... is over, for now. The last seven days have found me giving talks in Lüneburg, Paris, London, and finally in Bolton.
On Tuesday I was a guest of the ESD research group in Lüneburg to launch their 2010/11 ESD seminar series. A disappointing audience, especially as I talked for more than an hour. Then by an even more disappointingly slow overnight trains to Paris to join Janice Lawson, Louise Jordan and Jake Reynolds to spend the afternoon with the ESD team at Unesco to give a talk about England's sustainable schools initiative: an even smaller audience but pertint questions. My contribution was about our 'Top Tips' work, now safely archived by the DfE.
Thursday found me speaking at a University and College Union bash on ESD, this time talking (all too briefly) about contrasts between school, FE and university approaches to learning and sustainability. I was talking about the need for freedom and rationality (a la Sen) in curriculum decision-making, whilst my Union hosts talked about equality, justice and solidarity – quite a grand tour in itself: Frances O'Grady was guest of honour. A couple of good questions for me, both coming after a lengthy preamble (as did all the questions).
And so to Bolton, and to the Reebok, to give a keynote at the 2010 Eco-Schools conference. More late night trains and windy platforms, but here I talked for the first time in any detail about the stage descriptors that I evolved last year for GOSW. I did wonder beforehand how my emphasis on the critical importance of school leadership and the involvement of all students would go down, given that Eco-schools hasn't always emphasised these, but I sensed the consensus was with me on this. An impressively large audience with an unusually high proportion of teachers and heads in it. Limited questions but good feedback afterwards. Not a great lunch though: chips, meat and foreign apples to the fore; nice view of the pitch, however.
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