Revolutionizing Educational Engagement: Join the Movement

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education on Far podcast, the place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world. Listen to teachers, parents and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all. Hello and welcome back. After our summer break. I hope you're well. I hope you're getting all set ready for the autumn term. I know some of the people around the world will have been back a week or two already by now, but so pleased that you can join us again. I just wanted to start by saying, what did I learn over the summer? Well, I did decide to take some time out originally. I planned on repurposing loads of old podcasts so that there was a steady stream for you to listen to. But I thought, bearing in mind there are 460 or so episodes on this, on the feedback, there's plenty for people to listen to. And actually taking the advice of people I've been chatting to and people around me, actually having some time off was the best thing. I can't tell you how refreshed I feel, how great it was to spend some time with the family. Our youngest was turning 18 over the summer, which was amazing. And we're obviously spending a lot of time as she starts to prepare for university and moving away. So we want to make the most of all of this time and it's been fantastic to do it in that particular way. So I. I'm here, ready to go, and really looking forward to being able to share what's coming up, which is what this episode is really all about. Now we're going to have a Ger Graus season, and that's Professor Dr. Ger Graus OBE, who's been part of our community for a while. I've interviewed him two or three times, but his book, Through a Different Lens, Lessons From a Life and Education, is just incredible. I enjoyed reading it so much. I got so much from it. And he reached out to say that he was really looking to kind of build on this, to get people to have discussions, to be able to explain even more about what's in the book. So we're going to have a whole season. We're going to take the chapters apart, we're going to share stories, we're going to discuss it, we're going to give you the opportunity to come in and some live discussions and ask some questions as well. We're going to be interviewing two or three people as well. It's going to be an amazing season. Which we're going to sort of bookend so that we have a chance to really kind of dive into it in a really good way. And the aim of it really is to kind of have like a. A real movement about what education is all about. It's what Education on Fire has always been about, but with the people that are going to be following this, getting involved in this and actually wanting to make a difference, whether it's parents, whether it's teachers, people within the education world, whether it's businesses, wherever there are children at the heart of what's going on, we want to share everything related to the community that's around them, all those people that I've just mentioned, and we want to find a way of bringing this together and shout from the rooftops and actually get as many people involved as well. So if you're here listening to this, please do share Education On Fire with your friends and your colleagues, your family, because we want to really sort of create this movement going forward to make the biggest opportunity and the biggest difference we can in this next year coming up. Now, if you haven't listened to the previous episodes with Ger, then please do check out episode 439. That's where we really sort of talked a little bit about the book and some of the things related to that. But I thought while I was here, why don't I just share you a very short snippet just through my phone that was part of my YouTube short, just so you get a sort of an idea of the essence of what this is going to be all about.

You know, I hear that, that discussion quite often. I says, well, do you think that teachers should rank alongside doctors and lawyers, for example? And my answer is no, absolutely not. It should rank above them because without them there wouldn't be any doctors and lawyers. So. So let's just get this straight. The fact that we even have that discussion, there's singularly the good teachers, the brilliant teachers who we all had the privilege to meet. They open gateways, right? They make things happen. I became a German teacher because of my teacher. I am who I am today because I was really lucky to have very good teachers when I was a youngster and to have worked alongside teachers. There's a teacher, it won't mind me mentioning his name because he's in the book, Richard Taylor. He was the head of English at my very first school. And he. He never knew this until fairly recently. So 43 years later, he finds this out, right? I used to go, I was a newly qualified Teacher. I used to go and stand outside his classroom and listen to him teach Shakespeare to a bottom set. Year 11 on a Friday afternoon. And these kids not wanting to leave the classroom because they would, they wanted more Romeo and Juliet or whatever, and used to stand outside there thinking, I got. I wish I could do this.

How amazing is that? There are so many amazing stories within the book, so many experiences that he shares, and to find out more depth of those is going to be fantastic. He's been integral to the creation of so many things which have really supported children over the years, and we're really hoping that this podcast series can literally start more of these things, share more of these experiences that people want to take the mantle and take that forward. So, so excited about where this could go and can't wait to bring you more of it during this autumn season. So, as I mentioned, we're going to ask you to get involved. We're going to have some live shows, but also want to hear your stories. How is it that you're involved in your local community, whether you're a teacher, whether you're involved in a club, outside of school, however you're supporting children, even if you're a parent? I want to hear some of those stories that we can share as well. And so we're going to start using some terminology here that will start to become familiar for you to understand when we're talking about different things. So, for example, things like campfire discussions where we can come together and share some of these things. Firelighters, they're people that are making a difference, showing us a way that we can understand what they're doing, maybe replicate it in some way or use it as inspiration as we go forward. So we also want to be able to share this in a visual way as well. So there's going to be a storefront where you can actually get things like mugs and stickers and notebooks that you can share and you can give to people or indeed use yourself. So there's lots of new things going on which are going to be very exciting and give us the opportunity, like I said, to get this message out and really make a big difference. So, as I mentioned, we're going to have this series, the Gare Grouse series, which is going to be fantastic. But I'm also still going to be interviewing people, as I did before, because they're bringing you amazing things that they're doing and insights into their world and they're helping people. So I'm going to be doing that in the background as well. And we'll start releasing those either later in the year or maybe side by side, depending on the opportunities. If people want to get involved, help support the show, whether it's a proper sponsorship deal, gives us the opportunity to bring you more and more things. So, yeah, do get in touch if you're able to help and you'd like to support either the Ger Graus season on its own or the podcast in general. You can get in touch with me through the website educationonfire.com now, we also have the YouTube channel, which is where we have our live shows, the chance to sort of Q A, but also when I want to interview people who've got a more visual thing that they want to be able to share. It's a great way of being able to do that because during our live YouTube shows, we have the chance to show video pictures, explain things within some people's courses. We can do that Easy on the YouTube channel. So that's a great place to check that out. If you go to, go to educationonfire.com YouTube takes you there. You can subscribe and get all of those details as you go through. Now, the backbone of all of what we do here is obviously the acronym fire, Feedback, Inspiration, Resilience and Empowerment. That's going to be the emphasis that we're pushing forward with all of these things so that we can really make a difference in a way that we can kind of really grasp and support children in every way that we possibly can. Now, none of this is possible without our main sponsor, the national association for Primary Education. Now, one of the things that Ger talks about in his book is that the return on investment and the return on involvement. Now, NAPE, the National Association for Primary Education, have been a long term supporter of the show. They believe in the conversations that we're having, how we're making a difference and all of those things. So I really must thank them. They've been supporting this show for many, many years. They've continued this next academic year. They've already put that in place. So it gives us the opportunity to take that step forward. So really a massive thank you to them. Please do check out what they are doing@nape.org.uk that's nape.org.uk now the other thing I'd like to mention is the Creative Amplifiers. Now people ask me a lot, how do I do the video things that I do, how do I start a podcast, how do I record a podcast, how do I be a great guest on a podcast? Or maybe you're trying to promote your book as an author and you're going on different shows, but you want to make the most of being able to get your message out there. Now, the Creative Amplifiers are myself, Lisa and Neil. We met in America two or three years ago now and decided to start a YouTube channel based on the software that we use, which is Ecamm, which is what I use to actually record all of my, all of my podcasts and stream my live videos. Now, we created this show to bring the ECAMM fam together, which is the community built around ECAMM piece of software, which is an amazing community, but also we're sharing so much of the experience that all three of us have got in our slightly different ways. Neil is a tech expert, been involved in it for all of his career. Lisa's got a very successful YouTube channel which he's had for many years. And what we've been able to do is to bring our different specialties to this, whether it's gear, whether it's mindset, whether it's how to create a storyboard of what it is that you're trying to promote. Whatever it happens to be, the Creative Amplifiers is there now to be able to help and support people do that through our live shows, but also some workshops and some group activities that we're doing. So if you want to find out more about all of that, it's all going to be under that Creative Amplifiers head heading. If you go to creativeamplifiers.substack.com it'll take you there. And I'll have a link to all of these things in the description below, so you can just click straight through. So I'm excited to get going in this autumn season. We're in the process of recording all the next few episodes, getting the Ger Graus season up together. Keep an eye out for what's going on. And remember, you can also keep up to date through our newsletter. If you go to educationonfire.com on that homepage there, there's a chance to get a free giveaway, but also gets you on the newsletter and keeps you up to date with everything that's going on. So thanks so much. We're back on our weekly regular Monday release schedule now and I can't wait to be sharing some more next week. Thanks for listening to the Education on Fire podcast. For more information of each episode and to get in touch, go to educationonfire.com Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.