The reunion of the old guard of TLG June 2015 (photo: Dmitri Shashkini) MUSIC

The Third Act of the Second Opera of the Tetralogy?

When I see this photo, I ask myself some tough questions. Can a government agency truly innovate and change the education system?In the heady days of Misha's reforms, and the buzz that produced, we (and I include myself here, as I have never wavered in my faith in this project as originally conceived) believed that we could. However, the main problems which we encountered were that such ideas could not really be implemented top down; and that we met local resistance at the grass roots level.The result was the effective cancellation of the experiment and the throwing of all these talented people (pictured above!) to the four winds. In my own case, after the castle came tumbling down, I looked in detail at what had been achieved, and decided that the TEFL model itself was at fault. After two years of research and experiments, I have discovered another and better, content-oriented approach. And I would advocate multi-lingualism as an obvious first building-block in any innovating language education system, because languages have to be encountered in clusters to be interesting.Isolating English into a ghetto is not the best way. If we must have English on its own, then let it be served up with due reference to the indigenous language and deeply inserted into a cultural context - of which the children should have a mature awareness. Hence the huge benefits of using film as a medium of instruction, and thereafter, drama. To say nothing of music, movement and song.

Luckily I have now got an upcoming job in a mature post-Soviet society, Hungary, a world leader in education reform. So far as I can perceive on very early acquaintance with a new phenomenon, here there are a variety of approaches going on (some people being traditionalist, others experimental). I have no doubt that I can continue to work in a highly experimental and innovative way, and indeed that this will be encouraged.The dry bones of TEFL - a system which is just ill-conceived and cynically based on the desires people have to jump though those hoops called exams, and - massively and shamefully, on the desire of UK publishers to cling on to worldwide commercial empires - will be left far behind. But for any revolution to take hold, such ideas, and the few like them which have obtained worldwide credence - Montessori, Michel Thomas, Waldorf, Kodaly etc - will need to be far better known. Now, the only way that can happen is for government to release its grip on the content and trust civil society to be intelligent enough to come up with its own solutions. It is fatally wrong that a matter as personal as education is so massively entrenched in prescriptive and centralized mechanisms. In Georgia, this is quite mild, although there was (and I guess still is) much needless bureaucracy.But in the UK there is a massive sclerosis in the education system. Childhood is eroded by testing, teachers are furious about this - and about their inability to be true teachers, imparters of wisdom and knowledge, not facts - but totally impotent; and that corrosive, terrible malaise of England - a too-powerful executive - is everywhere manifest.Fatally, as we are now seeing, in visa legislation too. This makes the obvious dream of exchange between Georgian and English schools still a very utopian idea; although within the 28 member states of Europe, countries can make exchanges to their heart's desire, based on the 90 days visa regulations. I would like to believe, finally, that a picture such as that above does not just show a reunion of Monarchists or Romanovs reliving their battlefield glory days, but the seeds of a new civilian movement for educational change in Georgia....Yet, of course, unfortunately, it doesn't, because the original ideals were never sufficiently deeply entrenched. The main blame here must lie with Misha. As is now obvious, his dedication to his country and to these ideals which all of us were naive enough to believe he cared about passionately, was paper thin. Because if it had not been, there would not have been all the drama which has now meant that he can no longer contribute in Georgia: we are just left with the wreckage of the dreams he inspired. But we must move on. The very recent signs of hope from the current government (the 365 day visa rules for 94 countries) are extremely inspiring. In the circle of a year, we have seen Georgia move through 180 degrees in its feelings about cultural engagement with the outside world, and it is now firmly and unequivocally sending the clearest possible signal that it is open for business and indeed inspired. Misha's policy was for 360 days: this, now, is for 365 - it even innovates here. And meanwhile Estonia, too, has shown that extremely simplified business legislation, quite a lot of which I believe still is in place here, can be very positive for a swift-footed, reasonably small, emerging country. And thus we have seen the Lari almost speed back from its historic low of about 6 weeks ago - and the signs are very good indeed. So - beyond all chagrins and elided hopes - let the ancien rgime of TLG remain as a social group and a force to be reckoned with; and may it, in future years, debate the germ of an idea I sketch out here: that there need to be education movements involving citizens which feed back into government; and that government itself needs to beware of taking too much overall control in the sensitive and crucial area of education. The miracle may be that - far beyond the comic opera of Misha's days we now have in Giorgi Margvelashi a truly inspired President who can take the country the distance it needs to go: Act Three of the Valkyries!

Because Georgias youth is courageous and willing enough to set out into that eternal flame around the Mtatsmindathat is Sakartvelo._________________________________________________________

https://www.youtube.com/wau9Rr1o9wtch?v=1nu gives the Wagnerian source; an audio extract from the last fifteen minutes is given above.4