Astia: Worth Taking a Look

Astia is a remarkable organisation that dedicates itself to developing the know-how for women starting up their own businesses.

In conjunction with other vc-supportive organisations, Astia's work seems to be paying off. Women's start-up's in the UK have done better than those run by men. There seem to be some unique opportunities in this economic climate that shouldn't be missed.

Astia works globally -- they have bases in in Silicon Alley, Silicon Valley, the London, and India. Look into what they can do for you.

Astia's London conference is next week. I'll let you know what I learn.

Linked In

If you read the post from February 3, you'll know that Emma Gilding, anthropologist and business innovator, has begun a new blog - Thru Their Eyes.

Emma and I have very similar attitudes about the way people learn -- particularly about learning in business. She's made me a guest blogger.

I republish the post here to save you time from clicking around.

Corporate Training: is it Good for Innovation?

Even before the global economy found itself in peril, professional development seemed the solution for all organizational ills. If you find a hole in your process, fill it by prescribing a set of skills within a specific context or task.

Too often, training is the result of short-term thinking. An organization needs results quickly, so trainers limit a class to a narrow set of parameters. Then a particular problem can get solved immediately.

Don’t waste time making connections between contexts or tasks – why bother addressing problems that might arise later?

This is not helped by the fact that trainers tend to see their own goal exclusively to give clients exactly what he asks for rather than expanding offerings to include what they need.

Give Them the Fishing Rod (Not the Fish)

Training offers answers. But does it explore the questions in enough depth to do anything but maintain the status quo? Wouldn't it be better to improve the way business is done rather than just treading water?

Learning, on the other hand, focuses on process. It offers the facility to make connections among different contexts, resources, and so on. In fact, it's what makes a skill transferable. But more important it's learning, not training, that makes innovation possible.

On the other hand, the results of training are much easier and faster to control and quantify. They demand no messy emotional investment (read: engagement) that is required for inspiration and innovation.

So with training, you know what you get. But is what you want?

More on Doug Rushkoff: The Dark Side of New Media

Worth watching is a Frontline piece on South Korea's approach to young people's addiction to computer games.

Meeting Douglas Rushkoff

I met Douglas Rushkoff at a party the other week. Turns out we have a lot of good friends in common, and it's strange we've never met before. I've always been a big fan.

Because Doug is that very unusual combination of fascinating and generous, his arguments are almost impossible to resist. Even when you might want to disagree.

Doug gave a talk at Ofcom recently, and it's worth mentioning.

I'm perhaps most impressed by the way that Doug avoids jargon in order to unify what seem like unlike concepts. He breaks down ideas and examples so that anyone -- in any field -- could understand it.

In fact, Doug's communication style is proof of concept. For him, the rules of the current economic models should be redesigned to benefit people before corporations. That, in turn, will benefit the economy in ways we haven't seen since the Middle Ages.

So if you believe people create their own economic models, then you need to be able to speak to everyone.

How generous is THAT? How productive -- And how unusual.

I'll be interviewing him for an article tomorrow, and I'll let you know what I learn.

Good: This Time With Feeling

Good and Bad

Last night, I saw a screening of a film called Good, the journey of a professor in pre-war Germany from ordinary citizen to SS officer.

I note it here only to reinforce the notion much discussed in this blog that emotional reactions are the basis for intellectual convictions -- and if one doesn't take notice (and responsibility) for the first, one can not answer for the second.

All sound obvious? Take it out of context and apply it to business. Still a commonly held notion?

Yes, But Did It Work?

The film succeeded because it persuasively demonstrated that value and intolerance rose and fell according to the rise and fall of the pride in identity of ordinary citizens.


Strangely, this seemed clear for all the characters except the lead, Halder. The film failed because one had no idea what he felt, and though he behaved in ways that implied conviction, it was impossible to be clear about what he thought.

Jason Isaacs, who spoke after the premier, explained that the cinematic format precluded clear articulation of Halder's feelings. I suggested that it's really more a question of what the director chose -- cinema is a pretty plastic medium.

In any case, any popular political rallying point -- that creates a strong sense of identity and belonging -- persuades just from these causes. Not a surprise? Again, what happens if you apply this principal to other contexts?

Unemployed? A Perfect Excuse to Rebrand

Every economic and political crisis has its opportunities. It just takes some imagination to find the ones you can make the most of.

Who said that luck happens when opportunity meets a ready mind?

When Last We Saw Our Hero . . .

I was recently asked to help a company to create marketing collateral for their current services. This organisation specialises in outsourcing particular financial functions for small to medium sized businesses.

In order to make the most of the marketing opportunities, I suggested that that they activities and collateral that will expand their brand.

With expertise in all aspects of finance, why not take the opportunity to find the cream of the financial market's unemployed, retrain them, and place them in new jobs?

In a world where there are hundreds of talented financial people who are newly unemployed, you have a market keen for any way to find a job.

Likewise, companies need talented people -- always. And they would prefer to outsource functions that require high overhead in salary, benefits, and so on.

So why not make a business of rebranding people from the City? You make money training. You make money placing people. Win-win.


You Who Have Lost Your Jobs: This Is Where You Come In

You who are smart and agile, this is your chance. The current situation allows high-level thinkers to take advantage of the opportunity for new career directions by re-branding yourselves.

What are you most passionate or curious about? What sorts of businesses or business functions have you demonstrated an impact other than whatever was contained in your job description? Where can you get that extra expertise quickly and efficiently to fill in gaps for a job you'd like to have?

Speaking from Experience

My own career path has been entirely about re-branding in order to explore and learn exactly what interests me. I worked in the theatre, I earned a PhD in drama, I became a journalist, I worked in Silicon Alley and consulted, worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers as strategist and negotiator for the global website, and then I ran a charity for children in London.

Contrary to those who advocate single career paths, employers have not found me flaky. In fact, I've found the threads that connect my passions allow me to see things new in ways that make me seem more, rather than less, committed and qualified. Cross-disciplinary thinking and making connections among unlikely resources is high in demand. In fact, my research shows that in every field employers are looking for people who can show this sort of creativity.

And those who do this can find great success.


Re-branding is a big topic, and I'll get back to it in later posts. For now, there's a great (if old) Fast Company issue that offers some very good ideas. Check it out.

Thru Their Eyes

Emma Gilding, an extraordinary innovator and Crain's Under 40 at 32, was trained as an anthropologist and brought her talent to advertising. She has a new blog: Thru Their Eyes that covers a variety of topics around creativity and management. Worth taking a look. I particularly like the elegance of Three Notes to Collaborate.

Starting a Discussion

I've been considering Emma's distinction between collaboration vs. cooperation. I think it needs refining, although I'm not sure exactly how.

Emma defines collaboration as a lofty goal, and I agree it's a difficult process to maintain, particularly in business.

Emma says:

Collaboration is difficult because it requires critical thinking skills and creativity and that we have one goal and that we be innovative in the way that we seek to fulfill that goal.

On the other hand:

Cooperation requires that we seek to fulfill the same focused goal but using the same skills in the same way. This strikes me as a much more achievable goal as we have been doing it for years.

The distinction is an important one, but I think it needs some tweaking.

Critical Thinking

The difference here seems to be twofold: collaboration requires critical thinking, creativity, and innovation aimed at one goal. Cooperation requires using one, rather than three, sets of skills in the same way toward (again) one goal.

Is it possible to do anything without creativity, innovation, and critical thinking in some form?

Even digging a ditch requires overcoming obstacles that arise, and all tasks done as a group require consideration about how to work together. Last, is everyone doing exactly the same task? All of these negotiations to me seem to require some analysis and creativity, even if we've become unconscious of the processes.

By the same token, would a musician's jam be classified as collaboration or cooperation? Each is performing different tasks, they are certainly creative, and the result is often innovative. However, again, the critical thinking aspect is intuitive. It's not self-consciously articulated.

So -- is the real distinction between cooperation and collaboration a group's awareness about the differences in roles, outcomes, and processes? Each cooperation and collaboration requires agreement, and although collaboration tends to be an explicit understanding, cooperation doesn't have to be.

Or does it?

Maybe it would be worth breaking down further what goes into assessment, analysis, mastering, and performing with one voice -- from the previous post. Defining terms is always useful.

Emma? What do you think?

A Thought on How We Think About Teachers

Why is it that teacher-directed websites usually look like they've been designed for children?

This isn't a big point -- just something I've been chewing on as I do organisational research this morning.

Take a look at any site for educators. Unless these educators are administrators, you'll probably find pictures of apples (for the teacher, presumably), ruled paper, and cartoon characters with blackboard pointers in their hands (hooves? claws?).

Here's My Experience

When I was hired to produce an interactive site for Troll Communications (at the time, Scholastic's chief competitor), the consistent image across pages was an owl with a flat, square graduation hat (what are they called? You know, the ones with the tassles?).

That owl was first on my hit list, especially because he also wore spec's. But the whole situation seemed revising from the bottom up.

Don't trolls EAT children? (Tip: don't ask this question at your first meeting with a CEO. It doesn't encourage the kind of change you're after.)

Kids Think Teachers Don't Exist Outside of School

This isn't a big point either. Anyone who's taught, and then runs into a student in a coffee shop or the supermarket, has seen the shock register.

I chalk it up to some sort of delayed object permanence problem. Kids tend to have a pretty fixed idea of how their worlds function. Even when I taught university, my students would express shock usually reserved only for a broken law of physics if I were sited anywhere outside the English Department.

How Much Thought is Given to Teachers Anyway?

We'd expect more from grown-up's.

But from the websites I've seen, non-educators seem so completely to merge teachers with their kids that they forget they're adults.

It's a strange phenomenon. I might give it to NASA to chew on.

On the other hand, how surprising is it really that teachers aren't paid very much if we forget they exist outside the classroom -- you know, paying rent, driving cars, or doing an activity with other adults?

Anyone, please find me a website designed for teachers that looks sophisticated, that treats its target audience as though they have some design sense or have ever been to the opera.

And those text-only sites don't count. They're just lazy.

Anyone?

Inspiration Redux: Some Things are Worth Repeating

I've recently been asked to do fund raising for the CAGSE Foundation, and I'm finding that speaking to people about learning is challenging when they have never taught -- or at least, have never felt comfortable teaching.

When I worked in Silicon Alley, we always said that all clients think they can write and design a logo for effective branding. Generally, when left to their own devices, clients give you muddled visual concepts and run-on sentences instead.

Talking to non-educators about learning has led to something a little different from this -- although the reaction is similar to that of the people for whom I consulted for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The standard line: learning is an intellectual exercise.

This Time, With Feeling

Many blog posts ago, I defined inspiration as the meeting point of intellectual and emotional insight. You can't innovate without engagement. You can't learn without it, either. Engagement is as much emotional as intellectual.

The trick to great teaching is to bring your students to an understanding of the beauty, passion, extraordinary nature of what it is you see in what you're teaching.

And students define great teachers with feeling as well. They remember the great teachers they've had by the passion the teachers inspired. The feeling lasts much longer than any particular piece of information relayed.

Do you remember much of what your favorite teacher told you? Or are there one or two "aha" moments that generated the passionate gratitude you feel today?

How much more emotional could a process be? And why do we continue to insist on denying it?

Ellen Marden Interviews Yours Truly

Ellen Marsden interviewed me at PopTech! about CAGSE and all we do to connect the past to the present, school to the world outside, and other ideas of similar note.

Ready for my close-up?

Ellen wanted me to skip the linguistic aspects of the project and talk in broader terms so that we could focus on historical and cultural issues. She's got kids of her own and is very interested in education.

So what should we learn, and how should we learn it?

Culture and History: Dead or Alive?

Nothing is dead if someone alive learns it. The process of learning, on its own, immediately connects what is learned to everything happening at the moment of understanding.

That's the magic of context.

Think of the word "history" as a living thing - something in which we live and that we create as we breathe rather than something that is over. Nothing is unconnected to anything else. People sometimes use the word "culture" to name human experience, but history and culture can't exist without each other.

My 15 Minutes of Fame

If you don't believe in Latin's cultural and historical relevance, here's information about our storytelling programme included in every Latin class CAGSE teaches. It's only part of the story, but it's one worth telling.

For more on the relationships among culture, history, and learning last week's post.

Rap That

Among our tremendously talented staff at CAGSE, we have a a charming and gifted rapper called Jonathan Goddard. He ain't no slouch as a Latin teacher, either.

Jonathan makes grammar sound urgent, compelling, interesting (even). Check it out, Yo.

Latin in Conversation

By the way, if you believe Latin is on its last legs (as many do, see last post), take a look at this video on language from PopTech!

Sara Canullo, assistant director of Latin studies for CAGSE, added a translation in for about a third of the video. Just to prove a point:

Latin might be ancient, but it can capture even the most contemporary ideas in new ways.

Every language offers interpretation of concepts just by articulating them. If you speak or read more than one, check out the different translations for this talk. Although if you speak more than one language, this is something you know already.

You might not agree with elements of the talk, or the content might not interest you at all. However, DotSub is a useful app -- worth exploring if you need translations of videos for multilingual audiences.

On the Web, that's EVERY audience. Guaranteed.

Not Drowning but Waving: Latin Dead?

Dead or Alive?

I've been talking a lot about the value of Latin lately, and each day, eventually, I wait for the argument that is supposed to stop me in my tracks.

Latin is Dead.

Actually, it's not. It's alive and well and living in English, German, and all the Romance languages. We use it every day in its original form (ad finitum, et al, eg, re:, etc.) It's even branded on Anglina Jolie and David Bekham's skin.

You don't get much more hip and culturally current than that.

What Are People Arguing About?

At root, it seems that schools and anti-Latin pundits are arguing for training over learning. Corporate culture has invaded our schools in more ways than sponsorships.

Corporate training offers a set of limited skills to be used in a narrow set of circumstances (the desk chair) for relatively narrow purposes (getting a particular task done at work). Some examples (in case you haven't worked in an office): how to use computer programs, how to fill out a time sheet, how to better communicate with your staff on particular issues, -- did I forget to say etc.?

Not Training But Learning

Training is limited by the very purpose for which it's offered: skills are intended for targeted use in particular contexts.

Learning, on the other hand, is as much about how you think about a problem as the particular problem itself.

Manderin and Romance languages are taught in schools because we have relatively short-term goals for our kids. Get trained, and you can do particular tasks when you finish. On the other hand, Latin isn't spoken in full sentences (generally, in most circles, anyway). Relegate it to the dustbin.

One caveat: I think all languages are valuable if taught correctly. Just throw Latin in with the rest.

Dangerous Precedent: What if Demanded Skills Change?

If we limit our kids to skills rather than offering them tools for larger thinking processes, we'll never get the innovation we're looking for -- either in the classroom or outside it. More important than any particular thought is an awareness of how that thought connects to others, how it arrived, and where you go from there.

Because language represents thought and doesn't merely describe it, Latin shows historically how we've got where we are as English speakers. If you teach it with learning in mind, you can give kids Latin and they'll see patterns across languages. Moreover, they will see where ideas came from that are contained in their own language in importantly similar and different ways.

Latin offers students a view of the long Western history of philosophy of language, of thought, of culture.

Not a bad return for an hour a week from CAGSE.

By the way, Richard Gilder recently wrote an articulate piece on the known value of Latin in English literacy. Check it out.

Best Practices in Teaching: In Business and in School

As I mentioned in my last post, I just came from PopTech! where (again) extraordinary people meet and speak, both on and off the stage.

Every year, Camden Maine, October. Amazing.

Ben Zander Inspires

One of the highlights of the conference was Ben Zander's presentation. Ben is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and about the most exuberant person I've ever met.

In this talk, Ben offered two models of thinking: one of "The Downward Spiral" (linear thinking in binaries) and one of multiple possibilities. He then led a 15-year-old cellist called Nicolai through a Bach piece several times. Each time, Ben coached Nicolai so that by the end of the session, the piece sounded as good as it could be. It was a pleasure to watch.

One last point worth noting: Ben told Nicolai that when he makes a mistake, rather than making a face and drawing down his body, he should throw up his hands and say "How Fascinating!" The fear of making mistakes is perhaps the biggest challenge to learning in our culture, both in business and in school. We're trained to guess what our superiors or teachers want us to say.

Everyone rose to their applauding furiously when Ben was done. It was an extraordinary performance.

Later That Evening . . .

In order to continue the conversation about models of possibility, Ben and his ex-wife Roz invited us to a local inn to continue the conversation about how Ben inspired his student.

The meeting presented a frustrating experience -- both Ben and Roz spoke in abstract and extreme terms about their rival models.

The possibility model offered no hierarchy between expert (teacher) and novice (student or employee). It left every option open. Solutions were infinite.

The other model, by contrast, was a false habit we've learned of competing with each other, satisfying ourselves with winning when others lose, and offering only binary solutions.

What Happened Next

A few people got up to ask how to apply Ben and Roz's philosophy to non-artistic fields -- how does a boss inspire employees? How does a physics professor -- when there are right and wrong answers -- offer his students the option of infinite possibilities?

No one in the gathering had taught like Ben. Many were business people with disaffected employees who had never taught formally at all. After several questions from the crowd, it became clear that no one was sure how to articulate what was wanted from the speakers.

And like many great teachers, Ben's teaching gift is instinctive. He couldn't quite connect people's questions to what he could offer.

Frustration is Good

I got up and offered a compromise. I pointed out that there was indeed hierarchy in Ben's relationship onstage with Nicolai. There always is with a teacher and student. I offered that what Ben did was lead Nicolai to see what it was that HE saw.

If a student or employee doesn't see the beauty and value of what the teacher or employer sees, it's the teacher or employer's failing. The challenge is both seeing the beauty or miraculousness oneself AND seeing where the blocks are for the student so that we can break them down. Once a student sees the vision as the teacher does, he or she will move toward it.

It was helpful for me to be frustrated. I now know what I think great teaching is.

How about you?

And For All You Bad Spellers Out There . . .

. . . some authority at last.

If the last post interested you, see this one about Erin from months ago.

How Do We Learn the Meaning of Words?

Erin McKean, lexicographer extrordinaire and myth buster about language, recently gave a talk at PopTech! to announce her new project, Wordnik!

Wordnik! is still in it's beta phase, but when it's released, it will help much more than any traditional dictionary.

What is a Dictionary For, Anyway?

As Erin has pointed out in many other talks, there is a misconception that a dictionary prescribes fixed and correct definitions for words. In fact, lexicographers scan both current electronic and paper sources for the ways in which words are used NOW. Rather than fixing language, editions of dictionaries demonstrate how English changes over time.

Why Wordnik?

Erin's point is this: We don't learn new words from dictionary definitions. We learn through context. One definition of genius -- a concept that is introduced for the first time that sounds absolutely obvious.

Erin is certainly that.

Wordnik, like Wikipedia, allows everyone to add sentences that offer enhancements or alternatives to those already recorded.

To that end, Wordnik is a living dictionary that will be more accurate at any moment than any printed work.

How useful is that?

If you feel, however, that talk is cheap, visit Erin's site A Dress a Day instead.

Pay Attention, Kids -- Romans Go Home

Anyone remember "Life of Brian"?

The Centaurian John Cleese forces a Latin graffiti politico to correct his case endings. In anti-Roman slogans on a stone wall. 100 times, I seem to remember, and then the dissident is dragged off to prison.

Put two familiar lessons together that are usually kept apart, and you might learn something. The trick is finding the right two lessons and deciding what is really worth learning.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

How important is it that kids learn Latin and about the culture that used it? Is the language really dead that reveals concepts applicable to every century?

The recent New York Times article asks us to revisit what we learn (and how we teach it) by likening the current financial crisis to the fall of Rome.

If only bankers had studied ancient culture differently (or at all, even), maybe none of this would never have happened. How much history do they teach in business school anyway?

Doomed to Repeat Ourselves?

Contemporary cultures too often treat the peoples who lived before them with a condescension that only comes from ignorance.

Progress is inevitable, right? We must have learned a tremendous amount in the centuries since the ancients invaded, stayed, and fell over themselves in England. How could we not?

The New York Times begs to differ. Understand cultural history -- yours, those around you, and the ways they are connected. Make it a priority in schools. It's as important as cutting bankers' bonuses if we want to move away from past mistakes. Big, big ones.

Mind Games' Legacy: Mind-Body Connections for Learning

Richard Gilder wrote a wonderful, cogent post about the relationship between the mind and body -- the topic explicitly was the Olympics.

However, it's the same in school. When we present abstract concepts to Years 4, 5, and 6 in State schools across London, we always involve the body to engage the mind more fully.

I can't sing (trust me), but last year I taught a song about case endings to 25 classes. I asked them to stand up, use hand movements, and use their voices in different ways while singing.

After a long summer, the kids have forgot a lot. But they still know their case endings.

A Legacy

More important even that children learn the material with which they are presented, they are learning how to learn. Simple strategies such as standing up, or creating gestures, creates a legacy of understanding how they think. We've seen that this works both for pupils who are considered high achievers and low.

In other words, CAGSE is working to efface this distinction between pupils.

Now THAT would be a legacy.

It's Not Just In Your Head: Let's Talk

Continuing from the last post:

Using the body and mind together makes teaching exponentially effective, regardless of subject area.

Obvious?

This all might seem tremendously obvious, but if it is, why isn't the mind-body connection used more? Pupils can stand up or change tables while learning without chaos ensuing. Even such simple additions to chalk-and-talk help.

Classroom teachers are burdened with so many deliverables (as they say in the business world) that many have given up on the creative potential that got them into teaching in the first place. One can't blame them for giving up.

Here's a way to be creative and effective that takes very little work. If any of you try it, let me know how it works. Furthermore, let us know what you invent -- we're always looking for new strategies related to the body-mind connection. And contact me if you'd like to know more about what we've used (and what has worked well) so far.

Training Day At CAGSE

When Last We Saw Our Heroes . . .

They were arranged in a circle in a training room at the Swiss Cottage Library. Zanna Wing-Davey, Director of Latin Studies for CAGSE, had each teacher throwing bean bags at the others after first catching the recipient's eye. This followed a game in which bags could only be thrown after a name was called (the correct name for the correct teacher) before catching an eye and tossing.

The exercise was simple but so effective that 12 strangers got to know each other's names and general tendencies in about 5 minutes.

Latin Games

The two days were full of such connections between ideas and the way the body responds to the world outside it. Jen Pearcy offered ways to create discipline, all through theatre exercises.

Jonathan Goddard did a piece on how to keep an entire class engaged when the pupils in it start at different levels of achievement and understanding. Again, mind-body connections integrated into intellectual strategy.

More in the next post.

Best Way to Think? Get Out of Your Head

Driving Change

For those of us who run on inspiration like cars do on petrol, it is no small thing. Unfortunately, gas stations are much more common than sources of remarkable conversation.

Or fortunately.

Because when a chance meeting occurs, and you know you have a colleague -- at least in spirit -- the sun comes out for quite a while over whatever project you're working on.

Even if you never see the person again.

In This Episode . . .

I had just such an inspirational encounter with Natalie Pinkham yesterday through an introduction by Ethan Zohn. Before getting to Natalie, in addition to being a lovely and generous person, Ethan is a tremendous warrior for good on his own. Check out what he did with the money he won from Survivor.

Chapter 1: We Drank

Natalie and I met at a French cafe (one of the few genuine ones in London, she tells me), and we talked about Access Sport, Natalie's own charity and ours. Natalie also told me about Kids Aid, the charity her mother recently founded, and we three strangers all seem to have something in common: children's intellect and choices are influenced by, absorbed through and built on emotional reactions.

In other words, learning requires strong feelings. We are taught that there are rules that define right and wrong answers, but anyone knows this intuitively (dare I say "emotionally"?)

If you want to read more on school or business and emotional in-put, please see some past posts (1, 2, 3 etc.) on this blog. They're written about corporate innovation, but grown-ups are often only kids with very bad habits.

Happily, not always.

But Wait, There's (Always) More

This might sound obvious, but if you're not feeling productive at work, get up and leave. Go find someone who or something that inspires you. Inspiration, like curiosity, creates energy and confidence that finds ways around obstacles.

The strategy goes along with those promulgated (if one can use that word in a positive sense) by CAGSE, Kids Aid, and Access Sport.

Your mind can't run if your emotional system is depleted, damaged, or simply out of gas.

Creativity does not exist without feeling. Without getting out of your head, innovative work for grown up's becomes the equivalent of a bored 5-year-old pushing peas around on a plate.

You can choose your own sustenance now -- mom lives elsewhere.

Go find it.

Intellectual Olympiad -- Let the Training Begin

I've taken a break and am back to report on some of the remarkable things I've seen in education this summer.

Talking to strategy directors in some of the boroughs in London, it seems we are in a rather precarious situation. One borough was missing two or three consultants in maths, literacy and other major areas with prospects of newly graduated staff in September.

Happily, the person in charge of primary school in this borough is more than competent to steer the boat, even with beginners. She's experienced, smart, no nonsense, and she knows what's important.

What sort of Mayor demands this kind of heroism from his front-line team? Is he even checking up on the welfare of the guardians of the kids he claims to care about so much?

This was the worst of what I heard, but other things (which I won't repeat but were told me quite freely) were not that much more heartening.


What's To Be Done?

I've been told by more than one Londoner that millions of pounds of tax money go into preventing the schools from getting worse. If we wanted to make the system better, we'd have to bankrupt most of Europe.

As Europe is having it's own economic problems these days, there should be a better solution. In fact, money, although helpful, is not usually the answer on its own. You don't have to be a brain surgeon (or even a professor) to figure that one out.

So What's the Answer? Only a Beginning . . .

We need a change in attitude about what constitutes education, how it's measured, and how it's delivered. To educators -- who struggle with box ticking and more courses than fit in a day's timetable -- this is not news.

However, for politicians, the SATs have more problems than simply not being graded (which wasn't so hot either). They need to go away entirely. Giving * next to an A in A levels is grade inflation -- an A is the standard of greatest excellence. Period.

Teachers, on the other hand, did not get into a profession -- to suffer as much stress as an investment banker without the profit -- because education should be measurable.
We teach because we care about kids and supporting their intellectual and emotional growth and health in whatever fashion it manifests itself.

Isn't an understanding about HOW to learn and think what we're teaching really?

Bottom line: You can't measure how well a child has learned to learn. You can measure some ways in which this is true, but the results are deceptively narrow.

A Reason to Teach Latin in Your School

The organisation I run can't fix all the problems schools face, but it can help. We teach Latin in order to see how the mind works when learning a language. This breaks down into the way in which meaning is constructed, and although for Years 5 and 6 much of this happens through games, songs, and stories, the abstract truth of this is not negated by the fact that it isn't even mentioned.

Latin is certainly not the only way to do this, and we're certainly not the only charity to dedicate itself to this sort of goal. But unlike the classroom teachers enslaved within the system, we have the freedom to support these colleagues tied to the curriculum.

Let us help. Latin isn't as crazy as it sounds, even to a Lefty, when you know what's behind it.

We all want intellectual athletes to match the physical prowess we'll show in 2010, don't we?

Celebrating Triumph: Years 4, 5 and 6

Continuing from the last post . . . .

We've Done the "Why": Now a Little How

CAGSE offers samplers of the Latin programme for boroughs who are interested in offering it in their schools. Most often, we rent a venue, invite local schools, and do one interactive performance for several classes at once.

When asked, we also work with one class or several classes from the same school in their assembly hall.

What Comes Next

We begin by talking about Roman heroes and what they have in common with the kids' heroes today. Even Thomas the Tank Engine is honest and brave, so it's usually not much of a stretch.

More, But Different

We have a professional story teller present the origins and exploits of a Roman hero -- recently, it's been Aeneas -- ending with the bit about the armour created with his victories and exploits in mind. We then ask the children to close their eyes and imagine their greatest triumph -- if they were going to create a shield, what would they have on it? How would they articulate their greatest success? The kids are encouraged to consider their past experiences and also to envision their futures.

We then distribute paper shields and crayons, and we ask them to draw what they are most proud of -- or what they plan to be most proud of -- in ten minutes. We also ask them to give the pictures a title. We post all the shields in one place, and we talk about the impressive aspects of each.

If you'd like to see some, click here or here. They're not all posted yet, so stay tuned.

And Last . . .

Just for a sense of Latin's accessibility, we teach the kids a little chat. Hello, how are you, I'm fine, how are you, I'm fine -- that's it. In Latin.

They practice with a partner, they shout it as one large group to another, and there is usually a lot of laughter. Many of these children speak languages other than English at home. This just makes Latin another -- another that they can master.

If You'd Like Us to Come to Your Borough or Your School . . .

Please contact us through the CAGSE site. We've found the effect to be the same everywhere we go. Latin is fun, easy to learn, and connected to the culture (and land) in which all the children live.

Samplers for Latin: But First, a Quiz

Background

I run an educational consultancy called CAGSE, which stands for Curriculum Articulation for the Global Support of Education. "Curriculum Articulation," you see, instead of "Development". The real trick before you teach is to clarify what you want to accomplish. Then you need to be precise about the reason to choose a particular activity to accomplish this.

For those who have not taught, articulating your goals and objectives is probably the hardest part of the job. Discipline is probably the second most difficult in primary school, particularly if you are not the regular teacher, but it can be mitigated -- or eliminated -- by a beautifully planned and executed lesson.

So really, articulation is the key, both for yourself and for your class. Everyone needs to be on the same page.

What We Teach

Latin. In State schools. Years 4, 5 and 6. In London.

For Americans, that means third, fourth and fifth grades in public school.

Why? I've written about this earlier, so if you've read it all before, please move on to the next post.

But If You Haven't Heard . . . .

A lot of benefits, particularly in London schools. The political valence of Latin here is heavy. It's a gentleman's language, taught to the elite. With few exceptions, it's taught to middle- to upper-middle class kids in fee-paying schools. And it's usually considered a subject for only the highest achievers. In other words, do well at everything else, and you will be rewarded with Classics.

This reinforces a class system that is as much about education as it is about breeding and money (similar, but not exactly the same, as in the States where money plays a much bigger role and breeding a much smaller one).

For the hundreds of thousands of non-European immigrants and their children, who wouldn't fit into the class system even with the fanciest education or an influx of dosh, Latin can help both with confidence (they are as smart and special as fancy English kids) and with their English (it's the best English grammar education they can get).

What's more, Latin is an inflected language. Most of the kids of immigrant parents' share languages that are also inflected. Learning Latin allows these kids to feel that English and the place they live belongs to them in a new way. Add the fact that their home town used to belong to the Romans, and the sense of connection is complete. Latin can be the passport that allows these kids to have ownership over the place they live and to the languages they speak.

But Wait . . . There's (Always) More

The benefits grow the more you think about them. Romance languages become easy to learn once Latin is under the belt, and there is a modern language requirement in primary schools here to be implemented universally by the year 2010.

One parent in Hampstead believes that regardless of the "modern" language taught in her daughter's primary school, Latin should be taught, too. What if the primary school teaches French, and the secondary school teaches Spanish (or visa versa)? Latin will level the playing field for every kid.

Last But not Least, It's Fun.

Unlike the older ways of teaching Latin, CAGSE uses age-appropriate activities in addition to traditional methods. Although I can't sing, I went around to classrooms all over London teaching a song about case endings. There were hand movements, loud and soft versions, and a lot of standing up. The kids loved it. More important, they remembered it.

For more on this subject in a more universal context, please see Via Facilis for extensive discussion of this topic.

For further ways CAGSE empowers kids through Latin language and culture, please see the next post.

Latin It All Hang Out

I haven't written in ages, primarily because we've been getting the CAGSE Latin program in order for next year. I have much to tell about children's love of Latin, how Latin aids children's English (a sneaky side-effect), and the fun we've had this term in London schools.

For the latest work we're doing, see our site for news, primary school kids interpreting the Aeneid in our free sample sessions, and our classes blogging about Latin. For some commentary on our success, please stay tuned . . . .

Calling All Excellent Teachers: CAGSE Needs You

Are you an experienced, enthusiastic teacher? Do you love kids? Do you live in England or do you have a work permit to do so? Do you love language, and do you learn quickly?

CAGSE is recruiting teachers of all disciplines who either have done Latin or would like to learn it -- teachers who focus on storytelling and other unusual ways of engaging kids.

CAGSE focuses on Years 5 and 6 in London State schools, and we have a wonderfully collaborative process.

If you think we suit you and you us, please get in touch (info@cagse.com).

For more information, see www.cagse.com.

Once Upon a Time . . . .

. . . there was a class with one hour a week of Latin language classes. In fact, there were 15, scattered about the kingdom's capital city. And they all had fun.

What Works

One technique that the kids enjoyed tremendously was singing a song about Latin cases.

No kidding.

Grammatical Structures as Narrative

By putting all the Latin cases and their meanings to music, they naturally fell into a sort of story about cause and effect, order and character, and so on. You don't have to try to make this happen: it just does. When you put language to music, you tend to get a sense of narrative.

Even better, with arm movements for each part of speech, the kids get abstract concepts into their bodies along with the words that represent them. It works.

What Else Has Works

Because CAGSE works only in State schools, Latin is about as foreign to these kids as -- well -- ancient Rome. Probably more foreign for the kids who have watched any TV at all.

To address this issue and to reinforce what the language teachers have offered, Sarah Mooney, our Director of Storytelling, created a story in English peppered with Latin vocabulary.

The reason this story worked (again) is relationship Sarah created between convention and what is new.

Once Upon a Time . . .

Sarah's story had nothing to do with Rome. It followed the experiences of a boy who played the flute, a princess, a garden and a king. The vocabulary stood out boldly because it was entrenched in what the kids took for granted (the princess wore a corona, the most beautiful corona the boy had ever seen).

In fact, the kids could name every Latin word used in a story that lasted more than a half hour. That's a lot to remember. And it happened in several different classes.

We learn through context -- in order to understand something unfamiliar, we need something familiar to give it context and meaning.

Stories provide a perfect venue to make the familiar new. More in the next post.

Big Apple Playback

I had the pleasure of seeing a troupe of storytellers called the Big Apple Playback Theatre Company. They are from New York, as their name suggests, and their work is remarkable for a number of reasons.

Number 1: How it Works
One of the performers sits at the front of the room and serves as the moderator. Her position close to the audience creates an intimacy that is only reinforced by her conversation directly with the spectators.

The moderator asks for a volunteer to share an experience that created one, two, or three feelings . The moderator then reiterates the story for the approval of the spectator, creates a title for the story, and tells actors waiting nearby to perform it.

Number 2: Why it's So Powerful
Needless to say, most adults are not used to discussing their feelings, particularly in public. At first no one volunteered. However, after the second story was told, hands shot up all over the room when asked for a contribution.

Needless to say, most adults would like to talk about how they feel if they felt they were in a safe environment.

Number 3: Mirroring
The telling of the story can be moving, but the performance of it transforms it into a new sort of project. This happened for both audience members who hadn't spoken and for the original storyteller, I found out afterwards.

One rarely is offered an opportunity to see one's feelings interpreted in movement and sound (sometimes language, sometimes not). As with children, adults benefit from a validation of their experience. The evening was moving in a way that is hard to describe if you weren't there.

Number 4: Surprises
The stories that one thought would be moving in performance rarely struck a chord for the audience. The death of a loved one, for example, often caught sympathy with the audience in its telling but had little effect when performed. Perhaps we've become immune to dramatic emotional states through television and the stage. Rarely do you get a film that doesn't focus on some sort of upheaval.

The stories of subtle experience, however, were moving beyond words.

And so I'll leave it there.

The British Curriculum: Strands of Conversation

The British curriculum for Key Stage 3 in primary school is described as having 12 strands:

1. Speaking
2. Listening and Understanding
3. Group Discussion
4. Drama
5. Word Recognition
6. Word Structure and Spelling
7. Understanding and Interpreting Texts
8. Responding to Texts
9. Creating and Shaping Texts
10. Text Structure and Organization
11. Sentence Structure and Punctuation
12. Presentation

All are in conversation must be in conversation in order for them to be fully understood. All are addressed when telling and listening to stories.

Storytelling as Conversation

I've already articulated the reasons for which conversation makes a very apt model for learning. Now I'll extend the argument to an equation that is the same backward as it is forward (storytelling as conversation: conversation as storytelling).

1. All conversation contains convention.

2. Convention is, by definition, what we take for granted.

3. All stories are made of conventions and other elements that are new.

4. By responding to the conventional meanings in existing stories with new stories, storytelling becomes a kind of conversation between us and received wisdom.

Conversation as Storytelling

What is conversation but a series of stories batted (or gently tossed) between at least two parties? One story either contradicts another, context shapes the story that is chosen, and so on.

I joined CAGSE because the CEO believes strongly that storytelling as a bridge between children's experience and that of the past, present, future -- in any subject area. And we add the element of Latin language taught as conversation as well. From the largest elements (beginnings, endings, and so on) to the smallest (words and their meaning), students start to look at the world around them in new ways.

Some of this can be seen in the blog posts. All of it is very exciting indeed.

A Most Generous Site

Educators looking for inspiration and ideas (especially along digital lines) should not miss ICT in Education or Ewan McIntosh's blog.

The sites are generous in their range of offerings and definitely worth a look.

Storytelling as Conversation

Circle Game

For years, I discussed at length why best model for learning is that of conversation. Most of my interest in social networks, advertising, innovation, and just about everything else in business involves the value of dialogue and of creatively shaping stories without censorship or pressure to conform (in other words, structured but unscripted conversation).

I began this blog four years ago just to talk about this issue in business. It took me all this time to get back to where I was before I took the job running CAGSE.

CAGSE?

If you've just checked in, CAGSE is an educational consultancy that puts Latin programs into State schools in England.

This is not just any Latin program. It's one that solves all the problems left open by existing programs like Cambridge (no grammar) and others (no interest). Based on building blocks from Richard Gilder's book, Via Facilis, the kids learn a lot more than Latin. They learn about how language works, they hit each of the 12 strands of the British curriculum, and they have fun.

There are a lot of reasons for choosing England -- the symbolic weight Latin has here because only the top kids in top schools are allowed to study it, the opportunity to participate in improving the educational system according to government standards that Latin meets, and more.

The two pieces to our program at the moment are language study -- mostly through games and exercises -- and storytelling. Both develop critical thinking, problem-solving, confidence, and literacy.

The storytelling program has lagged behind the language lessons per se because of time and resources. However, the time has come to go full ahead.

Back to the Beginning

The model we'll use is storytelling as conversation -- among languages, between the past and the present, between authority and interpretation, and between individuals and the collective.

More as we go.

What's in a Name?

Yesterday I attended a workshop in Taunton, Somerset (UK) about (what the leaders called) the art of workshop.

OK, anything can be an art, and there is art in anything well done. But that's a bit of a reach.

It turned out to be three women who seemed to be working out their ideas about what to do in such a workshop on us. That would not be so bad, really, if they had a clear idea about what they were trying to accomplish (we all teach so we learn). But instead, I had the distinct impression we were paying for the privilege of teaching them what they should be looking for, doing, and why.

Needless to say, I was glad the thing wasn't expensive.

Workshops are a Crap Shoot

Anyone who has ever attended a workshop knows that it's a crap shoot. You are never quite sure what is going to happen, who will attend (very important to how the thing goes), or what you'll learn (if anything).

I won't go into detail on this one, but suffice it to say that there were workshop leaders from all over the country who were led around without being consulted about how the thing was going -- except in terms of how to do it better next time.

Why not check in while the thing was happening and change directions when needed?

Learned A Lot (But Not As Advertised)

I came out of the day having learned what Sarah Mooney, my storytelling partner, and I need to insure when we lead our own programs. And I learned it better than if it had been taught on purpose.

1. These things need to be fun. Don't take yourself or your project too seriously.

2. They need to be fun through play. Real play. This means you, workshop leaders.

While doodling as you do in your teenage self while the grown-ups drone on, a fellow participant and I embellished a map of "workshop" we had created in a fit of silliness to meet the criteria of a completely different assignment (write a manifesto for workshop -- we should tell them?).

This participant crossed out the word "work" and replaced it with "play" -- as in playshop.

Playing means free movement -- of ideas, of the body, of relationships. Don't try to control things by sticking to the program. Honor your participants by checking in with them, and adjust accordingly.

3. Ask questions well -- and with precision.

Come up with an angle on an old question that can change perspective on the issue. No guarantees, but a little creativity and thought goes a long way.

More in the next post.

Children in the Middle East

There is a wonderful blog with posts from Palestinian and Israeli children. It worth seeing.

Leila Segal, a freelance journalist, runs the blog along with other youth projects. Take a look.

A Song in Case: Latin to the Oldies

I had the privilege to teach Latin cases to a group of year 5's at a school in Tower Hamlets this week. I can't remember the last time I've had so much fun at work.

Silly Works

To a non-classicist, the song's words are pretty dull (see the end of this post), and the melody doesn't have a lot of oomph either. But neither did Schoolhouse Rock in the US in the '70s, and a 40-something friend of mine and I can still sing through the preamble to the Constitution because of it.

I'm the first one to admit that our CAGSE composers aren't exactly on the level of those Schoolhouse Rock folks. Still, together with arm movements and the ability to stand up while they learn, it was a room full of enough energy and smiling faces that you might have mistaken the lesson for a party.

Story Time

After we sang for about 15 minutes, Sarah Mooney, CAGSE's Director of Storytelling, told a story about a boy with a flute and a princess who makes choices about who she'll marry ("this isn't one of those stories where the boys get to boss the girls around"). It was peppered with Latin vocabulary already familiar to the class.

A pretty sophisticated discussion ensued about both the plot and the words Sarah chose. Then we sang the song again (to make sure that they had learned the grammar, both in Latin and English).

They did.

Can you believe I get paid to do this?

The Song

Ovid, it ain't -- but the kids couldn't care less:

The nominative case is a person or thing doing the action in the sentence.
The accusative case is a person or thing receiving the action in the sentence.
The genitive case is of.
The dative case is to or for.
The ablative case is by, with, or from.

Blowing One's Own Horn

So rarely does one praised for one's work in public -- and to the skies -- that I must post the tribute here.

How lucky am I?

What we're up to at CAGSE . . . .

If I haven't mentioned it lately (and I haven't), a good way to find out what we're up to at CAGSE, particularly in the area of Classics is to visit Dr. Richard Gilder's site, Via Facilis.

Sarah Mooney and I run a Storytelling program that teaches close observation and drawing conclusions (otherwise known as analysis or critical thinking) through creative narrative. I'll tell you more about that soon.

Meanwhile, Richard said some very nice things about me here.

How can I not crow? Everyone should be so lucky to have such a colleague.

Everything Old: Canons IV

So here's a surprising turn of events, particularly after the last series of posts on canons and women.

I've been approached to republish a piece on Mary Pix and the misattribution of a play called Zelmane that originally appeared in Notes and Queries. This is an Oxford publication specializing in arcane details and footnotes that become articles from lack of relevance to the paper for which it was originally intended.

The piece will now go in a university textbook that lists "literature" from 1400 to 1800.

The anti-canonical becomes standard -- probably from boredom with what we've always studied.

Like language, "great" books change as we do.

Susanna Centlivre: Canons, III

Continuing from the last post and hoping not to belabor the point, we're gathered here to discuss the ways in which canon's are constructed and the requirement of transcendence in art.

Sounds a lot loftier than it is -- in fact, it's all rather predictable with what we know about human beings and their need to be right.

Where We Came From

As I mentioned in earlier posts, intellectual convictions often house emotional reactions but make claims to higher truths through the use of inpenetrable language.

If there isn't any hanging around, you can always make some up. T.S. Eliot's objective correlative, the French critics' priority in absences of presences, and so on.

(As a post-grad, friends of mine and I were going to do a video called Graduate School for Dummies along these lines -- highlighting the one or two ideas hidden cleverly in hundreds of pages of labored and precariously structured sentences.)

Running with the Woolfs

A previous post discusses a bit of Woolf's partial criteria that she claims are the signs of objectively beautiful and transcendent art.

Here's the strongest example of the way canons are made or broken.

Shakespeare's Sister

One of the most quoted and best remembered chapters Woolf wrote in any book is the one on Shakespeare's sister ("let's call her Judith") in A Room of One's Own.

Woolf uses the story to slam home all of the points she's made thus far -- women capable of "transcendent art" could have done if they had had the same opportunities as men.

Judith wants to write, but she's locked in her room by her parents and told she'll marry or else. She escapes through the window and educates herself at Cambridge dressed as a boy. She makes her way to London where a theater manager "takes pity on her."

Pregnant and without hope, Judith kills herself and lies buried at the crossroads of Elephant and Castle.

Honorable Mention

Susanna Centlivre has the same composite fictional biography as Judith. Although she lived a bit later, Centlivre supposedly ran away from home, studied at Cambridge dressed as a boy, and came to London to marry the cook at Queen Anne's Court.

The difference is that Centlivre really did become "the second woman of the English stage" after Aphra Behn. Her plays were in regular repertory until the end of the 19th C in England, and every library of note will lend you any one of her dramas.

David Garrick did his farewell performance in one of her plays. You don't get much more prestigious in the theater than that.

Centlivre was also a woman of letters whose words were seen in the popular press with those of men such as Sterne and Swift. With Woolf's knowledge history -- even of obscure writers such as Cavendish -- she had to know of Centlivre. So why did Woolf neglect to mention her at all?

Maybe because Centlivre's existence, like Cavendish's worthiness (something of which I believe Woolf was not convinced, of course), derails Woolf's argument connecting transcendence to fame and women writers to both.

Just a theory.

And that's how canon's are made. Or unmade.

All other great examples are welcome -- please send any you know of by email.

Canons II: How Do You Know That They're Loaded?

Continuing from the last post, why had no one heard of Susanna Centlivre when she was in regular repertory throughout the 19th C in England? When David Garrick had given his farewell performance in one of her plays? When she was known (until that time) as the second woman of the English stage?

This point, for those of you who have just tuned in, is certainly arcane. But it is a good example of the ways in which canons are constructed.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Virginia Woolf did women writers a great service by writing A Room of One's Own. In it, she created a space that has been broadened yearly for women to be recognized as artists equal to their male equivalents.

Women, Woolf says, require the same independence as men in order to create high art. How can anyone (man or woman) create anything of note if their time is divided among changing diapers and cooking meals -- without peace, quiet, and solitude to think?

All anyone needs, Woolf says, is 50 pounds and a room of one's own.

Not So Fast

If this were all, I'd be right behind Mme. Woolf. However, there is another requirement for women's art to rate. It must be transcendent.

Transcendence in Woolf's terms are really that of TS Eliot -- no everyday sorts of activities unless they are rendered symbolic in some way. That leaves 99% of women in history out of the ball game. Their lives were made up entirely of quotidien responsibilities, behaviors, and results.

In short, "transcendence" is gendered masculine here -- only those with particular educations and public lives could write about life outside the home.

An Example

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, a 17thC noblewoman, lived as public a life as was possible at that time. Only Aphra Behn, Restoration playwright and spy for Charles II, had a broader life. However, Behn's life made her notorious and Cavendish remained in society, even if she was considered a bit eccentric for her intellectual pursuits and writing.

Cavendish visited the Royal Society and saw Boyle do his experiments, and she made attempts at philosophy and poetry. However, her crowning achievement was a volume of 20 plays that are more modern than anything before the 20th century.

Cavendish's vision doesn't suit Woolf's. In fact, Woolf dismisses her in A Room of One's Own as the Mad Woman in the Attic.

In this way, Woolf buried Cavendish and her work for 4 and a half centuries. I wrote about her (and many other literary types who also saw the Virago volume) because she belongs in the history of remarkable women writers.

Soon, she'll be back in the canon. Officially. When a book comes out called The Great Book of Women Writers Through History or The Norton Reader of Women Writers -- or another such explicitly authoritative sort of name.

Well, people will say, it's in the book, so it must be true.

That's how canon's are fired.

And there's an even a more explicit example in the next post.

Taking a Shot at a Loaded Canon

I took a long walk with a good friend, and the subject came up of the ways in which canons are constructed. Is there such a thing as transendence in art -- some aesthetic representation that are universally moving?

TS Eliot certainly thought so. As it happens, so did my very famous and well-respected friend.

But is the rest of art more than a wasteland?

The Back Story

I wrote my dissertation on four playwrights that I had found in a volume published by Virago entirely by chance when I arrived early for a lunch appointment.

The playwrights are Susanna Centlivre, Mary Pix, Catherine Trotter, Mary Delariviere Manley, and Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.

I had a feeling that if I hadn't heard of them, very few other people had either. So I decided to see what there was to know.

True But Not Clever

The short version is this:
Male critics had taken these women out of the cannon because of disdain for their sex, their plays, or both.

There was much more information from feminist critics. The problem is that they had also taken the playwrights out of context to lionize them. It was a mixed bag -- 19th C critics who had run out of road projected 19th C theories backward on the 18th and 17th centuries. Their history was bad, and the conclusions were just wrong. 20th C feminist critics projected contemporary literary theory on drama and drama history.

The whole thing was a mess. I decided to simply put these plays back in context to see what happened. Seemed so obvious, really.

Who Knew?

This work was full of surprises. One of the playwrights, Susanna Centlivre, had been performed in regular repertory in England until the end of the 19th C. David Garrick had done his farewell performance in one of her plays. She was a woman of letters yakking it up with the likes of Jonathan Swift.

Why hadn't anyone ever heard of her?

More in the next post.

Spelling: The Sequel

Dictionary Evangelist

Erin McKean is a lexicographer and entertaining conference speaker.

When first I encountered her two years ago at GEL, she began her talk by addressing a common misconceptions about her work.

"People often think that lexicographers prescribe meaning and keep the language as pure as possible. In fact, we research the way language is used -- in all sorts of media -- and we chart how language changes."

With this in mind, Erin's views on spelling are generous. See the last post for details on how to let yourself off the hook, regardless of how often others wince at the way you put letters together in writing

When Last We Saw Our Hero . . .

Erin is working as an independent assessor for CAGSE's Latin programs in primary school. The success of the pilot, running in 15 schools across London, will be measured both by her and by another independent assessor and former head of the Primary Trust, Peter Frost.

The first rule in business: If you haven't measured it, it never happened.

And So

Erin and I had supper at Carluccio's (for those of you who visit London occasionally -- there are quite a few, and the food is consistently good without being expensive).

I was interested to hear about her day in the schools.

We got on the subject of spelling and spell checks.

"Spell checks are terrible," said Erin, "and even if someone were to design a good one, people wouldn't use it anyway."

I asked why. She explained it thus:

It's very similar to the way a smoke alarm goes off every time you make toast. How many times has such a device been dismantled, never to be seen again?

The spell check is very much like a smoke alarm that demands attention every time one writes anything. It's annoying. So you ignore it.

Happens to be true for me, and I'm a lousy speller.

So Why Are Those of Us Not Blessed With the Spelling Gene So Bad At Catching Mistakes, Even When We Try?

Erin has given this a lot of thought. "Fixing your spelling requires that you know that you don't know how to spell a word (which means checking a lot of false positives from your spell checker) ... how often do you know that you don't know something, when it's something you're not good at in the first place?"

And the alternative?

"I think we need two things: better spell checkers (no false positives) and more leniency for typos/thinkos/spellos."

Leniency for Spellos. I'd vote for the person who ran for president on that ticket (Why do you hate freedom?).

So many jokes I could make about the thinkos of the White House's current inhabitant, but it's just too easy. I'm just not that kind of girl.

More in the next post on spelling, dictionaries, and the enlightenment.

"A" is For Apple (And Also for Adapt)

Spelling it Out

There have been debates in education at least since the 1960's over whether or not demanding proper spelling will block children's creative impulses.

One side posits that children should write in whatever form they like without reference to grammatical or linguistic standards practiced by (some) adults. In what other time of life is it possible to be free to express feelings, thoughts, ideas without fear of censure from authority?

The other side of the argument says that without enforcing spelling rules, children don't learn self-discipline.

The Dictionary Evangelist

Erin McKean, Dictionary Evangelist -- and lexicographer for Oxford University Press -- feels that good spellers have made life unnecessarily uncomfortable for those without the same talent.

"It's genetic," she told me at dinner, "like being able to roll your tongue or bend your first knuckle back."

Erin's concern is that that those with this genetic gift -- or (worse) those who have beaten into submission without benefit of it -- have created an unrelenting sense of morality about getting words right. This peculiar zeal (and the opinion about spelling that is its source) are apparently only apparent for those who evangelize about English.

"There's a sense that if you misspell a word, you're being lazy or just don't care."

And how many of the seven deadly sins will then collect in such an atmosphere of sloth?

The demand for fortitude extends to moralizing about spell checks. Spell checks are dangerous because they encourage slovenliness of mind. They clean one's dirty laundry that would otherwise be hanging out for everyone to see. And we should clean our own laundry, by gum.

I couldn't help wondering if these puritans of metaphor had ever hired cleaners for their homes.

How consistent are these religious principles anyway?

Discipline Shmiscipline

Erin suggests that that spelling is really only one discipline among many. If good spellers took their argument to the logical conclusion, it would be absurd.

"Should we say shoes are immoral, too? That if we were just disciplined enough to toughen up our feet, we could all walk around barefoot?"

According to Erin, language changes as people need it to change. Dictionaries do not prescribe meaning but instead describe the ways in which words have transformed and are used every day.

So those who sniff at new and alternative spellings when they see them in their OED are simply hardened reactionaries, condemned to a life of mounting disappointment and increasing despair.

More in the next post.

For Those of You Who Love Language, A Treat

Erin McKean, a consultant assessor for our Latin programs in State schools, has a most wonderful blog called Dictionary Evangelist.

Subscribe if you love language -- it's consistently a lot of fun.

Transition Year Challenges: Mapping the Journey

Continuing from the last post . . . .

I spoke to an arts organization in London's East End, and they are interested in working with CAGSE on a mapping project for transition-year children we work with in our storytelling program. This program I've designed and implement with a professional storyteller called Sarah Mooney.

The Program

The Storytelling program does a number of things, all at once:

1. Raising children's awareness of how they think, how they feel, and the relationship between the two. This allows them to be responsible for the choices they make -- once they understand how they make them.

2. Offering children ownership over creative efforts that are often prescribed.

3. Giving children practice being more observant. Most people get lost in the process of analytic work somewhere between observation and drawing conclusions. Heighten sensitivity to the world around you, understand the importance of looking closely at detail, and you're less likely to take short cuts. This alone develops habits for more rigorous analysis of problems and makes it more likely we'll solve them in a satisfying way.

3. Offering teachers ways to enhance their own good work through somatic learning strategies. If we learn best by understanding concepts in different contexts, why not get the information in to the body as well as through the ears into the head?

4. Offering teachers ways new ways to approach subjects that are hardest to teach -- critical thinking, grammar, and writing, citizenship, and self-esteem.

We offer this program to schools to put in a literacy slot within the curriculum. It both develops literacy skills and works towards the requirements of the SEAL program currently being rolled out for the good of children's emotional development.

Getting the Program on a Map

It's likely that in January CAGSE will be working with Chris Nold to do emotional mapping of neighborhoods around a school through intergenerational walks -- within the school as well.

If Chris's and our past work is anything to go by, the project will give children and parents (or grandparents) a bigger context in which to see themselves as individuals, their relationship with school, and their place in the physical environment at home and in and around academic work.

Sarah and I will then build the storytelling work around negotiating identity within families, within schools structure, and as children move on to secondary school from the comfort of a familiar primary school environment.

More in the next post . . .

Emotional Cartography: In and Outside the Classroom

Continuing from the last post . . . .

I met with Chris Nold a week or so ago to discuss the possibility of working on a project within the storytelling work we do at CAGSE.

Most learning challenges for children are emotional rather than intellectual. What if we could help kids learn better by visually mapping the way they learn?

The Order of Chaos

In the creative process, there is always a point at which one steps into unknown territory. Writers often call it a block, but everyone knows that feeling of frustration when you've walked out of what you know and are not yet where you want to go.

Most of the time, this state causes anxiety, stress, and despair. It doesn't matter how many journeys of this kind we've made -- somehow, each time, we believe the state of not knowing will never end.

Once acknowledged, adults have the cognitive resources -- both intellectual and emotional -- to remind themselves that they've done this before, to remember the moment when they last found their way, and that no one exists in a limbo of uncertainty forever.

In other words, adults have the reasoning abilities (and one hopes, the practice) to know that change is inevitable.

What if there were a way to help children understand and remember this as well? Would this allow them to be feel comfortable with more risk and be more creative?

More in the next post.

Mapping Order from Chaos: Chris Nold

Pop Tech

I'm not sure how many of you have seen Kate Bulkley's article on Pop Tech in Guardian, but it's certainly worth taking a look. Of all the pieces I've seen, this one gives the closest picture to my experience of the conference -- both in content and energy.

Chris Nold

One of the most impressive speakers spoke the first day -- Chris Nold, who does emotional mapping of cities. Chris is interested in cities: what -- essentially -- is a city? What makes one city different from another? What makes one neighborhood stand out in one way while others don't?

It's not the buildings alone, Chris contends. It's the relationship between and among people and the environment.

Mapping It

Chris has created a machine that measures adrenaline as people walk around a neighborhood. Get enough people taking the same walk, record what they say, and you can map the overlaps and differences that make that neighborhood unique.

If this explanation is too abstract, please look here.

The results are extraordinary. More in the next post.

Speaking of Latin (and in it) . . .

The CEO of CAGSE, Dr. Richard Gilder, contends that the reason Classics are no longer taught in schools is the way they HAVE been taught to date.

There are plenty of academic torments we endure that have no immediately apparent application to day-to-day life. In fact, of all of these academic abstractions, Latin has the clearest relevance of all -- knowledge of it can faciliatate communication and understanding in whichever Romance language you speak.

And it works in English, too.

There's nothing that I can post that will match the blogs of the primary school kids with whom we work. These are all pupils who would not ordinarily have access to learning Latin, and through CAGSE have begun the language as a new adventure.

See what they have to say.

Spelling Out Enlightenment

In the last post, I discussed a conversation with Erin McKean, lexicographer and assessor for the CAGSE Latin programs in literacy.

Erin accuses good spellers of brutal moralizing -- using particular fixed meanings for words to instill shame and (they hope) submission and conformity to their points of view.

Erin thinks that good spellers have got their talent from one of their genes -- much in the same way that some people find it easier to do sums or match colors. Or they've been beaten and repressed so much that they want to impose the same treatment on others.

So Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Frankly, I blame Samuel Johnson.

As the first dictionary writer, he inevitably set a trend for those with a fear of change. Let's face it: Johnson believed in right and wrong. All of his epigrams, witty as they might be, inevitably moralize.

I mean really -- if a London dispatch rider is tired of London -- the smoke, the traffic, the congestion charge -- is he really, necessarily tired of life?

The Alternative

It's important to remember that Johnson wasn't the only 18th C thinker publishing like mad (and being read). The 18th C was one that was defined by an overarching argument about what it means to know.

There are those, like Johnson, Pope, and that crowd who defied change in meaning -- of custom, in fashion, and all the other things that went into building and maintaining the British Empire by force.

Then there was the other set -- Swift, Sterne, Susanna Centlivre and others -- who believed everything that one knows is defined by perspective.

Wouldn't advocacy of sort of play argue for a creative take on spelling and meaning?

And have you noticed that all (Western) arguments always come back to Plato and Aristotle?

More in the next post.

Media Discretion: How to Use the Phone

Everyone uses the phone for business, but how?

As someone who worked in Silicon Alley in the early 90s, I felt quite sure that I understood online trends. I even wrote about them for a large consulting firm.

Clued in, me.

However, somehow I forgot all this when it came to training a high-level employee, very smart, but very young.

Young here doesn't mean immature: instead, it indicates a digital divide.

And I'm supposed to be an expert.

What Happened

From the first meeting I had with my employee (call him Joe) and our client, it was clear that he knew what he was doing. He had exceptional instincts.

Joe's job: new business development within educational communities.

In person he is an excellent communicator, and has good judgment about timing (when to say what to whom to greatest effect).

However, when I left Joe on his own, what I neglected to take into account in a majority of cases, he sent email rather than having real time conversation with new clients.

I'm talking voice here, of course, not text.

Lesson 1: How to Use the Phone

One day, I got four angry phone calls from three different people involved in the project. Every one of them seemed to be very upset about something entirely different.

Then I figured out that the common problem was none of the specifics explicitly stated in loud, angry voices.

It was email.

This Might Sound Obvious to Us (Not Even That Much) Older Folk . . .

At the root of every mess was the assumption that email 1) conveys transparently the intended meaning of the sender, 2) is read immediately, and 3) is the most effective way to communicate decisions.

It never occurred to my young executive to pick up the phone and find out what was going on.

We Lost the Client

Ultimately, it's my fault for not anticipating this problem. In fact, I've never trained anyone so young.

There was nothing wrong in the email in terms of what was said -- it was the fact that an email was sent at all.

I assumed that this sort of relationship management would be common sense to someone with Joe's flawless in-person communication skills.

But how would he learn media discretion if he only talks on the phone when text was unavailable?

Back to Pop Tech in the next post.

More on What (Not) to Say: American Education

Say No More

I read a provocative blog post this morning that talks about the criminal code in the US that (this blogger claims) has an effect on our personal relationships:

EVERYONE who lives in the USA knows that "we have the right to remain silent." That little prayer is from something called the Miranda ruling by the Supreme Court. If you get arrested, the cops have to advise you that you have the right to not testify against yourself, which is protected by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. The "Miranda warning" typically includes something like, "Anything you say can be used against you in court."

Bush and the Patriot Act seem relatively recent, and the widespread fear of being watched, held, saying the wrong thing in the US seems relatively recent.

However, I'd never thought about the Miranda Rights' potential influence on the American psyche, particularly when teaching children what's possible. American crime television and cinema often ends with the crook being caught with this particular mantra heard over a din (and it is chanted like a mantra).

After the British press yesterday reported that interventions in primary education have failed and testing is not useful (is anyone who isn't a politician surprised?), it's clearly not only Americans who need to encourage children to know what they think, say what they know, and not be afraid to see what others don't.

For Americans (and Viewers of American Crime Drama), What Alternative?

The idea wouldn't seem quite so provocative if it weren't for this question: what common chants encourage us to say what we think without threat of recrimination? And what implications does this have for kids who watch TV for much longer (and often much earlier) than they read?