The Biggest Learning Opportunity on Earth?

And the speculative answer is…the 2012 London Olympics. We can’t take credit for the question, however. It was posed by A New Direction, which has commissioned Nimble Fish as one of 14 London arts and performance companies to co-devise and deliver a sweeping programme of work–as many as 150 schools will participate–that will aim to make the question and answer match up. For more info, see their press release issued today.

We all know there’s been a lot of yadda-yadda about the 2012 London Olympics: the hype, the price-tag, the questionable nationalist bravado.  As for the arts and education, the great fear remains that they will be, at best, bolt-ons or box-ticks in the great, commercial scheme of it all. For all the bonhomie of the recent Vancouver games, let us not forget that one could not set foot in many venues without first dropping many hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars.

What we like about the way A New Direction is approaching its engagement with culture, schools and the Olympics is its honest recognition of these perceptions, as can be seen in this Demos paper the organisation commissioned not long ago. The paper charts the history of cultural and educational engagement in modern Olympics and finds it wanting, usually lacking substance, commitment or money (or often all of the above).

But we also like the fact that A New Direction is putting its money and energy where its ideals are and recognising that, like it or not, the 2012 London Olympics will be a transformative event that will echo in the consciousness of our young people for some time to come. We owe it to them to help engage meaningfully with this event, one of the truly global happenings in our so-called global village. Through this programme, A New Direction is mustering an impressive and broad array of the city’s cultural organisations to help make this happen.

So, getting back to the question in the post heading, we’re thrilled to be part of the broader team aiming to ensure that the 2012 London Olympics are indeed the answer (and we’re particularly happy to be in such good company). As the jocks might say, bring it on.