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16.05.20 – Darrell Priestley
While we while away the hours at home, I’d like to bang a gong for all of you who have been doing fun, kind, imaginative, challenging or other wonderful things to help yourself and the people you care about endure the enforced home leave. Some of the children I teach have been ploughing through a surprising amount of school work their teachers have set them. Meanwhile, parents working from home while simultaneously helping with their childrens’ education have been absolute stars; having to learn to do their own roles remotely, at the same time they have somehow found the capacity to support their children in continued learning, which cannot have been easy, and all this while keeping house and home and trying to make sure that everyone is happy!
It occured to me the other day that, having spent a long career in performing and teaching music, not since my early teens have I ever spent much more than a dozen evenings in a row at home, and only then when on holiday from work to do home based projects like gardening and decorating. Evenings at home have been marvelous, all the better for having previously been so rare. Looking on the bright side, because you have to, we are all fortunate that this event has coincided with a wonderful time of year, with spring in the newly clean and fresh air, sunny days, longer evenings and lighter nights. It would have been much tougher in the depths of winter.
There’s a line from the song ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning’ from Oklahoma, which goes ”The corn is a high as an elephant’s eye”, and this year I am trying find out if that might be true. On 5th April, I sowed 3 kernals of corn, (Incredible F1 variety), though only two germinated, but my word, they like to please. Watching the corn grow is giving me daily pleasure, and puts me in mind of Jack and his magic beans. I sowed a further dozen kernals exactly 2 weeks ago on 2nd May, all of which germinated, and the largest of which has spurted up 2 inches in the last 24 hours. Awesome! If we are very lucky, we will get to eat home grown corn this year for the first time ever, but even if that doesn’t come about, it will have been such a pleasant distraction.
Wishing you well, and hoping you too will find pleasant things to focus on. We can’t wait until it’s possible to get back together, but as ever the priority for us all right now is staying safe, so we can enjoy the future that this long lockdown was devised to make possible.
14.05.20 – Darrell Priestley
A lot of people I speak to say they want things to go back to normal. That’s understable. But let me ask you this – how good was normal for you? If there is another side, the one where you come out of this unsettling chapter of our lives, it may be very different indeed, and we might not even recognise it. Alternatively, it could be all to familiar. But which would be best?
Imagine that you have stepped into the tardis with the good Doctor (Who). The familiar sounds start up, and you have tingly palms as you race towards an unfamiliar destination. All you know is that, when the doors reopen, you will be looking at some other place and time. Or imagine you have stepped into a giant centrifuge, whirling and spinning on it’s axis in both space and time. Suddenly, a portal opens and you are flung out at random. Where are you now?
Last night I watched a CNN interview with economist Mariana Mazzucato, in which she called for a more inclusive, sustainable economy. She says ”There’s no thinking. Let’s just do it. We don’t have a choice.” Though her focus in the interview is principally on the US, her points apply equally to everywhere else. We are all on a shared journey, as recent events ably illustrate.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, normal for many of us was simply routine. Where money allowed, we might prioritise our children’s education, but we were on the treadmill, caught up in our own lives, and with less sense of others we meet and how much they enrich out own experience.
Then the virus, and suddenly we all stop and take stock. We start to see the person who delivers our order, the person serving us in the supermarket or answering our query while stocking the shelves. We start to think about the person handling our enquiry when we call a service company, working at home with their dog barking and children playing in the background. People, just like us. We now turn out every Thursday evening to applaud not only our NHS workers, who we belatedly realise are awesome, but also other vital workers on whom we equally rely.
A lot will need to change to make a better future for all after this, but make no mistake that should be the goal. A future where we respect and value one another. A life shaped not by austerity, but enriched by our appreciation of what it is to be one amongst many. I am describing hope – let us never lose that.
12.05.20 – Darrell Priestley
Another week, and with it the advice from the government that we return to work. But there has been some confusion. What people are waiting for is a set of assurances that it is safe to do so, or any detail as to how their continued well being will be ensured as they use the travel networks. Everyone has their own feelings about lockdown restrictions, of course. Speaking with dozens of people each week through online lessons, broadly they accepted the restrictions as being in everone’s best interests. Many of us have avoided contact with close family members, and have only seen one another through online chats, or through a closed window when dropping off supplies with the isolating or shielding. None of us wish to see the hard won benefits of all this self denial squandered now.
My partner Eileen and I will be back working at the business on Ropergate shortly. We work within two metres of one another much of the time, but then we also eat breakfast together every day and often hold hands, and after 35 years of marriage that would seem about right. Other than the fact that we will be together at work, rather than together at home, not much will change for us. Our social networks will remain the same, and we will continue to see my daughter’s family from a distance, somewhat sad, but safer and for the best. Although our doors will remain closed to the public, many of my online lessons will soon be hosted from one of our regular teaching studios, so while our students will not be leaving home for their lessons at this time, at least I will be demonstrating musical examples on my preferred piano again.
Meanwhile, people continue to puzzle over the meaning of the message to ‘Stay Alert’. Even if you are only moderately alert, you will be aware that it’s other people you need to be alert for. If you have shopped at M&S during lockdown, you will have noted that social distancing is generally well observed while ever people queue outside. Once inside, their alertness seems to slip a level as, impatient for the person ahead of them in the arrow driven one way system to clear the aisle so they can pass, they begin to duck and dive between aisles, dodging hapless staff members as they do so. For their part, the staff seem resigned to the fact that, if they are to do their jobs and keep the shelves brimming with all the stuff we want, they have to accept that customers will frequently come within their notional 2 metre safe zone.
One of the things we will be thinking about as we start to work from our building again is how to make it as safe as possible for our regulars. This will not only include the obvious things, such as observing distancing and hand washing, but also considering traffic patterns, rules for using the stairs, timetable changes to avoid bunching and queues, rules for waiting, and anything else we consider helpful. Of course, we don’t want to diminish any of the things people enjoy about their visits, but simply to make it possible for everyone to feel safe and protected when they next attend. Though students are looking forward to returning, it is understandable that we are none of us in a hurry to change our existing arrangements. In planning any changes that might be necessary to ensure the saftey of all attendees when lessons in-person do finally resume, Eileen and I will also be keeping a weather eye open, including watching the R rate, and observing what happens as different parts of public life start up again. We are also interested in any changes in behaviour, which under lockdown has mostly been very self controlled, to see if people will continue to excercise appropriate care when out and about, especially with regard to mixing. Perhaps the future will see UK citizens adopt new conventions, such as passing to the right when in smaller public spaces like workspaces, supermarket aisles or school corridors, at least when a one way system is not possible, or standing aside to allow free passage to people going downstairs to exit a space before we go up to enter?
Finally, please be assured that, when we do decide to open up our doors to students once more, it will be with due consideration for your continued safety and that of others, which remains paramount.
10.05.20 – Darrell Priestley
A friend who is both a celebrated West End conductor and also teaches at the Royal Academy of Music once told me that some of the most rewarding aspects of his career have been those moments when working with students who had at first struggled to fulfil their potential, only to come through and achieve at the highest level in the end. This got me thinking about the term ‘Gifted and Talented’ which is used so much these days. It’s an unexpectedly tricky phrase, because it would tend to dismiss students who have real potential to come through and surprise you with their ability. As a teacher, my starting point is that everyone has something special to offer, but some just haven’t found it yet. In any case, there is a bit of a problem in identifying traits like gifted and talented, because they are simply things you were born with. Much more useful to praise things that can be changed, like ability level, which any child can work on and improve.
Meanwhile, spare a thought for the late developer, or the child whose moment to shine has been temporarily put on hold as they struggle with all kinds of life challenges. Going unrecognised as others are picked out for praise isn’t the surest way to get students with hidden potential to believe in themselves and strive for better. But when we apply the label ‘gifted’ to a subgroup of children, we inadvertantly apply another label, that of ‘also-ran’, to the rest. Surely this must be wrong?
Being labelled as gifted is not all roses, either, in fact in some cases it could be a bit of a liability. To justify use of the term about someone, it should be possible to point to a sizeable body of evidence. Not a problem if you are describing Mozart or Bach, clearly, who both produced a prodigious amount of the finest music, but applied to a young person prematurely it could carry expectations that are almost impossible for them to live up to, thus guaranteeing much future disappointment for a child who is unfortunate enough to be labelled as destined for great things. The safest way to label such individuals without harm, surely, is to wait until their talent is fully established.
Helping young people strive to be the best version of themselves is delicate and nuanced work. I like to think that everyone has talents, each with their own unique mix, but I’m not sure we should identify and praise that necessarily, unless we need to find and invest in the training of future sports stars, say. Far better to identify potential, and to recognise the promise of greater things to come, and then work with young people to set concrete goals for attainment. The key difference being that, unlike identifying children as gifted and talented, this should include all children, including late developers, as no-one can change the talent they were born with, but anyone can improve their abilities.
Arriving at University in 1980, in the first week we were told by one of our lecturers that, having made it onto the course (Business Studies) we were among the top 2% in the country. I don’t know how I was meant to feel, but I didn’t attend University in order to belong to any elite, I did so because I wanted to achieve on my own account. That’s aspiration, and happily it was cultivated in me on my way up, both at home and at school. If we really must use labels in education, then they should be helpful to the greatest possible number of students. Using labels like ‘able’ and ‘promising’ can be more helpful than using the terms ‘gifted and talented’ precisely because they are not static, and because they still leave the students to which they refer with something to prove on a daily basis, while leaving no one excluded, because everyone should be encouraged to feel that they can move in this direction. ‘Able’ is a term that can apply to all.