Learning on the job – is that the best way?

Convener(s): Sebastian Warrack                        

Participants: Saira Chaton, Jenny Brown, Rowena Reekie, Jennie Scott, Jo Stendall, Jo Crowley, Sharon Kean, Fiona Griffiths, Sam Jones, Annette Lees, Caroline Rath, Nick Moran, Annee Tipton, Suzy Harvey, Tony Ben, Richard Couldrey, Malcolm Rippeth, Sarah-Jane Rawlings, Rachel Donovan, Phelim McDermott, David Micklem and many more

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

• Need for a support structure
• Small organizations are often over-worked and under-staffed – don’t always have the time to support those learning on the job
• The importance of being self-taught – opportunity to hone your own individual skills and talents
• Difference between invisible and exposed mistakes
• Value of support on the telephone
• Need for mentoring
• RFOs’ (Arts Council core funded organizations) obligations to support and mentor emerging practitioners
• Is there truly a team spirit in the arts sector or is it back-stabbing and highly competitive?
• Knowledge is power and people don’t necessarily want to hand over that power
• Sometimes there is a need to crafty and canny about eliciting information
• There are already informal support structures – sharing information, peer mentoring, ensuring that one isn’t “re-inventing the wheel”
• Strength of supporting between different disciplines – e.g casting director supporting a producer
• Learning means being able to ask “stupid” questions
• Difficult to identify suitable mentor if one is early in one’s career and hasn’t yet developed strong contacts
• Arts Council could fulfill role of brokering relationships between mentors and mentees – example of Arts Council England, East
• Example of work by PANDA – Performing Arts Network and development Agency based in the North East
• Could this work also be achieved with Devoted and Disgruntled
• Lucy spoke about the fact that she has been leading on this work for D & D and for further information people should check the Improbable web site or contact her at [email protected] to get relevant form
• Important role of training courses
• 2 strands of peer advice – 1) development and training 2) funding
• Need for Arts Council to act as advisers
• Role of ITC courses
• Does value of learning on job change with the different jobs – designer, producer, actor, director?
• Does learning on job pre-suppose an already existing income level – i.e. mean that you have to be able to work for free to work in the arts at the beginning?
• Does learning on the job mean that practice stands still as the same working patterns are learnt and repeated even though they may have flaws?
• The importance of mentors, trainers, advisers  to have contemporary knowledge and experience, so what they are passing on is up-to-date and current
• The delicate balance between training and work experience
• The need to programme “time out” in working life but the difficulty of doing this – Clore Fellowships
• Need for “thinking” time
• The need to for vocational and rigorous training
• Can one only break the rules if one knows the rules?
• The need to “fall on your arse” and discover “new wheels”
• Being fully trained and untrained both have advantages
• “Theatre without passion is bollocks but passion on its own is not necessarily good theatre”
• Skills rather than rules
• Have to be open to the fact that there are different ways of learning which work for different people
• Danger of holding on too closely to one’s “own world”
• Need to have a safe place to fail
• Directors often pretend to know what they’re doing to hide what they don’t know
• Need to break these barriers down and break through the mask of confidence which hides fears, which we all might share
• The current motivation for training is often to “have” the qualification as a safety net, even though it might actually not be a very effective safety net
• We are now taking longer to “grow up” and develop ourselves
• Is drama school a “safe” place to fail – not in everyone’s experience
• The importance of META SKILLS – defined as “feeling” skills – love, sympathy etc
• Learning in 2 stages:
  • Professional training
  • Learning in the “real” world, which should include the development of meta skills
• The importance of timing – there are different times in one’s life that one is ready to absorb different points/lessons/issues
• The need for continuity
• Probably more accurate and useful to say “practice” rather than “training”
• The huge value of practitioners doing other practitioners job to appreciate the point of view
• LEARNING ON OTHER PEOPLE’S JOBS