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.

WE CAN CHOOSE THE WORLD WE LIVE IN - really we can

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” says Marcellus at the beginning of Hamlet and indeed with three hours the Danish game is over, Norway takes over, all the key players are dead and “the rest” as they say “is silence”. Does any of this feel familiar?

I was talking to a one-time senior Civil Servant recently who said he could understand the economic woes as a consequence of things being out of balance but that the corruption within the police force had shaken him to his core.  I’d argue when there is a complete blurring of what is right and wrong anything can go wrong and it is.

We have institutionalised corruption and breakdown across the board and it’s a cultural issue. Brand Britain is ruled by the urge for power and money. Nothing else matters it would seem.  We are being taught to admire monsters as our role models. But who else could run Barclays than Bob the bankers cry. It’s a bit like lamenting the passing of Fred West as a landlord.

Time for a reshuffle…..

First MPs – as Jefferson said “a little rebellion is sometimes a good thing” – they need to throw out corrupt practices like whipping and start to think. And the manners need to improve. Sorry Messrs Ball and
Osborne you’re being locked up for rudeness.

Press – bye, bye Digger and Dacre and a culture of sensationalism.

Church – a female Bishop or two and a bit more smiling – gaiety even might help. Best chance the church has had for a century to be taken seriously and all it can do is be fixated on genitalia.

Law – the judges are a bastion against extremism – smart and not driven by cash but ambulance chasing attitudes amongst the rest should be punishable by scorn (scorn is worse than death in the new world order.)

Police – root out the rotters.

World bodies –remove the apparatchiks who’ve ruined world sport, banking and politics. Sepp Blatter is a cartoon metaphor for Danish rottenness as is the unfortunately obsessed Dominque Strauss Kahn.

What an example to set a new generation.

And the banks. Well sad. Root and branch reform needed. Imprison all the banking boards just in case. And resort to 363. 363? Yes. Borrow at 3% in the morning. Lend at 6% at lunchtime. Be on the 1st tee at 3pm. Banking is simple. Honestly.

Shakespeare would have had a ball with all this.

And if you think it’s all too hard look at the recovery in Iceland. Prime Minster Johanna Sigurdardottir, well done. And gosh you’re a woman and a lesbian ….Church are you listening?

MARKETING WORKSHOPS - THE WAY MINDS WORK

Marketing Workshops are powerful events.
As the group engine coughs into life you can smell creativity.
I’ve never failed to be amazed how inventive a group can be working on a marketing project. And not just how inventive they are – how assiduous they are too. No slouches are here. Across the board human beings want to work hard.
The stuff that belongs in the opening world of “monologue” is not that valuable; that’s the didactic end of the day; this is the bit where the fuel-bowser does its stuff. It’s the part of the day that’s about interaction where you get a group sharing and exchanging ideas that is always magical.
That magic lies in strange places.
One person in a group I ran recently confessed she found the experience alien; she said she was a left-brained person who was methodical and was being made to think outside her comfort zone; a colleague said she froze when she had to present.
But then their group produced an extraordinary piece of theatre that was creative, relevant and thought provoking.
The person out of her comfort zone was dreamily creative; an “I’ll be sick if I present” team member was a brilliant and engaging presenter.
Their project was “how do you create a production of Hamlet that is transformational and makes the play come to life in the 21st century?”
This was their answer.
No, in fact, this was their question.
“3D or not 3D?”