ARTCONNECTS Podcast

Our last podcast with Mark Featherstone-Witty, Founding Principal of the Brit School and LIPA shortly after the tragic passing of Sir Ken Robinson inspired this short #TalkWalkers20 Series series in memory of Sir Ken and a contribution to his legacy. This one was recorded on our Pyramid Stage made form cardboard, code and creativity which we set up at BBC Television Center as you can see for the Creative Coalition 2020 Festival in London. Like the whole series, it features people who knew and worked with Sir Ken, in thsi case: Chair: Nick Corston - Dad, Co-founder, CEO of STEAM Co. Shona McCarthy - Chief Executive, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society Kenneth Olumuyima Tharpe - Freelance Arts & Culture Consultant Anne Bamford - Strategic Director of Education and Skills , City of London

Mark Featherstone-Witty OBE is an educator and entrepreneur. He is the Founding Principal and Chief Executive of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts which he founded, with Paul McCartney, in the mid-1990s, after establishing the British Record Industry Trust BRIT School in Croydon with Richard Branson What an honour to interview him for this podcast series and how timely, with the tragic recent passing of one of Liverpool's founding fathers, Sir Ken Robinson. Hear what Mark says the English School's Minister, Nick Gibb said when he first met Sir Ken and also which Rocket Man he says is possibly going to be part of a tribute of some sort to his legacy. This podcast inspired our #TALKSWALKERS20 series, a series of chats with people who knew, worked with and were inspired by Sir Ken.

Now this episode was a blast and tells the story of how a crazy day out in Oxford became a day in Leicester and a week in Scotland and the North East. A story of connections but is mostly an inspiring chat with Research Scientist Suzanne Zeedyk about the amazing connections that babies form and how we break them at our peril. Enjoy.

"I like university professors, but we shouldn't hold them up as the high watermark of all human achievement. They're just a form of life; another form of life.  But they're rather curious, and I say this out of affection for them. There's something curious about professors, in my experience; not all of them, but typically - they live in their heads.  They live up there and slightly to one side.  They're disembodied in a kind of literal way.  They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads, don't they?  It's a way of getting their head to meetings." Said Sir Ken Robinson in his No 1 TED Talk on how schools can kill creativity, so what better intro to our #ARTCONNECTS podcast with a man, a dad, a professor who is similarly inspiring, grounded and globally impactful in his role as Co-Chair  of the OECD PISA committee for Creative Thinking. We give you Prof Bill Lucas, recorded here in an echoey room at the University of Winchester back in 2019

Whether you’re a parent, teacher, employer, policy maker or any other type of creative carer you’ll have a vested interest in how we educate our children. Not just to carve a career to be able to support themselves and any family they gain along life’s journey but also to be able to enjoy life and be a part of and contribute to society. This podcast is about a bold move by a country around how it educates its children to ensure they thrive and don’t just survive in the 21st century, in an age of automation, artificial intelligence and robots. Wales has co-created and trialled a new curriculum with school leaders, teachers and some of the world’s leading experts. It has creativity at its heart.  Here their Education Minister, Kirsty Williams outlines the vision and thinking behind it and looks at how they will assess its impact on its imminent launch. As a mother, the Minister relates this work back to her own school and family life and the cultural and industrial landscape of this great country - a part of the world that was home to the first steam powered revolution. Millions of tons of steam coal were carved out of the ground by the hands of its men, women and children just a few generations ago and exported around the world. That memory, their legacy, their future is on their shoulders. This is the Art of Bold. This whole interview came about as a result of work by STEAM Co. in schools in South Wales. Back in 2017 we were introduced to several schools in the area by Prof Mick Waters who has been consulting on the Welsh Curriculum project. Back in November we were quite taken by the Elton John film for John Lewis and discussed it in one of our #RocketKids sessions in one of the new curriculum pioneer schools in Cardiff Bay.  As well as discussing Elton John’s art we discussed his Rocket Man film (what a link!) and told the children the true story of ‘Rocket Boys’ by Homer Hickam  and how he and three friends who didn’t want to be coal miners in their West Virginian coal mining town in the 50’s , were inspired to learn to make rockets on seeing the Sputnik Satellite and went on to work for NASA and the Space Shuttle and ISS Projects. At a talk we gave at the National Education Show in Cardiff in November we announced a Twelve Days of Creative Christmas Tour of the UK and spent the next 2 weeks travelling between Cornwall and Carlisle telling this story. We gave a little Yorkshire lad a Lego Trainset in Leeds and he came down to London with his family to speak at the Parliament Launch of the #ARTCONNECTS19 Festival of Creative Schools, Work and Lives to connect us with all the school communities we’ve worked with over the years and hopefully more. In January we visited another school in South Wales, Langstone Primary in Newport, who also came to the parliament event and even sang Elton John’s Your Song for a film we made. Just this week they had an end of term assembly to celebrate with their school community the work they have done this term using the framework of the new Wales Curriculum. We were humbled to see how that simple half day rocket session and another robots day we ran had inspired a range of cross curricular literacy, numeracy, science and art work. On the back of all this we’ll be visiting South Wales again for a week in school communities and a major event during our #ARTCONNECTS19 Summer Tour. To see the above films and be a part of the #ARTCONNECTS19 festival, maybe by running an #OURART19 event wherever you are, do visit www.steamco.org.uk/artconnects for more details.

After our first podcast last week with Matthew Taylor of The RSA you might not think it could get better, but it does here. We're on a mission to understand the challenges and issues behind the looming creativity crisis in our schools, work and lives so who better to speak to than a man who has been a teacher and headteacher who was recognised by UNESCO for his work turning a failing school around. His secret? Making every day, every moment in the school like a day at Disneyland by creating experiences, repackaging learning and connecting with their community. Add to that the fact that he's shared a stage with Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple as well as the Dalai Lama and Richard Branson, interviewed Eric Schmidt of Google and his work with Obama, well you'd better listen to believe that story. It call came about because, after ten years working with companies and organisations from Columbia to Canberra and Cornwall,  Richard has just published his latest book 'Education: A Manifesto for Change' and sent us a sneak peak.  It's brilliant.   It's about Collaboration. It's why, in our #ARTof... series, we called this Podcast The #ARTofTheVILLAGE Because as we've always said 'It Takes a Village to Inspire a Child'

Well where better place to start when trying to work out what the heck art is that with A for Art and in John Adam Street no less, home of The RSA where the A stands for Art, or is is Arts? In this podcast, STEAM Co. Co-found and Dad, possibly soon to be CEO, Nick Corston isn't too sure until he gets a good talking to from Matthew Taylor, CEO of The RSA. We can't imagine we'll ever do a much longer podcast than this and we certainly won't spend half of it EVER again telling you what STEAM Co. do, or think we do , and what want to do. Before this session we had an idea of what we thought we were going to do next and even had a strategy written down on the back of a fag (cigarette to our USA friends) packet. Matthew certainly ripped that plan up and tossed (threw) it in the bin and told Nick what Nick wish he'd told him at the first cheese and wine session they both been at years ago, namely, how to change the world. Yes, it's all in here. Art, community, West Brom and Lenny Henry. Turn on, tune in, drop out and just think how much harder blagging like this was when we only had three television channels and when colour television was actually worse than the black and white television it replaced, but shhhhh... don't tell anyone. (And whatever your daily news fix is, you know you've always wanted to see your name in The Guardian so chip in a quid and be a PART of the UK's first ever co-created, co-funded and co-something else #ARTCONNECTS19 Festival of Creative ShcoolS, Work and Lives here: www.steamco.org.uk/partron Go on... you know you want to.   Oh, yes.. give us a few stars or, er, um... we'll get someone to bash you.

Nick Corston, Dad and Co-Founder of non-profit Community Enterprise of STEAM Co. hosts the ARTCONNECTS19 Podcast. Celebrating the power of creativity, technology and people. To inspire young people and children in their learning. To create careers and power the enconomy and to engage and connect society and wider communities. We believe we have to connect young people with their art be it dance, dj-ing, cooking or coding, fashion or football and connect communities with their schools. Every episode we'll be talking to not just teachers and people in the world of education but across the board. Because art is what we call it when what we do might connect us. Read more about STEAM Co. here: www.steamco.org.uk