EXCITE PEOPLE, DON'T JUST MAKE THEM DO EXAMS

I’ve been worrying about education, that we’ve become obsessed with grades rather than in helping inspire people, putting it simply, to find joy in life and their talent.

‘To educate’ comes from the Latin and means to draw out. Great education is about inspiring, nurturing the special talent people have, not ramming in facts.

Here’s what Mr Gradgrind said in Charles Dickens’ ‘Hard Times’:

“Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals like this.” 

Dickens was satirising a Victorian school of thought here. He, too, worried about education. He writes about the gloriously named Dotheboys Hall in ‘Nicholas Nickleby’. We’ve come a long way since then but there’s still an obsession about the loss of “learning time” amongst  5 year olds. In Finland they save “learning time” until children are 7 not 5 years old. 

Argo Gosh is a successful entrepreneur in Brighton whose achievements are immense. He told me his greatest period of learning ever was when he had a whole term off school so, from May to September he, his siblings and friends spent their time building an absolutely enormous tree house and being outside in the fresh air learning about life, teamwork and carpentry.

My greatest period of learning was at University not in libraries nor at lectures but talking about all sorts of things to clever, open minded and entertaining friends who made me think. What I acquired was an appetite for life, an appetite that I’ve never lost.

Recently I said that being proved wrong is exciting; discovering my preconceptions or prejudices are simply misplaced; that’s called discovery.

The essence of education is discovery. It’s about opening a book and finding a new world. It’s about going to a theatre (well it used to be) and losing yourself in a story like ‘Hamlet’ you’ve seen and heard countless times before.

What teachers can’t teach - but they can inspire it in you (if you are lucky enough to find a good one) is to be an enthusiastic and energetic champion of an idea, painting, piece of music or piece of science. Brian Cox makes science hum with excitement in a way an average physics teacher won’t do.

They say ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’; well, I’m a rather old dog and I’m daily learning new stuff often from the infectious optimism of young people.

John Sculley, ex Apple said over 30 years ago “In today’s world we need impresarios and wizards.” In today’s Covid world, John, even more so.

We need to design a new future and we can’t do that by applying old tricks. We should be reconsidering our whole education system and rather than ramming maths into reluctant heads find what latent sparks of talent exist there and encourage them to burst into flames.

Einstein was, apparently, not especially talented at school. A more plausible explanation is that his teachers failed to spot that latent genius.

We are on the verge of a potentially exciting period of innovation and an energy boost – this typically happens after a catastrophe.

We need to ignite passion, discovery, excitement and stop being didactic.

On Saturday I heard a young, successful MD of a successful business (Paul Barratt) talk with passion about what he learnt from business books. Not facts. Not formulae. Not tool kits. No. Ideas. Visions. Dreams. Magic.

That’s just what we need. In schools. At Universities. In business. Everywhere. ‘A’ levels are not the answer to a better, happier world. 

But excitement is.

NARRATIVE MATTERS

The meeting rooms of the business world are full of executives talking about their “story” and the “narrative flow” from one set of results to another. Often their version of events sounds like a child accused of telling “stories”. Stories are the PR versions of the truth; spins on selected facts. As an ex-advertising man myself I recognise this world.

So too did Charles Dickens who said:
“Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait”

But that’s the problem, as Prince Andrew may find out; and I’m still not sure why he did that interview on TV on Saturday night. The trouble is he’s just stoked up the furnace. We are now waiting for more. The story that won’t go away has been dragged from the back of the cupboard.

And what was Boris thinking of? He is the story right now and he needs to control the plot. Instead he hung himself out to dry by appearing with the BBC Breakfast Time presenter Naga Munchetty who wanted to know if he’s ‘relatable’. Pundits say, as word, it’s a “modern peculiarity”. She was never going to go easy on him or even be sensible but he got tetchy instead of aloof, amused or even asking her: “are you all right? You seem a bit tense. Don’t worry. Let’s talk about things that really matter to voters.”

Venice. The Venice we love. It’s just been flooded really badly. The ‘aqua alta’ occurs every year but last week it was ‘aqua-molto-molto-alta’. It’s not a new story; bad floods have happened six times in the last century. What I love is the esprit de corps of the Venetians, they way they buckle down and the way they publicise their bravery and indomitable attitude. They tell their story so well and so vividly that the money floods in after the water. Every time.

When I read the, admittedly rather variable, reviews of a restaurant in Tooley Street in London called Story I wasn’t sure if it was quite me. It sounded fanciful and pretentious (apart from a rave review in the Guardian).

That story and the real story in my experience weren’t the same. This small, relaxed and beautiful place, strangely fashioned from a large public lavatory (there’s a metaphor here about the world in which we live) was everything you want. Tables far enough apart for no neighbour intrusion, attentive and charming service, enough waiting for the story of the meal to unravel smoothly.

After the canapés which they called snacks – all unusual and brilliant – there was a snail ravioli (yes, I had my doubts but they were dispelled to the extent of my saying – “with pasta like that I could eat a plateful”). A plate of wonderful Agnolotti followed as if they read my mind. The meal was a sensational sensation and a great story too.

It made me laugh, it nearly made me cry (with pleasure), it made me wait (not too long) and made me want to return. It was very relatable.