Channel 4 gears up for the next phase in public sector engagement

Channel 4 is a TV company that makes you want to be there, on the screen, on Saturday night. I've only got as far as their education advisory board, but it and the people who I've met working with it have changed my attitudes and life outlook permanently, as it has for many others. I'm hoping, too, to make sure that as much of their new £50m 4IP fund is spent in Scotland on the burgeoning, innovative new and social media we can offer.

I recently got sent the brochure and DVD of Channel 4's "What Next" strategy, which I've shamelessly ripped onto YouTube for you. The Broomfield film is rather drôle for us 4 addicts. In the Finale clip, below, is what I think I find so tantalising about the Channel 4 attitude:

• It has to keep the courage to fail.
• If at first you don't succeed, then fail again and fail better.
• It encourages creative risk-taking.
• It asks you to be provocative, be innovative.

I've been having a debate in comments of previous posts about whether or not we should expose children to certain 'creative risks' in order that they learn how to live in the 'real world'. The alternative is that we are late to, or perhaps never wean children off the 'safe' VLEs, intranets and communication tools schools have bought in to emulate real world risk in a risk-free environment.

Having celebrated its 25th birthday this year, I reckon Channel 4 will continue to do it first, make trouble and inspire change. Yes, Channel 4 is a TV Corporation, but it is a public one that faces public scrutiny. It gets it wrong sometimes. It learns from them and comes back stronger. This kind of learning could never have been achieved with a risk assessment around a boardroom. It had to be done, publicly, first.

These are surely all aspirational qualities for our children and our schools, too. We need to give more space to our young people - of all ages - to be creative from within, learn from the creative people (teachers, peers, parents) around them, make mistakes and learn from them. Quite how do we get there, though?