Clowning around at education conferences

Guest Blog by Rod Clifton, professor of education at the University of Manitoba

Last week I flew to Montreal to attend the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, a gab-fest of academics from faculties of education across Canada and the U.S.  When I was in Montreal, I also went to see the Cirque du Soleil’s new production “Totem” which has an aboriginal theme and a number of aboriginal performers.

To me, the interesting thing about these two events is how good the Cirque was and how poor the education conference was.  Of course, at the conference I heard some good presentations.  Perhaps 30 percent of the papers were well-argued and well presented.  Equally interesting was that all of the acts in the circus were excellent; most of them were, in fact, amazing.  

This brings up two important questions.  Why can a bunch of clowns in a circus organize and present activities that are exceptional while educational professors cannot?  Why does the audience recognize talent at the circus while it does not at the conference? 

Perhaps we should get the clowns to organize the next academic conference for educators.  Perhaps the clowns should be hired to organize the programs in faculties of education so that student teachers actually learn some of the amazing things about teaching and learning.

Of course, this is an ironic joke.  But, it would take a smart clown to understand the irony and the humour.

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