A long view of education

Remember what it was like when you where 10? Who was your teacher? Who were your friends? What was the best thing about going to school? What was the worst? What did you learn? And have you stayed connected to those other young lives who, when you were 10, might have seemed like they made up the whole world?

For most of us in #the40project, being 10 is a long time ago. For some, it’s a really long time ago. And maybe for a few, we have no wish to declare just how long ago it was.

Conjure up, if you can, a particular incident, a place, a person from that time. Who is that person, and what’s so significant about them that they remain, to this day, easily retrieved from your tired and weary brain (it is, after all, report writing season in most jurisdictions)?

Reflecting on these questions recalled a somewhat peripatetic story. In New South Wales, Australia, there is a quirk of public education called “opportunity classes” (affectionately, or disparagingly, known as OC), special and examination entry-based exclusive classes for “high potential and gifted students in Year 5 and 6” that require such talented students to “leave their current school” and join together with students from other local schools. Apparently, those who are selected to join OC in any of the 87 such schools are students who, according to the NSW Department of Education, tend to:

1) be intensely curious

2) learn new ideas or skills quickly and easily

3) display a good memory

4) ask complex questions

5) be creative

6) enjoy thinking in complex ways

7) require fewer repetitions when learning new things

8) be highly focused in their area of interest or passion.

Excellent skills, for sure, although I’d hope most schools are developing students in most of these areas, although maybe 2, 3, and 7 are admittedly a little more niche.

So, nearly 50 years ago, a disparate group of exceptional kids got thrown together from across the breadth and width of a 370km2 area in southern Sydney, NSW, known as “the Shire”. For some, its very name strikes a non-Tolkien based awe and fear, whether because you’ve read Kathy Lette’s “Puberty Blues”, listened to the then popular indie band, “The Cockroaches” (who rebranded more successfully as “The Wiggles”), or know it as the home of former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

These quirky kids came together for a rich two years of inquiry-based, experiential, arts and creativity rich learning, the type of joyous experiences that get less of a policy look-in currently. Then, they went their separate ways, back to their local high schools which did not have such gifted enclaves; for some, they went to the grown-up version of OC, the selective high school, and some went to non-government schools. Like the brevity of life reflected in the film, “Awakenings”, this rich and engaging school experience blossomed for a brief time and then, for many, receded (NOTE: “Awakenings” is not only an extraordinary film, with superb performances by Robin Williams and Robert de Niro, but you get a lot of on screen time with Julie Kavner, best known for being the unseen voice of Marge Simpson; if you're curious about who's behind iconic cartoon voices, also check out Dan Castellaneta who voiced Homer, and many others...but I digress).

Or did it?

Two of those “special” boys eventually finished Year 6 and seemed destined never to see one another again, banished to completely different secondary schools in completely different school sectors. Two flourishing years would wither.

Fast forward to 1985, and, bizarrely, here they are again. In one of those dramatic scripts neither of them was capable of writing at the time (despite eventually taking the same drama classes at university), one sat in front of the other at the tremulous enrolment day in a confusing and overwhelming lecture theatre. No contact, no conversation for six years, yet here they were together again, reliving halcyon days from OC.

Those brief years also soon evaporated, and paths diverged again. A few other chance meetings popped up over the next decade, but otherwise both returned to their separate worlds.

Then, after more years than either would admit, different careers, family growth and reconfigurations, they reconnected in another of those happenstance moments that would likely be rejected as contrived if pitched to a movie studio executive. Remembering the heady days of OC in the Shire, they both realised its vision of life, and of education, had held them in good stead.

But that makes for rather a saccharine ending, doesn’t it? The truth is, failure and heartache for both were much more frequent intermissions in this grand epic than either would prefer. One dropped out of university, the other failed much of their first year of tertiary study. What unrealised talent! What a waste! Look at what these boys had been gifted! Look at the opportunities they had! At the time, perhaps these were not unreasonable responses, the derision of others was understandable.

Yet, isn’t it easy to draw premature conclusions about those entrusted to our care when they are still “on the road” to where they’re going. Strangely, those who excel at school, then stumble successfully into life, seem rarer than might otherwise be assumed. Have you ever gone to a 20-year reunion, or a 30-year reunion? That’s fodder enough for another #the40project post alone; suffice to say, these experiences are paradoxical catalogues of unrealised potential and dark horses.

So, what about the students we face each day? Where are they now, and what will they become? What (premature) conclusions might we draw about them, or what limitations might we impose on them when they clearly have so much more ahead of them than the few years of our journey together might suggest?

More directly, what might others have predicted about me when I was that young? How has my life turned out, given its start?

For some, there have been hurdles to clear, mountains to climb, and perhaps success has followed. For others, a life of privilege and opportunity seems to be squandered, the profligacy of the prodigious.

Still, with some, like Martin, something remarkable happens. A vision of joy, of creativity, of music bursts through. That Shire boy, the phenomenally talented musician who dropped out of university, has now found opportunity many years later to be a muse for others, and not in the rarefied atmosphere of an OC alone, but for anyone who’s keen to have a go. He’s gone on to found, and currently leads, Band Together Foundation, a music program currently in “30 schools across greater Sydney…[engaging] over 1500 students weekly”! Soon, he’ll produce a bands spectacular gala night at Riverside Theatre in Parramatta that will bring together students and their families in a celebration of music, energy, and life! It seems a long way from the domesticated Shire. Or is it?

As a primary student, he was a fun and lively kid. As a university student, perhaps a less-than-focused scholar with a drive to get out into the world and make a difference. But after a few detours, he’s now a force for good in the lives of thousands. How poor it would have been to write him off as a benign cute kid, or an ill-disciplined tertiary student. Latent within was always the music, the passion, the joie de vivre.

And now it’s here! Not the pinnacle, the culmination, but merely the next step along a never-ending meandering that enriches the lives of many. Maybe you’d like to experience it too, and you can, come the first week of July.

Simultaneous with the frenzy that surrounds the current discourse on generative AI is a renewed interest in, and commitment to, the power of creativity and the arts. Martin embodies this. The bands spectacular gala realises this. And hundreds of kids and their families testify to this. It’s why I’m grateful to Martin for giving permission to share his story, and I’ve no shame in advocating support of the event.

For, in full disclosure, I’m the other kid.