace them with snow shelters, bivouacs and tins of corned beef.

Aspire Trust е организација за уметност од Велика Британија, посветена на трансформирање на животните приказни на луѓето на креативен начин.

Aspire Trust е организација за уметност од Велика Британија, посветена на трансформирање на животните приказни на луѓето на креативен начин. Ни причинува задоволство да објавиме дека после неодамнешните значителни инвестиции од Советот за уметност на Англија, во моментов планираме да го создадеме „Скапоцени“: врвен културен и образовен настан во англиканската катедрала во Ливерпул, во октомври 2012 година.

„Скапоцени“ ќе претставува инспиративна, мултимедијална театарска продукција со висок квалитет, направена врз основа на приказните од Титаник. Настанот ќе вклучува продукција на настани во живо, медиумски, дигитални и образовни настани, и општествени настани низ Велика Британија и во светот, и ќе се одржи првата недела во октомври 2012-та година.

Продукцијата ќе опфати приказни, филмски снимки, звучни пејзажи, изворна музика и театар во живо, со цел да се оживее патувањето на Титаник и да се истражат приказните на луѓето погодени од трагедијата. Поставена во навистина импресивната театарска сцена на англиканската катедрала, продукцијата ќе биде едно од највизионерските и неодоливите театарски искуства на годината.

Ние развиваме врвна стратегија за интернет-технологија и технологија на игри („Digi-Treasured“) којашто гарантира изненадувачка, иновациска и врвна форма на развој на публиката и нејзино учество, какви што нема во светот. Digi-Treasured ќе им овозможи на потенцијалните учесници да нурнат не само во продукцијата, туку и да учествуваат заедно со уметниците и публиката пред, за време на настанот и по самиот настан, преку уред за виртуелна реалност на интернет. Ова ќе биде од посебен интерес за луѓето кои не се во состојба да присуствуваат на самиот настан поради географските или временските разлики.

Во потрага сме по 12 (дванаесет) меѓународни партнери коишто се заинтересирани за можноста да работат заедно. Партнери може да бидат невладини организации, организации за уметност, училишта, претпријатија за информатичка и комуникациска технологија од приватниот сектор, универзитети: секој што е заинтересиран да учествува виртуелно во еден од најголемите настани за јавен настап во Велика Британија годинава.

A Waiting Story: Little Red Riding Hood in the Macedonian Forest

In the time before Red Riding Hood got betrayed by a Wolf in Grandma’s clothing, the young girl would quiz her elderly relative about her habits and whereabouts. Some would say that this was the cause of her early demise but others dispute this telling of the fable.

Why do you cook toffee apples granny? Why is your house made of gingerbread? Why do you go walking in a forest? Is it for the peace and quiet?
Hardly, dear, you can hear trains and cars and city bustle. A call to prayers from a nearby mosque sounds like a wolf weeping but that’s no reason to walk in the forest.

Is it for the Fresh air and invigorating atmosphere?
Upto a point my dear: until the logging trucks drive by and the fumes wash over as you sit by the roadside, slightly blackened from the sooty deposits. So that’s no reason to walk in the forest.

Is it for exercise and maintaining a healthy body?
That may be fine dear, as long as you haven’t got knees which give you grief and buckle every step of the way. That’s no reason to walk in the forest.

Do you commune with nature, then? asked Little riding Hood impatiently. Or perhaps even yourself?

If you stood still long enough, it might be possible to commune with anything, but to walk in the forest you have to keep on walking: stumbling cursing sweating breathing so much, there’s not a lot of communing to be done. That’s no reason to walk in the forest.

Is it to get around the next corner then? asked Little Red Riding Hood sarcastically.

Ah, smiled her elderley relative, that is an answer. There’s always another next corner, another bend to get around, a hillock to navigate, there’s just another view to catch before you turn around and do the same journey but in reverse order.

So that’s why you go for a walk in the forest, Granny? she asked with a faux impression of relief.

Yes, my dear, that’s the reason to walk in the forest: to retrace your steps. I walk in the forest in order to go around in circles.

And enough of the prying questions! True to her word, Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother – who had her own genetic stock of impatience – stepped back, sprung the latch from the pantry and out leapt a huge brown wolf, scantily dressed in grandma’s clothing who proceeded to devour her then and there, lock stock and barrel. And that, dear reader, was the end of Little Red Riding Hood and her inquisitive questions.

What constitutes an Olympian Educator?

In June 2012, we’ll be celebrating the concept of the ‘Olympian Educator’ with educators from across the world in a unique conference on London’s South Bank. As well as meeting diverse speakers and colleagues and sharing pedagogies, ideas and approaches from across the world, delegates will be able to visit London schools and meet – through the magic of the internet and the performing arts – ancient educators such as Socrates, Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky and Montessori.

But by Olympian, we don’t just mean schools with the highest visibility or schools with the highest performing pupils – but schools in which the efforts, talents and skills of the staff are making a real –Olympic – difference to local children’s and families lives.

So, to get the ball rolling, we’d like to know: what does being an Olympic Educator mean to you? Is it something in their training? Their performance? Their relationships with their students? Their pedagogy? The Olympic Educators Conference has kicked off now and will be a further 4 months in the making.

For further information or for the chance to be involved please see

https://drnicko.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=735&action=edit

or contact me at nowen.aspire@btconnect.com