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In Praise of Ignorance

This is a featured blog post by OU alumna Louise Perry. She is the Director of Strategic Development and Impact at Chickenshed, an inclusive theatre company that began in 1974. She graduated with an MSc in Development Management with The Open University in October 2017.

Until 2014, all the significant moments in my life were those in which I’d met particular people. People who’d provided me with an alternative framework with which to evaluate the world and my relationship with it.

Mary Ward, one of the co-founders of Chickenshed Theatre, was my mentor from my late teens and on through 20 years of my career with the company. Mary established the environment for young people from all backgrounds to come together and challenge ‘the way it is’ through theatre. At 15, when I joined, this meant I was being educated within the conflicting systems of my competitive private school and this radical inclusive ideology that placed ‘achievement’ and ‘ability’ within collective ownership. Mary developed within me a responsibility to think beyond what was expected and accepted, and create alternative and adaptive systems. 

At Chickenshed I worked alongside others who also shifted my sense of humanity. Paula Rees was my peer and eventually became Chickenshed’s writer in residence. Paula was diagnosed with hydrocephalus and severe cerebral palsy at birth but, despite the professionals who judged her life as unviable and her intellect as uneducable, she became a poet and philosopher with a unique perception of the world. Through her, I developed confidence to challenge conventional definitions of ‘knowledge’ and ‘evidence’.

And then there are my children. ‘Meeting’ them ignited the expectation for purpose in my life, generated by their innate awesomeness and trust and belief in me.

These meetings all rocked my world from its axis. I share this because finding the Development Management course had the same effect. It changed me and how I’m able to comprehend the world.

When I discovered the course on the OU website I was feeling wrung out – not of energy, but of perspective. Chickenshed had been central to my learning and development for 30 years. During this time I’d gained a degree in Education and Sociology, but it was my experiential learning at Chickenshed that informed the direction of my career. Shifts in role across its performance, education and membership divisions enabled me to take what I was learning through our innovative inclusive practice and transform it into systems and methodology.

I’ve always loved what I do – Chickenshed embodies an ideology I believe in and a movement I’m committed to – but the need to continue to feel this sense of energy led me to look beyond it. A friend suggested the OU and a few clicks on Google led me to the ‘development management’ pathway. Although I’d always been aware of Chickenshed’s vision for social change, the theatre focus meant I didn’t immediately recognise the relevance of the concept of development to what I did.  But, reviewing the course content, there was so much that not only interested me but that related to the organisation, too: managing systemic change, thinking strategically in situations where multiple perspectives increase complexity, institutional development and the role of inter-organisational relationships. The opportunity to separate these key issues from ‘theatre’ or ‘the arts’ felt refreshing.

I started the course in November 2014. There followed three years of a re-evaluation of my relationship with ignorance. Initially I’d have said that I knew what I needed to learn, and what I had no use for. I was defiantly ignorant. However, as the course broadened and refined my understanding of development issues, I began to take responsibility for ignorance. Sometimes that meant seeking to improve my knowledge of an issue or area, or placing myself within learning environments that offered alternative and challenging perspectives. Others, it meant being aware of it so that I could limit its negative effect on any good change I hoped to contribute to.

By the final stages I’d come to consider ignorance as something to celebrate. A recognition that there’s always something more that can inform your understanding – another perspective, a different worldview, an alternative framework.

Throughout I was able to include aspects of what I was learning directly into my work. Panning for these nuggets became more lucrative as ideas and theories linked and increased my confidence to ‘use’ what I was learning. ‘Systems thinking’, for example, has made a significant different to how I explain the impact of our work. Our approach to putting ‘on stage’ the voice of people who feel disconnected from the mainstream of society has always been about acknowledging the reality of the human experience and the range of influencing factors. Applying a systems lens creates the opportunity to develop and share the theory of this ‘lived experience’ approach within theatre. 

The concept of ‘Communities of Practice’ has given me language and tools to suggest at a strategic level how our inclusive education and training programmes could influence institutional change through networks that include a diversity of sectors, and through interaction with organisations at the boundary of our community. Such concepts have the capacity to deepen our impact and refine our relevance. Their tools and techniques require you to become reflexive as development managers – honest, accountable, flexible and aware of your own role in supporting or impeding ‘good’ development.

The re-conceptualising of finite ‘problems’ as continuous ‘messes’ which we work through allowed me to breathe again within the complex organisation that I’m part of. The need to find final solutions was replaced by a drive to shift towards the mindset of a learning organisation.

I completed my Masters in October last year. My final research project, which considered ‘a way forward in strengthening youth participation in strategy development at Chickenshed’, has inspired a sequence of interconnected conversations and activities aimed at reviving youth-led strategies and practice.

Things are changing.

Although I remain committed to Chickenshed, I’ve decided to open up new avenues, freeing up one day a week to work on other projects. Before the course this would have symbolised a loss of some kind. Now I understand it to be a celebration of my life-long ignorance and the opportunity this holds for continuous enlightenment.

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