Stream Ben Crystal's Keynote speech at the 2022 Bell Shakespeare National Teacher Conference with the Teacher Membership.
Runtime: 66 mins
Our globally-connected next generation is struggling to deal with the post-pandemic world. Perhaps we all are. We were not prepared to deal with the fallout of mass isolation, nor the loss from those years, nor the speed at which the world now turns, nor how these cumulative effects have changed us.
Our models of education often succeed in readying our children for working in the world of business, but they are failing to prepare them for living. More and more is asked of over-worked and underpaid teachers. Schools stagger under the weight of the pastoral care needed to navigate their students through to graduation. The burden is great, and the cost, if we don’t change things, may become too great to bear.
How might we reshape education, to better prepare our younglings for global citizenship in the 21st century? How might our education systems become fairer, more inclusive and equal? How do we make our working worlds healthy and sustainable? How do we heal the cracks forming in our divisive societies? And what can we do about it now, today?
The teaching of poetry, theatre, the arts - Shakespeare! - are some of the most frequently-cut subjects. And yet these are the safe sandboxes to explore, play, and develop an emotional vocabulary. They are vital pathways for practicing conflict resolution, and the processing of grief. And they are the proving grounds for finding and speaking your truth.
Actor, author, educator, and creative producer Ben Crystal will explore ideals of how education might / could / should move forward from the Victorian past it’s been trapped in.
