Status Change

To those who have followed this Blog assiduously, time for a change for the moment.  I have been an Educational Consultant for 8 years, changing from Teacher to Consultant was a big deal and though generally I have loved it over this time, the work has diminished enormously in the past 12 months.  I start a post linked to ICT in the next few weeks, and will relegate mostof my  consultancy to occasional projects as required. It is hard to know whether to feel sad or relieved as the work has been dipping over the past two years, but especially has become much harder to find, and taking longer to get paid for.

So this post is a history of design education since I went to school, very brief, don't worry I 'll try to keep it zippy, and the post after this will be about the future of technology education as I see it.

I was one of the first cohort to do 'Design'.  My O'level practical in woodwork was to come up with a mechanism that created a two tone chime for a student radio station and there had never been an exam like it before, baffling many teachers.  My grammar focussed school did not offer A'Level Design, I  am not sure whether anyone did then, but I did Technical Drawing and came top of the class in the final exams which mixed in questions about design.

After 5 years or so in the design industry, getting paid to think fast and work even faster, I retrained as a teacher and immediately found that all schools were not created equal.  Some had barely moved on from the idea of 'workshop' and I remember the granddad of one pupil bringing in his metal trowel to show it was identical to the one his grandchild had just made with me 50 years later.

It was the 1980's and design was big, but flashy and really about surface for the most part.  You could design a nice pattern but nice products were difficult with hand drawing and workshop tools.  Colourful 3D items tended to be wildly impractical in the main but a redesign of the curriculum around the early 90's brought in thoughtful design, the concept of thinking through a problem and realising a solution through trial and error.  Further reforms slowly migrated to this design for function approach and the availability of computers did much to enable students to experiment before making.

By 2000 when I took a gap in full time teaching to be a house husband, Technology in schools was still a little confused.  Many schools still did basic projects but at least students got to work in all disciplines, not just boys in woodwork and girls in sewing.  I was fortunate to return to teaching at a school which had recently gained technology status, along with considerable funding to make it work, and took it very seriously.  I thrived for much of the time though having more ideas than organisational skill then was a bit of a downer.  There were still schools around which stuck to dull lifeless projects but they became fewer in number each year.  I felt like I knew what was cutting edge and useful, built on the shoulders of yesterday successes and misses in education.

When I became a Consultant in 2005, Technology and prosperity were seen as hand in hand.  Many many projects were funded by Government to promote Technology education and skill the students and teachers in schools.  I was involved in setting up an Engineering centre where we hoped to develop and promote innovative creation applications of engineering.  Across the education sector many companies put their name to projects and competitions but in the main, then as now, it was Government funded.  It may have been called the green grass of home bolt initiative or something equally funky but trace the funding back through local regional arts and creativity organisations (all taking a cut of the funding available) and you eventually got back to Whitehall.

It has always been the case that outside funding has driven innovation in Technology Education where it has been successful in passing from school to school.  Teachers given time to visit others, regional excellence hubs, consultants and professional organisations all played a part but they were overwhelmingly dependent on the Government for their funding.  That funding has either dried up or been 'un ring-fenced' which means schools can use it for other more pressing needs.  Government political focus on core curriculum and other initiatives have further relegated Technology and other subjects to the sidelines.  Long gestating curriculum reforms haven't helped either.  The Internet has been one bright spark, helping people like me reach people like you, but at the end of the day someone has to pay for things to be developed and communicated and people trained.  Even if you use a current teacher, it will cost you to send them to another school by covering their time away.  Compared to a network consultant, I am cheap as chips, but I still cost...

A recent project was a fixed bid at 3 days.  I knew I could do it in this time, probably as 6 half days with a few meetings with staff.  That project has now taken 11 days because it is so hard to talk to staff.  They are keen, they are motivated but they are constantly pulled around by monthly and weekly targets and even daily changes to their intended progress.  The additional 8 days have been unpaid and will continue to do so until the project is paid off.  I was offered some new work but would be unlikely to complete it before October because of school holidays and staff free time restrictions which means getting paid in December.

Most of the consultants have gone, or repeat the same narrow band of projects over and over.  Many were older than me and semi retired heads or department heads so it wasn't a big change for them.  I have developed and delivered 200+ projects since 2000, some of them being used internationally, but someone has to pay for my time.  That funding is now in seriously short supply so I am working in ICT instead for most of my week for a while.

Don't think I am being bitter, but I am being pointed.  Most of my work was through outside agencies or organisations.  Making change is slow at first but accelerates later.  Long term relationships with school staff is best and that is not affordable at times of decreasing budgets and (wildly) fluctuating curriculum reforms.  Only yesterday Gove announced the idea of replacing core GCSE's with a new exam.  This creates uncertainty and dependence upon political whims.  The organisations with money have shrunk.  In a way the internet allows them to show a big public face with zippy ideas and lists of people, but many are now unpaid advisor's or school staff moonlighting.

With the Technology curriculum still in discussion, and I would advise those who think they see the new direction clearly to review what happened between the initial proposals and the final draft in the LAST curriculum review, there are fewer takers for developing projects and training staff in new technology when the payback is measured in years use of the project.  The ground has shifted, and so therefore, must I.