Thanks to Peter Knight for the lead to the books of Austin Kleon.
I'd seen the first book: 'How to steal like an artist' in Foyles before (my browsing bookshop of choice when I have time to kill in St. Pancras - which is quite often) but not bought it, but now need to revisit it I think.
Austin has a book coming out in 2014 on the theme of Creativity and SHARING, and there's lots of overlap with the work of teachers here... we create all the time, and these rules apply to us just as much as they do to artists and writers.
The notion of sharing our work is one which is close to my heart of course as a blogger since 2002, I've shared most of my best ideas free of charge (although there's also more than a few in the various books that I've written, or project resources I've written...) There's also a general feeling that some of the recent changes in education towards competition and league tables might reduce the amount of sharing that is done. It's the years of sharing that contributed to my being awarded the Tivy Education Medal a few months ago by the RSGS.
It's an interesting idea as to whether there are actually any original ideas in teaching. Earlier in the week, I spent time in my classroom doing the end-of-term tidy up and some preparation for the new term, and discovered a cupboard full of old geography textbooks from several decades ago, and they were full of the same sort of activities as one might find in today's books.. albeit with smaller images and references to a lost world of coal mines, High St. shopping and infrastructure that could cope with the amount of traffic on it...
And here's a TED Talk, which Austin gave on his 'manifesto'....
Why not make 2014 the year that you share more of your practice with others if you haven't already....
I'd seen the first book: 'How to steal like an artist' in Foyles before (my browsing bookshop of choice when I have time to kill in St. Pancras - which is quite often) but not bought it, but now need to revisit it I think.
Austin has a book coming out in 2014 on the theme of Creativity and SHARING, and there's lots of overlap with the work of teachers here... we create all the time, and these rules apply to us just as much as they do to artists and writers.
The notion of sharing our work is one which is close to my heart of course as a blogger since 2002, I've shared most of my best ideas free of charge (although there's also more than a few in the various books that I've written, or project resources I've written...) There's also a general feeling that some of the recent changes in education towards competition and league tables might reduce the amount of sharing that is done. It's the years of sharing that contributed to my being awarded the Tivy Education Medal a few months ago by the RSGS.
It's an interesting idea as to whether there are actually any original ideas in teaching. Earlier in the week, I spent time in my classroom doing the end-of-term tidy up and some preparation for the new term, and discovered a cupboard full of old geography textbooks from several decades ago, and they were full of the same sort of activities as one might find in today's books.. albeit with smaller images and references to a lost world of coal mines, High St. shopping and infrastructure that could cope with the amount of traffic on it...
And here's a TED Talk, which Austin gave on his 'manifesto'....
Why not make 2014 the year that you share more of your practice with others if you haven't already....
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