Sandbox

Meet a Sandboxer: Darina Garland

July 27th, 2010 by Katrin Winiarski

Darina Garland, is a Scot, Living in London. Durig her studies at University College for the Creative Arts Darina worked for Creative Partnerships, a initiative that links creative professionals with schools to help realize projects that embed creative practice into the curriculum. Darina on Twitter and Facebook.

Tell us the story of your latest project.

Along with Kristian Tapaninaho I set up and run Suklaa- which is a media and education company. We design and deliver lots of different projects.  Our main aims are to boost the creative capacities of students and teachers and to help embed innovation into teaching and learning.  We run projects for NESTA, Creative Partnerships, Royal Opera House, National Theatre and many more.

What are you doing and how did you get there?

We’re big believers in the need to transform education -we’re massive fans of and work with Sir Ken Robinson.  One of our latest projects is called ‘Making it Happen’ which has stemmed from a frustration we have  had when attending lots of exciting education conferences but then nothing much happens afterwards- nothing changes.  We hope ‘Making it Happen’ will be the start of a long term project for real educational change.  Working with our good friend Claudia Barwell, NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), Sir Ken and Ted X London we’ll invite key leaders in multiple industries to envision the future of education and then make pledges to make it happen.  This project is in it’s infancy- but we’re really excited so watch this space!

Tell us about the biggest successes and failures in your life. What worked, what didn’t, and what did you learn?

Biggest successes- are when we manage to convince the young people we work with that they are capable of absolutely anything!

Biggest failures- probably came in the earlier days of Suklaa- when we tried to gain new clients via marketing rather than reputation.  Now, luckily we get new clients through current connections, good rep and tendering for new programmes like we did for our NESTA project, ‘idiscover’.  Personally, I think that we have failures and successes every day- you have to keep moving, to keep ideas generating to stay in the game- and you can’t have big ideas without lots of rubbish ones too!

What do you want to achieve in the next week,  the next year, the next 10 years?

In the next week.. I want to have a beautiful wedding! (it’s on the 31st July!- to the lovely Kristian!)

In the next year.. Launch ‘Making it Happen’ and really start making education change a reality.

In the next ten years.. help completely transform the education system into something that values individuality,  multiple intelligences, innovation, passion and excites children and teachers alike. It should liknk to real life, kids should real whole books for pleasure and learning and not just the chapter of the book that will be in the exam!! (aka far away from the league table system that has teachers and kids jumping through hoops to get the grades.)

What was your most inspring moment during the last two weeks?

It was during a leadership and change workshop I ran with my colleague Claudia Barwell. We worked with 26, 16 year olds who are about to become the school executives (head girl, boy, sports captains etc).  Amongst other activities we asked them all to rate their intelligence at the beginning of the day.  Lots of them were very negative about their abilities.  We ran several interactive exercises that explored multiple intelligences.  It was a fun-packed and inspiring day.  At the end of the session we asked them to rate their intelligences again- they were transformed.  During the evaluation with a senior member of staff every student had their hand up desperate to share what they’d learned.  Their feedback was lovely, one student said: If you can change 26 attitudes in a day; then if we did this with everyone, you can change everything – drastically. Everyone should do it.

How could other Sandboxers and the outside world support you and why would that be exciting for them?

We’d love to hook up with people who know about innovation and creativity in education, as well as people who have ideas about how the systems can be transformed.  Top gamers, entrepreneurs, change-makers and movers and shakers!  This would be especially helpful for our Making it Happen programme- but we’re always looking for new connections.  I think that working with young people and teachers is one of the most rewarding jobs possible.  It’s mutually beneficial for anyone as the ideas and new perspectives kids can offer can will often blow your mind!

Darina’s favorites:

- book: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- Roald Dahl and ‘The Element- How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything’ Ken Robinson.

- movie: Back to the Future

- place on earth: 2 Places: London, the bustling cosmopolitan, fast paced metropolis- where anything can happen!! and to counter balance this- Kristian’s family summer cabin.. on a tiny island in the middle of finland surrounded by lakes, forests and silence!

- travel destination during last year: New York, Finland, Scotland, Athens

- food: Thai Green Curry with vegetables and tofu.  Without Question

- drink: Champagne.

- quote: ’If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original’ Sir Ken Robinson.