Alan Cameron's Edublog Learning in the 3rd Millennium 

In the early 1980s I played in ‘The Victors’,  a reggae / rock / gospel / blues band based in the south side of Glasgow. In 1982 we recorded a 10 track cassette album (no CDs in those days!) with the Falklands War  being played out on TV each evening. ‘Days in Arcadia’ was recorded in Park Lane Studios, Shawlands on the Sticky Music label and we duly performed to small gatherings around central Scotland for a year or so. I was a young teacher at King’s Park Secondary School at this time. Having survived as a probationer in Possilpark Secondary School and a stint in the rock band ‘Front Page News’, I was then enjoying both a pleasant work environment in King’s Park and a creative output with The Victors. My CPD (continuous professional development) at the time was the learning curve of live performance with the band, which I then translated into improvisatory work in the classroom for kids. The fact that I could play (on piano / synthesiser etc.) ‘pop music’ in the classroom and get kids involved in creating and inventing their own music meant they were engaged in a way I could never have achieved had I not had the experience of performing live on a regular basis. Relevance, challenge, enjoyment, participation, creativity, active learning……our music classes then reflected approaches now promoted in Curriculum for Excellence and the principles of curriculum design. This week I felt as though I’d stepped into an episode of Dr Who and been transported back to the 1980s. The Victors got together on Saturday for a reunion gig, having not performed together since 1982.

With guests Tom Morton (Radio Scotland) and Graeme Duffin (WetWetWet), both musical band buddies in 1983/84, we put on a gig at the ABC O2 venue in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. It went rather well, with a large audience spanning the years populated by band members’ grown-up children and 50-somethings passing themselves off as late-30s. What a night it was! The whole event reminded me how important my playing in a band developed so many transferable skills I took back into the classroom. In the late 1990s, I involved my S3 pupils at Castlemilk High School in a pop song writing project which led to recording a track with Sir George Martin in his Air Studios, London. And then, unbelievably, the Castlemilk kids performed their song live with a 60-piece orchestra in opening the Millenium Song Competition event in front of 3000 people at the Millenium Dome site in London. Successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens. All of them.