Miriam: In some of the evaluations with Sarah and Crystal for example when they arrived I think that they had no real idea about giving feedback and then at the end of the first workshop for example, I was like "What do you think, what kind of movie would you do next time?” and they had all sorts of ideas.

Allannah:

I think being asked what they think is really important, I think there's a stage at which it's the right time to ask, I think there has to be some experience first on which to base the opinion you can't just ask somebody before you start "what do you want to do? - They don't know".For example, when you asked Sarah and Crystal that it was at the end of the project what would you like to do next time? If you asked them at the beginning I think you might have got the blank stare. And I think it's perfect, experience, feedback, and then a second experience. I think that's absolutely the best way to go.

Miriam: The other interesting feedback I got from Crystal, which I'd love to hear your comment on (laughter) is that for their first workshop with Kate they got to pick basically any movie and for the second workshop with Matt, he came in with a pretty clear cut goal of having them make a public service announcement, so he had a bit of a social agenda in his mind about the movie. And when I asked Crystal about it I said "Which one did you like better, did you like Kate's workshop better or did you like Matt’s?" and she said "Kate's!" I said why? And she goes "'Cause Matt wanted us to make this movie about bullying you know, and I wanna pick my own movie." So..

Allannah:

That's interesting, that's great! But I wonder if she would have had to experience both to make the choice. If having done Kate’s workshop that was open-ended if you had asked her what she liked about it, I wonder if she would have identified that as a great thing that she was able to choose. It's only if you have two things that's it's really easy to identify which one you prefer - isn't that interesting...

Miriam: Do you think that given, that now that there has been.. I mean for me one of my challenges when I was working with Sarah and Crystal was to say, "okay guys you can say whatever you want. You're not being judged here, so just tell us if something isn't interesting." And do you think that as part of the CLC opening up the education system to a certain amount of criticism from the students is part of what's going to help make it good?

Allannah:

Isn't that interesting. See first we've gotta get them in. And I think, I think ... In some ways I looked at this in the same way as I looked at providing activities for my own children when they were growing up. And my thing was: "Splatter first, try everything, and then choose." So I think we're sort of in phase one now where we'll try everything and see who likes what and then choose.

I don't, I really think the idea of feedback is important, and I think the idea of asking them what they want is important. But I think they need a basis of experience first, from which to choose.

Yeah. And the other thing is, you know, it's all about budgets. When you're planning a range of activities for a year, you can't truly be interactive ahead of time, cause you have, first of all there are limitations on the grants you can apply for. If you get a grant for a particular kind of program that's what you gotta offer. And you need to have things in place so many months ahead of when they start that the feedback is awkward. So it's almost like everything has to be over 2 or 3 years, offer, evaluate, offer again, and the funding structure isn't set up for that. Most funds are for a short-term project that has to be sort of brought to the funder fully blown without too many adjustments. And it's money...

Miriam: More to the point, kids are a lot more agile then that so... If they want to criticize something they want to see it different right away

Allannah:

And they're so used to instant change with those clicky things and the video games and stuff. You push the button and it changes right now! It doesn't work like that in an institution; it doesn't work like that in a funding process. Everything is very short, so as much as we, with the best will in the world to make things flexible and interactive there are realities about funding and institutions that make it ...stressful.