Weeknote 15/2024
“In the Louvre there is a picture, by Guido Reni, of St. Michael with his foot on Satan's neck. The richness of the picture is in large part due to the fiend's figure being there. The richness of its allegorical meaning also is due to his being there—that is, the world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.”
Verbs
Writing: One Star Reviews
I’ve always found it really tough to get anything other than 5 stars, 100% or 10/10 for work that I’m doing. This wasn’t something that bothered me at school, or university, but when it’s feedback from students, participants, or clients then it’s incredibly hard for me to do anything other than focus on that one person who wasn’t totally happy. I think the difference might be that in these cases it feels (rightly or wrongly!) like more of a judgment about me than about the work. I wrote a blog post this week about this and suggested a little game that can take some of the intensity out of our desire to always hit a perfect score. Find something you love, something that lots of people love, and then go look for the one-star reviews for it. There will be some, there always are and it’ll show you that even Jane Austen, Stanley Kubrick and Shakespeare come in from a kicking sometimes. There’s nothing that everybody likes - so why are we so convinced that we can be the exception to that rule?
Reading: Babel, R. F. Kuang
This beautiful, thick, and enchanting book has been on my shelf for a little while now. I was finding it hard to commit myself to a hefty fantasy tome after being burned by Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time - although Babel is just the one volume to Jordan’s (and Sanderson’s) f o u r t e e n. I don’t really know what ‘dark academia’ means beyond TikTok Gen-Z’s who wish they were still allowed to like Harry Potter, but I’ve heard the term used for Babel. Regardless of genre, Kuang skillfully weaves between historical fiction, fantasy, and academic drama and threads it all with some deep, rich ruminations on language, identity, and colonialism. It sounds oppressive, and heavy-going perhaps, but there’s a deftness to the plotting and a vibrancy to the character that is entirely captivating. The force and tension of the book mount, and mount, until a crescendo ending. I completely loved this book and tore through it in just a couple of days as it was utterly compelling.
Watching: Poker Face, Apple TV+
I know recommending a TV show that’s on Apple TV+ is as helpful as telling you there’s a great restaurant but it’s on the moon. Hardly anyone, outside the US maybe, has Apple TV+ - especially now Ted Lasso isn’t on - but if you can get hold of Rian Johnson’s Poker Face it will be well worth your time. Steeped in classic detective shows like Columbo and Murder She Wrote, Natasha Lyonne plays Charlie Cale a sparky, snarky, down-on-her-luck oddball who can just tell when someone’s lying. The show adopts the classic murder-of-the-week format but invests it with all the filmmaking prowess of Johnson as creator, writer, director, and executive producer. It’s a ton of fun and we’re really hoping that there will be a second series before too long.
Loving: A Room Alive
I’ve written about cartoonist, artist, and educator Lynda Barry before and my love for her, and her work, is undimmed. Barry has been an enormous inspiration for me in all of the work that I do, whether that’s as a teacher, educator, designer, or facilitator. Barry teaches a course at U W Madison in the US that is all about creating comics and this year one of her students has made a documentary all about the class and, in particular, the classroom in which it happens. When I was a teacher, and even now when I’m running workshops and training events, the space matters hugely to me. It’s a massive component of setting the tone, expectations, and the feel of what will be taking place. This isn’t always understood by others, nor is it always respected, and I do wish the physical space in which learning happens was taken much more seriously. It’s clear from this documentary that the room matters a great deal to Barry and that this is very apparent in the experiences of her students, too.
Words
The weather has stayed pretty darn hot, here, and that’s meant a lot of long walks with Teddy the dog and some proper visits to the dog park, a.k.a The Happiest Place On Earth if You’re a Miniature Schnauzer Called Teddy™. He’s been tearing around and hanging out with all the other lads and ladies and generally having a ball.
I’ve been preparing for the workshop that I will be running in two weeks in Riga, Latvia. This is another workshop for the International Baccalaureate and is focused on the Theory of Knowledge course that all IB Diploma students have to take. I’ve been busily prepping all the resources, materials, and content will be using for that workshop and thinking of ways to make it as interactive, exploratory, and experiential as possible. I’m looking forward to seeing Latvia again, this time in the spring, as when we were there last it was -20C and the depths of winter.
Looking further ahead, I’ve also begun to think about the workshop I will be running for the Learning Experience Design Conference 2024 that takes place in June. LXDCON ‘24 runs from June 11th to 14th and is run entirely online - all expertly organised by Shapers in the Netherlands who are the founders of this conference which will be in its 9th year this year. The whole conference this year is focused on play in learning design and I will be talking on Friday 14th June about role-playing games and learning design. In particular, I will be taking participants through QUEST which is an approach to using RPG mechanics in learning design that we developed as part of an Erasmus+ project a year or two ago. I’m really looking forward to having a chance to share the game with other learning designers and showing them just how much of an impact simple RPG mechanics can have in their work.
- Mitch.