I’ve been in the education sector for over 50 years. I started in Education and Learning in 1972 in study at Bedford Park Teachers College which was attached to Flinders University. It was a time of radical approaches to Education and the questioning of many traditional approaches to learning and schooling. I outline this in more detail in our book Tackling Risk, A Field Guide to Risk and Learning. (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/tackling-risk/)

When I was studying, I worked in building and construction to help me get through the expenses of both study, accommodation and owning a car. When I graduated, I was posted to a remote Area School in 1975 and have attached a picture of my first class, teaching Year seven students at Lucindale, SA.

Whilst my studies were radical, the reality of class-room teaching and the politics of schooling were a wake-up call. Back then, there was no talk of psychosocial well being and bullying, victimisation and tactics of isolation and power play. It was pretty much about ‘suck it up princess’. I got seriously ill in my first year. I lived on a remote farm and drove a school bus every morning and evening picking up and dropping off students to their farms in addition to teaching.

I learned so much in that first year mostly by my errors, but I also set up an environment for helping and supporting students through their errors.

This is the key to learning.

The idea of learning by normal work is nonsense. The best learning happens when error is not demonised.

This nonsense of ‘learning from normal work’ emerges mostly from sources with no expertise in Learning.

The key to effective learning is to create an environment where error is understood as foundational to learning.

I had no idea in 1975 that in 1997 I would have my ideal opportunity to create my own Educational facility where my philosophy in Education and Learning could be established. I was recently honoured with being the founder of Galilee School and given a plaque in their memorial garden. The school is now thriving in its work with high-risk young people 25 years later. It is a rare thing to be recognised for one’s work, for which I am grateful to the current leadership team led by Tim McNevin.

Throughout my experiences in education and learning one thing has stood out and that is the importance of focussing on the learning environment.

I have never focused much on content indeed, content always takes care of itself if we concentrate on process.

So, when I established Galilee over 25 years ago, I called the curriculum the ‘PLEASE program’ meaning, Psychosocial Learning Education and Support Environment. I describe this fully in the book Tackling Risk.

What I had learned in radical approaches to learning in 1972-75, I put in practice at Galilee. It is wonderful to see that program continues to flourish. You can see all they continue to do in their annual report here: https://galilee-ar-2025.webflow.io/

Making errors is foundational to learning. Learning how to learn from error is anchored to the kind of environment in which learning takes place.

If living and being in error is supported, then making error is no ‘big deal’. We accept fallibility, move forward in Everyday Social Resilience (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/everyday-social-resilience-being-in-risk/) and there is no great anxiety about shame/blame normally attributed to error.

Indeed, being blameworthy is an opportunity to test a supportive environment to see how to overcome the shame associated with mistakes. I’m not just talking about mistakes made by young people but the many mistakes I made in seeking to create the PLEASE Program.

Establishing an alternative education program that stands out against the pressures of traditional schooling is not an easy task. And I did it a second time inside a Youth Detention Centre after that. The PLEASE Program works.

All of the philosophy of PLEASE that works, has been transported into the working philosophy of SPoR. Establishing an alternative approach to risk in an environment addicted to the myths of traditional safety is a similar challenge as I found in Galilee. The powers committed to traditional and orthodox worldviews have a lot to lose politically through change.

How to set up an environment that supports people to make errors requires a re-orientation to persons. It requires a different Ethic. It also requires moving away from the idea that curriculum, training and data are learning. I have written about theories of learning before: https://safetyrisk.net/learning-about-learning-in-risk-and-safety/

I find in the risk and safety industry the word ‘learning’ used so often but mostly means the transfer of data/training. Indeed, the anxiety of HOP mythology that suggests that one can learn from ‘normal work’ or ‘blame fixes nothing’ is delusional. This is the kind of nonsense we see from sources with no expertise in learning. Indeed, one of the key skills one needs in learning is to unlearn and let go of traditional myths projected in safety. Indoctrination is NOT learning. Repeating the word ‘principle’ doesn’t make something a principle. Calling something ‘new’ or different’ doesn’t make it ‘different. Calling something ‘professional’ doesn’t make it professional.

Sadly, it seems the best way to learn about learning is to study safety.

Making mistakes and errors is NOT a problem. Fallibility is not a problem.

Anxiety about error in safety, often demonstrates that Safety has little clue about education and learning (https://safetyrisk.net/safetys-anxiety-about-error/).

Indeed, it is telling, that most safety books on ‘human error’ don’t define what it is to be human.

If you are going to write about ‘human error’ then one should start with the nature of personhood and human being NOT error. Error is not the problem. Pope was right: ‘to err is human, to forgive divine’ (https://safetyrisk.net/the-beauty-of-human-error/).

Yet, what are safety texts about error fixated on? Error! The word ‘human’ comes first.

The best place to start in thinking about the meaning of error is the nature of the fallible person (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/).

This requires a whole new reorientation to personhood and a different ethic of risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/the-ethics-of-risk/). This cannot be achieved by listening to the same old worldviews (framed as ‘cutting edge’ or ‘revolutionary’) in safety hoping something will change.

If you are interested in an alternative worldview to education and learning in risk, that doesn’t fear error, shame or blame, then you can start here: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety-book-for-free-download/

This book is a case study of how SPoR works in practice (in situ) in a large international organisation.