Malcolm Bellamy's Lifelong Learning Blog

One of my favourite songs is “Do you believe in magic?” by The Lovin’ Spoonful. The song was recorded in 1965. It has a lightness and joyousness that seems to represent an innocence of first experience, of delight in being alive and specifically being young. Here is a link to the song:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Ta1UUB05w

The  video plays the song alongside a picture of Disney’s version of J.M. Barrie‘s classic children’s story “Peter Pan”.

The idea of innocence and the Sheer joy of childhood came back to me today as Google did one of their famous Google-Doodles to honour what would have been the 85th birthday of Maurice Sendak who wrote and illustrated the classic children’s book “Where The Wild Things Are”.

Sendak understood the wild imaginations of the child and the fact that we are all born to live as well as create stories, adventures and fantastical flights into unknown and incredible places.

On a day like this, when we think of Sendak, do we not, all of us, have some regret for the loss of the magic?  When the monsters leave our lives and grey reality enters do we not lose something very powerful within us?

Fortunate are those who still romp with wild things of their imagination and let the magic do its work.

Related articles

• ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ author Maurice Sendak celebrated in Google Doodle (independent.co.uk)

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http://www.upworthy.com/a-brave-fan-asks-patrick-stewart-a-question-he-doesnt-usually-get-and-is-given-a-beautiful-answer-3?c=upw1

The article above includes a video of an answer to a question posed to Sir Patrick Stewart at a Star Trek meeting in Texas.
These meetings are usually lots of low level discussion about how it was to appear in the series, how he developed the Captain Picard character etc.,
But in the midst of the usual questions came an unusual one from a fan who had a background of domestic abuse. Stewart answers bravely and honestly drawing from his own experience of his mother’s abuse from his father.
He talks about his powerlessness to protect her from the beatings and his recent discovery of the fact that his father was suffering from what we would now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
He does not defend his father’s actions though but seeks to understand them. As  he says in the video the answer lies with men and no man ever has the right to abuse a woman.
I was particularly moved by his hug with the young lady at the end.

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http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/17/to-encourage-creativity-mr-gove-understand?CMP=twt_gu

This is a really well written argument  by Sir Ken Robinson showing just how little our present Secretary of State, Michael Gove really understands what creativity is and why we need to free children to find their interests and not tie them to a heavily proscribed and over-tested curriculum.

This weekend the National Association of Head teachers is being addressed by Mr Gove and he will receive a frosty but professional reception from the members of my ex-union who feel that he does not understand their concerns about his plans for curriculum change and the push towards more academy schools.

I would like to add my distant vote to their concerns and the motion that is being debated that “this union has no confidence in the present Secretary of State”.

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http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22540408

This article raises a number of questions for me.

(1) What are the implications of comfort with reading from a screen on a school system that still promotes books and magazines?

(2) Is the ability of tablets to widen  the reading experience ( by the ability to electronically underline, highlight, share and reference quotes or seek background)  seen as a means to promote and make literacy more powerful or as a threat to intensive interaction with the text?

(3) How can we relate to the fact that more and more youngsters prefer to get news from an online source and not newspapers and magazines and will the promotion of these media in schools create difficulties for students who may never come across them at home?

(4) Will the gap between boys and girls in terms of preference for the use of printed media widen and what are the implications for schools?

(5) How will these findings effect libraries?

I would be interested for any feedback on these questions or maybe some other questions that the article raises.

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I have been continuing to enjoy the fascinating Learning Creative Learning CMOOC from M.I.T.
This coming week we will be looking at “Makers” and I have been delving into the readings as well as doing some of my own research as I like to do.
I found that there is huge and ever-growing worldwide movement of people of all ages who call themselves “Makers” and attend large “Maker Faires” at which they exhibit their projects and participate in a festival of interaction where they swop ideas and stories and suggest improvements and developments. Indeed there has been a Faire in Newcastle here in the U.K. this weekend.
I was fascinated to see the sheer enthusiasm of these people, their openness to learning with and from each other and the brilliant products that they made in their garages or lofts or a backroom often with really basic materials.
I got to thinking of why I had never become a Maker and why I spent all of my adult life thinking I was “no good with my hands”. I am the grandson of a carpenter who made two beautiful wardrobes as a wedding present for my parents. My brother,as a child, loved to make up kits and would spend hours and hours getting thousands of little parts organised and then put them together as a plane from World War 2 or a tank from the same era.
One year at Christmas my patents bought a Meccano set and a toy typewriter. I finished up with the typewriter and this led to years and years where I fondly imagined I would become a great writer. My brother tinkered away with his Meccano set and made all sorts of things.
At secondary school I remember that Woodwork classes were the low-point of my week. Some of my fellow-pupils seemed to thrive in making a cabinet but I found it difficult to even saw straight!
I preferred to be sent out of class for playing around so that I could read a good book outside.
Little by little I was convincing myself and (as I now know) my brain, that I was useless at anything practical. My adult life was one which needed others to do the practical things. I did though gain some self-confidence in fixing and changing a lightbulb and occasionally wiring something up to a plug.
So, I looked at these enthusiastic people and began to think about how much I had missed out in my life by believing that I could not make, I could not fix, I was not “handy”.
At 60 years of age I am working to rebuild a part of my life that I had allowed to leave. As as child I played happily in my Nursery and in my infant school. I made things out of plasticine and built imaginary buildings from bricks.
We are all born “makers” it is about being human and learning to manipulate objects and somehow get things to work. It is about experiment and it is about a lot of failure and, at its best, it is sheer joy.
I know this now and I also know that it leads to the gaining of a lot of important life skills which is why I believe that all children should have access to the chance to make and that it should be a key part of their education.
I don’t want today’s children looking back as I do saying that they were never any good with their hands. They are all born makers and they can all learn to make something and our society needs them to feel this way as my grandfather and brother always did.

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