I’m writing this post some 33071 feet high, a little to the north east of St Petersburg travelling at 602 mph. The temperature outside my window is -47 degrees Celsius. I’m 4577 miles from Tokyo and we’re climbing.
Out of the window I see blue sky becoming sandy ozone, becoming tufted cloud. Cloud which has the physical mass and shape of snowy mountain ranges seen from space. I could be looking down on a satellite picture of the Alps. But I’m not. I’m 33071 feet high, being powerfully, unremittingly shuttled to Tokyo.
So far, this post reads like a cross between a wannabe-Theroux-esque humble brag and a first draft of a GCSE creative writing essay. We’re banking left.
I’m on my way to spend two days working at a school in Tokyo; I hope to help them understand better some of the assessment data they have, and use it more fully for the improvement of teaching and learning. But why write about this, if not to blow my own horn, toot my own trumpet and scrub up my missionary halo? Well, because I’m excited.
Japan is a place to which I’ve never been and I’m fortunate to have a job which affords the opportunity to go. To do something I love and at which I’m pretty good is amazing; to be able to travel the world while doing it is simply unbelievable.
Somehow or other (and by way of myriad ambitions (some of which became actual jobs) including helicopter pilot, expedition leader, truck driver, singer, bouncer and teacher), a boy from rural Lincolnshire ended up 33071 feet up, somewhere north east of St Petersburg, writing this. And if I can’t be sufficiently present in this moment to grasp onto the sheer hilarious wonder of my situation, then I’m an idiot.
On the home page of our website, Jack and I talk about the mission we’re on: the mission to help teachers and school leaders navigate the mass of data and evidence at their disposal; the mission to help them cut through the the crap and get to the point where they can make sensible, evidence-based, experience-informed decisions which help their teachers and students do better. Up here, on my way to an exciting new adventure, I feel a strong sense of that mission and I’m keen to do my job well. Going to Tokyo (or any of the other cool places I’ve been) is wonderful, but unless I make a positive difference to the education of the children in the schools I visit, this is just a profitable narcissism. Be it Teesside or Tokyo, we’re dealing with serious stuff here.
Arigatō.
