It’s probably true that the vast majority of ambitions that people have will never be realised. However, sometimes falling short isn’t a bad thing, particularly when the result is finding success in an entirely different area, under circumstances unforeseen.

I’ve always been interested in things such as computers, the internet and more recently the changing shape education, so I’ve had in the back of my head the idea that I should really talk more about these thoughts and see if I can get others to listen. Attending Ulearn in 2010 was a start, as was sharing some more disruptive views on “Gifted” education and the English curriculum.

So for the last few years I’ve maintained a blog, learnt new skills, and even launched a few websites for people I know. All of these little efforts sent out the message to my family and people who know me with similar interests that I’ve got a voice here and I’m willing to take some initiative in order to share it.

Then a few little opportunities arose and became something greater and more positively challenging than I’d expected.

Learning together

A week ago now, I took a few years of thinking and about a year of collaboration with Dr Cheryl Doig of Think Beyond, and joined her in presenting a workshop in front of ~65 teachers at the Learning@School 2012 conference. This was a big step up for me, as I ditched the script and talked to an audience of notetakers who were quick with questions throughout.

The topic was mentoring, between teachers and students, with my side of the talk focused around student voice and ways that teachers can listen to the feedback of students and importantly, make something of it.

Although it may not convey the specific ideas, you can get an idea of what we were presenting on in the slideshow below:

The response after presenting was really overwhelming. To hear that people had enjoyed my presentation was one thing, but to discuss afterwards these very ideas with them and see the notes they’d taken down was evidence enough that I had successfully delivered something that might just be helpful.

For more of my own thoughts on these topics, take a read of these blog posts:

• Evolving Education
• What mentors mean
• Snowed in

So what now? That’s the advantage I suppose of having these ambitions and ideas but not really planning too definitively what will become of them. I want to return and speak again, but for now I’m going to keep refining these ideas through my blog and continue to stay in touch with the changes ahead, through my own school and elsewhere.