following boring old conventional psyching-out via school and art school: at least tech wasn't involved!

It must be so hard to be a true creative in the school system. As an educator, I get it - it's very difficult to be in a system that must somehow cater to everyone to get 'results' that funnel people to universities and career paths in a measurable way. Some kids thrive on boundaries and specifics, others by practical learning. The curriculum is constantly changing due to people recreating it when they don't teach themselves. The best educators I believe teach students why they're learning, to be curious, and to learn the 'rules' so that they can break them. There's also a lot of students that feel super anxious even if they're celebrated for thier difference and are told that their neurodivergency or creative difference is worthy and valid and markable, but it is the human brain that is doomed to constantly compare to others. I could write about this all day - it's always difficult for me to see criticisms of the school system that I both agree with and understand why it exists. Poor educators now have the challenge of getting kids to understand a constantly developing Ai and justify when and how it can be used, to students who are brainwashed by it in the form of Ai summaries on search engines and every other form of Ai that infiltrates our lives. I will forever argue that Ai should NEVER have been free and easy to use for the masses. I was one of those teachers that was pro tech early on (because I understood it and realised it could be engaging and a way to learn) and then went back to 'nope, shut your laptops and get out your exercise books'. I watch kids in class every day answer questions in workbooks by copying Ai results jsut as they used to copy them from Wikipedia. This is poor teaching but sometimes teachers don't have a choice - it is hard to be switched on and present to creatively teach all the time and then the assessment has not caught up at all either. 'Submit an essay on' used to be valid assessment, a summary of what was learnt. Now it's just a deadline and why wouldn't you whip up an Ai assisted response when everyone in the workplace are doing it and you're working two jobs to put yourself through university to do a career that might be invalid because of Ai anyway?

Shit, I've gone way over the wordcount here... haha.

as we get comfortable with the format, it'll be easier for us to relax into anecdotes and more fluid story-telling.

I'm looking forward to it! I listened to you in the garden the other day and I might make that a habit!

so far from having funds for such materials 🤗😋 We're begging, borrowing and being gifted from all around, so we'll try and manifest more of that sort of thing 🙌👐🌟

We used to do the same when we started out - we have a little more money for now, but you bet we are scrounging skips and roadsides and marketplace for freebies! I picked up a heap of pots the other day which I'm excited about - just waiting for my compost empire to result in black gold to fill them! And waiting for more compost bins (we have rats in the area, so much better than the open bins) to come up free to make it. It's the ultimate metaphor for turning trash into treasure - dried out seaweed, coffee grounds, manure, animal bedding into SOIL - woo hoo! I find it miraculous!