Starting from a passion
Creating a learning festival from passion, imagination, networks, perseverance, courage and with few material resources is no mean feat. It is undoubtedly a labour of love and an act of creative bravery. There is no doubt that there are plenty of ideas about how education could be, but changing life long patterns, taking risky steps is challenging and uncomfortable.
Why this festival?
As a group of educators, parents, designers and creatives we had hosted an event during the Fire Starter Festival in Jan 2020 on the future of education. With the onset of the COVID crisis, we started to meet regularly again online to make sense of what was happening and consider what opportunities for young people’s learning now and in the future were emerging.
On hearing there wasn’t going to be a Scottish Learning Festival this year, we invited others to join the Brave table and imagine what would we do in that space? Listening and connecting with those in our communities and networks, we began to gather stories and examples of brave and creative practices already happening within education.
How could we showcase these, and inspire others? What could a Creative Bravery Festival look like? Not one that focuses on the problems of the past, but one that is created by those already trying out ideas and practices: ‘pockets of the future in the present’.
What will the festival looK like?
We’ve replicated the idea of a summer festival and provided a range of tents, bonfires, look-out towers, and tool-sheds with each of the spaces hosting different events and resources including:
– Bonfires: Creative Thinking, Remaking Learning, and Brave Teachers
– Campfires: Looking beyond the obvious, Co-designing the curriculum, and the art of Winging-It.
– Films that explore the future of education, processes of reimagining, and how an 8 year old responds to the Covid restrictions. A Creative Bravery playlist that will provide the soundtrack to the festival. As the festival develops so will the playlist – come have a silent disco with us.
We have representation from nursery, primary, secondary, colleges, universities, businesses, third-sector, parents, and of course learners with events from Scotland, Ireland, Australia and America.
How can you get involved?
1. Attend an event in the Discovery tent. These are 50 minute slots where people will be sharing their creative bravery in a workshop, discussion, or pre- rerecorded film.
2. Children and Young People can submit short films to be included in the Look-Out area of the website. These films should be their vision of the future of education.
3. Organisations and schools can submit and access resources for the Tool Shed area. The festival is looking for lesson plans, toolkits, and articles to inspire creative bravery.
4. Each day of the festival we’ll launch a series of ‘Brave Challenges.’ These activities are designed for educators to use with learners. The Challenges will launch at 9am every day in the Café area and you can find out more on our website www.creativebraveryfestival.com
This has been a hard, joyous, frustrating, brave journey.
We’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t; what it means to work as a collective and how amazingly generous people are with their time and interest. Follow us on twitter for all the latest updates @createbravery and see the full festival line up on our website www.creativebraveryfestival.com
See you there!
From the creators of Creative Bravery Festival