This year’s Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) is going ahead online in September after it was cancelled in 2020 as a result of the Covid pandemic.

For many years, the event has faced much criticism about the ease (or lack of it) with which teachers can take part, given its traditional and seemingly permanent location in Glasgow and the fact that it is held over two days during the school week.

Last week Education Scotland took to Twitter to ask who the keynote speaker should be. An examination of past speakers shows a mixture of figures such as former education secretary John Swinney and Education Scotland chief executive Gayle Gorman among various other figures from Scotland and across the world, but a tendency not to include those who might be considered overly critical of Scottish education.

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The way was paved for fundamental change in Scottish education by the recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report - followed by announcements of an end to the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and Education Scotland as we know them - and responses such as that published by Tes Scotland from Mark Priestley, Emily Blackmore, Nicola Carse, Valerie Drew and Khadija Mohammed.

The Scottish Learning Festival ‘should have speakers who challenge the status quo’

If change is also being taken seriously by Education Scotland, this could be demonstrated by a greater willingness to select SLF keynote speakers who invite some criticism of the status quo of Scottish education.

In case you missed it, last week we asked you to let us know what keynote speakers you would like to see in the programme at this year’s SLF Online. Comment below with your suggestions. #SLFonline pic.twitter.com/mOsanbkjHx

- Education Scotland (@EducationScot) July 9, 2021

It is important to hear critical voices, otherwise we close off new ideas and innovation. Ideation - the creation of new ideas - is a key part of innovation and requires a diversity of persons, with different thinking and different backgrounds.

Often, debate and change in Scottish education have been conducted within familiar parameters in a hierarchical culture. Professor Walter Humes describes a “cosy, inward-looking world of Scottish education, in which most of the leading figures know each other”, and which “needs to be subject to a degree of disruption”. I agree: we need disruption, challenge and criticality.

The previous education secretary, Mr Swinney, was often heard talking about the importance of teacher agency. If the promise of the development of agency is to be fulfilled, then we need to accept that there will be differences in opinions on the way forward.

Educationalist Michael Fullan discusses the importance of listening to people he calls “resistors”. Other writers on leadership say that one should acknowledge the resistance and meet with them, to understand the issues they raise - thereby “going towards the danger”, as it has been put. Too often, though, Scottish education has avoided the danger and continued business as usual, within all-too-familiar parameters. Many of the suggestions provided on Twitter, in response to Education Scotland, would qualify as “going towards the danger”.

One of those suggested was Professor Humes. He has written for Tes Scotland and other publications on a “bureaucratic mindset” that holds back Scottish education. He would be an excellent choice for the Scottish Learning Festival, and symbolic of a willingness to listen to critical voices.

Professor Mark Priestley, who carried out the independent review of the 2020 SQA results fiasco, responded enthusiastically to the suggestion of Professor Humes, but tweeted that “it won’t happen as the SLF is not a forum for critical voices ”.

As well as Professor Humes, how about Neil McLennan, of the University of Aberdeen, who has recently written about the need for a better approach to whistleblowing in the education system, in response to the problem of bullying highlighted by Tes Scotland‘s Emma Seith.

Meanwhile, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, professor emeritus in the school of life sciences at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, could share his expertise and suggestions about decolonisation of the curriculum. And, finally, Bruce Robertson, secondary headteacher and author of The Teaching Delusion, could share the key messages of focusing on learning and teaching among the myriad quality indicators and other “priorities” and initiatives that Scottish educators have to contend with.

A line-up like that - full of resistors and dangers in the most constructive sense - would certainly guarantee a festival of learning.

Andrew Bailey is a science and physics teacher in Scotland, and a physics teacher coach