#tmfuture

Teachmeet – The Future

“Education is the new rock’n’roll!” – Tweet at TMNE09 after Gwyn Ap Hari had finished.

I have been to a couple of Teachmeets, presented at one, sponsored one and spent a great deal of time talking with various people including @tombarrett talking about Teachmeet and how it might grow.

The multiple posts do seem to have been a success, I’ve had two companies approach me from different posts saying; Do you know about Teachmeet? We’d like to sponsor them.

So, where to go now?

Not a QUANGO probably, not really in vogue at the moment.

As I see it there are two possible paths.

1) If it ain’t broke…

… don’t fix it. Allow Teachmeet to evolve as it has done, with much energy, a bit chaotically and with lots of enthusiasm and sweat from organizers and presenters.

+ve features

• The wider community which drive Teachmeet remain at the heart and included. There is little organization other than your own desire to run a Teachmeet so more and more people feel comfortable about running one.
• It does work and the number of ‘failed’ Teachmeets are very, very few.
• It feels right and can scale up and down.
• There is evolution going on; Takeover and Fishbowl have both developed Teachmeet well – a new blog/website would help.

-ve features

• Hard to grow the number of Teachmeets rapidly at a time when they are massively needed as support for teachers is dwindling from Government.
• Sponsorship is currently centred around 5-10 organisations. Sponsorship is hard to come by and will get harder if the economy continues to tank. Its also time consuming. Also the way it is configured now there is a possibility of one organization coming in, taking the successful brand and running their own show.
• Harder to ‘quality control’. Are we really sure we haven’t seen pitches in the last year?
• Does Teachmeet need to expand beyond the ‘choir’ and really reach the bulk of teachers nationwide? Can this happen is such an adhoc way?

2) Organise

… but do it in a non-threatening way with buy-in from the wider community. Teachmeet is a community and that is the essential reason it works. Witness the debate on #tmfuture over the last 24 hours.

In terms of type of organization;

I would suggest NO to a company or charity (both bureaucratic and create strong motivations for the people at the heart). This can lead to schism and a weakening of the passion people have to organize. @Jonsieboy’s tweet about ‘being told’ is the key issue here.

A social enterprise or charitable company seem the best bet here – no profit, no trustees but a clear mission for Teachmeet (that should be signed up to by the whole community).

+ve

• Dedicated team to support people wanting to run Teachmeets.
• Actively seeking broad range of sponsorship to ensure development and growth of Teachmeet.
• Able to protect the Teachmeet concept from commercial interests.
• Quality Control (see –ve)

-ve

• Overly bureaucratic and time-consuming for people with jobs!
• Pits the ‘organisation vs the grass roots’
• Quality is subjective (unless you maintain motorcycles).
• It doesn’t feel right. It just doesn’t

A Third Way (about 13 years too late!)

1) Let Teachmeet evolve naturally, as it has done over the past 4 years. It works, inspires teachers and those interested in education. It just works.

2) Create a Teachmeet Enterprises (social enterprise) whose aim is simply to support Teachmeet at home and abroad. This would take the form of three specific roles:

• Gaining sponsorship/funding/money!
• Providing support (telephone, twitter, new site) for people wanting to run one (if you want to run a teachmeet in your school on use of switch technology, fine, we won’t judge, just help you get it off the ground).
• Developing Teachmeet overseas – seeking champions, sponsors and helping it to thrive in the way it has in the UK.

3) This organization would be made up of a small group of interested people (with some time on their hands) but they wouldn’t have a say in anything beyond those three roles (thereby keeping Teachmeet, Teachmeet).

Finally

As with a child of 4 or 5 or 12; Teachmeet will grow and grow up. It will evolve and there will be good and bad times but Teachmeet is here and here to stay.

Filed under: Blog entries by ben