Life-long learning

I wonder how long it is since the idea of a 'workshop' as a learning setting came into our culture? Did it start up in the 1970s with therapy groups? Whatever the antecedents it is an idea that has gained full currency for learning all sorts of skills from fungi recognition, to crafts, yoga practices, spiritual development, growing or cooking food and writing. You name it and you can probably find a workshop about it.

I've been to a few workshops in my time, most of them connected with teaching and learning or with writing. I thought I'd given them up until I was tempted ('I can resist anything except temptation'), by one in the recent Castlemaine State Festival. It was a poetry workshop, 'Art into Poetry Now', held at the Castlemaine Art Gallery and conducted by poet Sandy Fitts. I was intrigued by the topic, the venue and the presenter, who had won the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. I also liked the price, a modest $30 (concession).

For that modest price our small group, about eight people, received four hours of professional attention from a poet and teacher who led us through a brief history of ekphrastic poetry and set us to write such a poem in relation to selected art works in the gallery.

Each of the particpants came up with their own special perspective on the paintings we looked at. There was plenty of choice in the subjects and each writer showed how pictures, especially those within our own culture, can set free so many rich and various ideas. Some carefully enunciated the images into words, another spoke of her situation today provoked by a scene in an old picture; someone attempted to draw them all together in an historical perspective, another took us on a journey to hidden depths inside a darkened vessel. We all listened and saw that there were the bones of a decent poem in every piece of writing.

'Life-long, collaborative learning' has been a powerful slogan for learning in adult education settings and also in schools where teachers try to equip their students for a future of learning. With a boom in workshops the time has come when our desire to go on learning, with others, can more easily be met.