Welcome, I’m Dr Josey De Rossi, Director of Fantastic Learning Systems.
I set up FLS to share what I’ve learned about monetising an online creative learning business.
This is because for all my artistic career I’ve sat between the job of creating theatre and teaching about it. Consequently, I’ve had decades practising what it means to live and work between the art of highly specialised knowledge and skills of theatrical work and general knowledge of how teaching and learning affect every part of human life.
My take on blending these twin aspects of my life is to join together two qualities of learning which are not usually paired – the challenge of being productive alongside the reward of learning as a source of deep personal joy.
The impact of COVID-19 has highlighted the preciousness of human contact. Human beings were not meant to live locked-down and cut off from family and friends. On the other hand, I don’t believe we are as aware of the importance our social connections have on the quality of how we learn. And we are even less aware that learning itself gives rise to our sense of resilience and well being. So, balancing the economic and financial realities of managing our way through the learning systems we share with others is usually not thought of together with our emotional desire to live happy lives!
This website brings what I know about how to design curricula in a variety of contexts in which courses and programmes must be measured for their productivity – their costs, learning outcomes and more together with valuing how learning is an immeasurable process that nurtures our capacity to become fully ourselves.
In Arts & The Creation of Mind (2002), Elliot Eisner gives us his view of ‘artful teaching’ as paying attention to relationships, being flexible in our purpose, shaping content, exercising the imagination and transform experience into language. This is challenging to achieve but as Eisner concludes, the pay-off is to experience joy, a term that isn’t used much in education.
How Should You Manage Such Complexity?
In the last decade, I have expanded my doctoral research into the creative industries to link pedagogy to the world of work and entrepreneurship. I have worked in schools to prepare students to work in a gig economy. Our internal project-based services use team-based digital tools, such as those by Atlassian and Hubspot, to blend our pedagogical and business outlook.
I bring schools and businesses ways of addressing
- communication systems,
- teaching strategies, and
- assessment methods.
I design and manage projects so that the inherent challenges of teaching and learning are revealed. Most importantly, as one assistant principal described, I focus on narratives of growth and change. For that reason, I claim to do more than ‘market’ schools or businesses through curriculum designs. Instead, my work combines professional development and public relations to optimise how learning gives you control and agency over your work.
Nothing About Monetising An Online Creative Career Seem Natural To Me!
You read blogs, books, do courses, consult with experts but nothing in your creative career seems to prepare you for a way of life which monetises your creative vision. Let me share with you a few truths I discovered.