Celebrating Linguistic Diversity

Today is UNESCO international mother language day - if you're in or near Brum the event to be at is at the Library of Birmingham.

'The United Nations' (UN) International Mother Language Day annually celebrates language diversity and variety worldwide on February 21. It also remembers events such as the killing of four students on February 21, 1952, because they campaigned to officially use their mother language, Bengali, in Bangladesh.'

Time and place

Birmingham has a long history of welcoming migrants, and indeed non-conformists running back to the 18th century and earlier.  In the late 18th century wars abroad, xenophobia, religious intolerance and a nationalist upsurge led to riots on the streets of Birmingham (the Priestley riots).  Are we entering a similar period of unrest in Birmingham and worldwide?  If so could events like IMLD and the tolerance and understanding it represents counter a fearful and destructive nationalis upsurge?

The theme for IMLD 2015 is "Inclusion in and through education: Language counts.  Its focus is on one of the main challenges that cuts across many of the goals, i.e. Inclusion (equity/quality). -http://en.unesco.org/events/international-mother-language-day-celebration-2015

Our own Brummie, Malala has become a symbol of hope for Birmingham, and the world.  Let's hope the Library she loves (and opened) could be a beacon of hope in troubled times.

Language of a Professional

Jago was getting bored in the car. We told him, no, we're not nearly there. He said, 'It's alright for you. We're stuck back here like dogs!' He was spot on, in language everyone understood, and got me thinking about the language we use. We had a Bright Space Creative Agent meeting yesterday - the conversation came up again about training, creative agent as a profession and as a qualification. Wiki tells me a professional is 'is a member of a vocation founded upon specialised educational training'.

Our profession is developing its training, but the language of a creative agent is already very much in place. We categorise creativity into nine different, distinct sub-headings. We talk about 'triangulation' in order to ensure '360 degrees evaluation'. Much of the language is created or reinvented to describe our key areas of interest - creativity, reflection, ownership and is borrowed from the lexicon and pedagogies already in our schools, although little understood by anyone outside of education. We have a very big folder with an extensive 'toolbox' of paperwork.

Our language is, as more widely in education, beginning to be used to differentiate us, professionalise us, assure quality. The purpose of creating a profession might be 'quality assurance', but even if we promote creativity in all, our language already promotes a lack of understanding. Any qualification risks creating an elite in critical friendliness, a division from the other creative professionals (and amateurs) we hope to create partnership with, and a move away from our core beliefs of creative learning we evangelise in our schools.

Easy for me to say, being well qualified and in work (for the time being), but I would rather focus on the issues of 'quality assurance', developing new and confident Creative Agents, supporting existing creative agents, without an expensive and questionable qualification.

Are we creative agents really so frightened, so misunderstood, we need to create a qualification? We need to support each other to ensure quality, rely on our strengths as very different, individual creative agents, and reach out to everyone using language easily understood. We need to stand side by side with communities, schools, children and creative practitioners. No special language, no magic tricks, no qualification needed.