Another book I picked up on holiday was Andrew Carnegie’s autobiography ‘My Own Story’. What a remarkable story of the man born in Dunfermline in 1835 of ‘poor but honest parents, of good kith and kin’ who becomes one of the richest people in history (a good story in itself) and then gives it all away.

After his father’s home based steam weaving business collapsed the family emigrated to the USA in 1848. Andrew started off working as a bobbin boy in  factory then delivered telegraphs before building investments in a range of industries including the railways, bridge building, oil, iron and most significantly steel.

In 1901 he sold his steel mills and ‘resolved to stop accumulating’ and start ‘the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution’. By the time of his death 18 years later he had endowed 3,000 libraries, 30,000 church organs, provided funds for scholarships and pensions, created the Temple of Peace in The Hague and famously bought Pittencrieff Park for the people of his home town and much more.

I am  mindful that autobiography does not always provide the best source of historical record and his Wikipedia entry covers a number of controversies from his life. Some may say that all he did was give back what he gained from the labour of others. A remarkable man and a remarkable life nonetheless.

By the end of the book I had gained some insights into the constraints (self?) imposed on a mainstream US politician and  a better understanding of where he stands on many of the major issues that divide his country (he is against the war in Iraq and also against same sex marriage).  Despite my scepticism I warmed to the optimistic, open and pragmatic approach he has taken to navigating a ‘third way’ (reminiscent of Tony Blair in the period 1995-97 after John Smith’s death!).

There is no doubt that his manifesto represents a bit of a challenge to the status quo in the US . It won’t be radical enough for many and far too radical for  others. I wouldn’t like to bet on the result of the US Presidential race in November - enough to say that I got it wrong on the last two occasions.

Under the headline ‘The Force is with Scotland’s School’s intranet, says George Lucas’ the articles goes on to say:

‘In what must rank as one of the most heady compliments ever given to an education system, the film maker announced to members of the US House of Representatives that America should adopt Scotland’s pioneering school websites as a way to improve pupil access to technology.’

(:

This is really the Glow section of the LTS website (or what we call the LTS Online Service). It looks pretty good and the new sections ‘Glow in Your Area’, ‘Glow in Action’ and ‘Learning about Glow’ will continue to develop as the programme develops.

George Lucas mentioned Glow in his testimony before  the US Congressional committee on telecomm and the Internet a couple of weeks ago.

His testimony (6 pages) makes really good reading but the mention of Glow is on page 5 for those of you who are impatient.

Overview
Audit Scotland noted that Glow had already been the subject of a number of external reviews including several using the OGC Gateway Process and that the programme was characterised by the close working relationship between the Scottish Government, LTS and RM Education.

Cost
In this category Glow received the highest rating – Good:
‘Still working within the £37.5m overall budget for the contract, currently £105k ahead of this figure. Milestone payments have been challenged where appropriate and delayed until deliverables have been achieved’.

Time
Glow received the middle rating  - Adequate – in this category:
‘Go-live has slipped by several months but costs have not increased due to fixed price contract agreed. Delay due in part to time taken for local authorities to sign up to the customer agreement.’

Quality
The Glow programme was again given the highest rating – Good:
‘The project has undergone several Gateway Reviews, with an initial review in June 2003.  Gateway 3 Investment Decision review in April 2005 and interim health-check prior to contract signoff in August 2005.’

Audit Scotland noted that lessons learned from each pilot phase have been acted upon and tested again in subsequent phases. The practice of tracking issues, progress and changes on weekly basis was also noted.

Project Management and Governance
Glow was also evaluated for project management and governance with three assessment levels available: Basic Practices; Adequate – Improving Practices; and Advanced practices.

Glow has been assessed as demonstrating  Advanced Practices for ‘Planning’, ‘Execution’ and ‘Business Acceptance’.

Glow is the only one of the 20 projects rated as demonstrating Advanced Practices for ‘Planning’, and is one of only two projects in the other areas to be deemed to demonstrate Advanced Practices for anything at all.

Glow was given the middle rating, Adequate – Improving Practices, for ‘Vision and Direction’ and for ‘Measuring and Monitoring’.

Conclusion
Great to see the hard work and excellent project and programme disciplines that underpin Glow being given due recognition by Audit Scotland. However, there is certainly no complacency within LTS and The Glow Team LTS will investigate the detail of Audit Scotland’s findings to ensure the continuous improvement of Glow and to inform the future development of Glow v2.

The second book in my pile of books to read over the Summer was Charles Leadbeater’s ‘We-Think’.

Charles is signed-up to be one of the keynote speakers at the LTS organised Scottish Learning Festival in September. The inside cover of the book describes Leadbeater as ‘one if the world’s leading authorities on innovation and creativity’ so just what we need to inspire the 7,000 teachers and others who will be at SLF2008.

I have enjoyed reading Leadbeater over many years and admire the way that he carefully constructs and illustrates an argument rather than just asserting an opinion.

To my mind this is one of the best books on the wider implications of the web. Most of the books I have read overplay what is different about the web, i.e. they have no sense of history. They also tend to see the web as either entirely positive or completely negative rather than a complex set of tools that will be used by people with conflicting motives to meet contrasting ends.

Leadbeater rightly points out that ‘many thoughtful and sensible people … have grave reservations about the impact and implications of the web’.  He argues, however, that whilst being mindful of the dangers the web is on balance a positive force for democracy, equality and freedom. I think this is right as tyranny thrives on controlling information, denying access to  knowledge and constraining communication.

The We-Think website  claims that the book  ‘explores how the web is changing our world, creating a culture in which more people than ever can participate, share and collaborate, ideas and information.’ Leadbeater put this into practice when he published a draft of the We-Think online for comment and inviting further collaboration on the text via the website.

At the heart of ‘We Think’ is the concept that ‘ideas take life when they are shared’ and the web makes that process both instantaneous and global.

The book and website are well worth a read/visit. It made me think a lot about how much further we have got to go to embrace mass collaboration in Scottish education and our wider society.  I am looking forward to briefing Charles prior to SLF2008 and to hearing what I am sure will be a brilliant keynote on Thursday 25 September in Glasgow.

PS The next book on my Summer reading pile is lovely new translation of ‘War and Peace’ that I got as birthday present. I loved reading Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’ last year and if ‘War and Peace’ is half as good then I’ll be delighted. However at over 1300 pages it might be some time before I get around to blogging about it

I associate the school summer holidays with reading and have just finished Oliver James’ ‘Affluenza’. It is a good read and makes a lot of sense but left me thinking that there was not much that he had to say that I didn’t already know.

His basic premise is that we have become infected to a greater or lesser extent with what he calls a ‘virus’ that makes us confuse needs with wants. As a psychologist he goes on to claim that the values of what he calls ’selfish capitalism’ are closely associated with growing levels of ‘emotional distress’: ‘the extent to which a developed nation is Selfish Capitalist and infected by Influenza is crucial to the well-being of its inhabitants’.  He makes a lot of the importance of early learning, parental bonding  (drawing on attachment theory)  and the importance of ‘being’ over ‘having’ as vaccines against the virus.

Other vaccines on Oliver’s prescription include:

• Be beautiful (not attractive)
• Consume What You Need (Not What Advertisers Want You to Want)
• Educate Your Children (Don’t Brainwash Them)
• Be Authentic (Not Sincere), Vivacious (Not Hyperactive) and Playful (Not Game-playing)

All sounds like pretty good sense to me. Next step, use the rest of the Summer to educate my children (not brainwash them) so that they only consume what they need (not what the advertisers want them to want)! What do you think my chances are?

It was a brilliant show, P6 were on stage throughout as the choir with all of the children in P7 getting a chance to perform each night and many changing roles between the two performances. On the Thursday my daughter Julie was an angel (only very slightly out of character) and on the Friday she was a dinner lady/waitress (pretty much totally out of character).

As a parent I have loved watching my children in school shows and concerts. Eastern Primary has given them both great opportunities to sing, play musical instruments and act whether it was in the school hall, the local church, the theatre and even in Dundee’s famous Caird Hall.

I have organised (more than?) my share of school events in the past from parents’ evenings and prize givings to concerts. So I really appreciate the amount of work that goes into a successful performance. Without taking away any of the credit from the children themselves - it really was their show - you really do have to take your hat off to the teachers, parents, school staff and other volunteers who give up so much of their own time to make sure everything is alright on the night. They have worked tirelessly to find a great script, manage the venue, lead the rehearsals, design the costumes, do the make-up and much more besides. All of this takes place on top of the day job. So much for schools winding down as the summer approaches!

I am left with the image of the children on the stage taking a well deserved bow and looking so proud of their achievements. It is an image that will stay with me for a long time as this was the last ‘hot date’ that I will attend as a parent at Eastern. In many respects I will really miss being the parent of a child at primary and can’t believe that it is 11 years since I attended my first event at Eastern. Happy days for sure, but secondary school beckons and I look forward to many happy days ahead.

I left the following comment:
‘My take on what most people call luck is that it’s where preparation meets opportunity. Hard work is (usually/often) a necessary but insufficient condition for good luck. By and large you also need to have the awareness, self-confidence and attitude to risk to make your own luck.’

I think the work of Martin Seligman is important here. Seligman writes on positive psychology and what he calls learned optimism. In the Scottish context the work of Carol Craig and the Centre for Confidence and Well-Being is also significant.

Seligman provides a great message for anyone in education, ie that we can escape from the legacy of low expectations and low self esteem, learn to be more optimistic and as a consequence be happier. The optimism that Seligman promotes is not not blind decontexualised optimism but rather a more balanced approach to life (there are aspects of life and circumstances of living that lend themselves to a healthy pessimism as well as an aversion to risk).

The strength of Craig’s work is that it is located within the Scottish cultural context, is research based, provides a narrative on how we got here and, for me most importantly, does not oversell the benefits of positive thinking.

For Scotland to prosper we need to escape from the self-destructive fatalism that was best expressed by an old school friend of mine who once said: ‘why bother eating healthy food - you might get run over by a bus tomorrow?’

Both Seligman and Craig provide insights that need to be understood and internalised across the Scottish public sector. In the educational context this means getting them embedded into the curriculum and promoted more generally as key components of a Smarter and Healthier Scotland.