Looking through my website statistics, I see someone has come to my site, through Google or another search engine, having searched for, “measurable outcomes from an author visit.”

The real outcomes of school visits by anyone, will never be known by those that arrange them. Quite often the penny drops many years later when the students have moved on.

I remember school visits from a deep sea diver, a weapons expert, the Royal Navy search and rescue and a glass harmonica expert in particular. All of them have contributed inspiration for my stories and all of them showed me what I didn’t want to be!

In finding your true purpose in life, you have to try on a variety of personas to see if they fit. That’s what growing up is all about. Along the way we discard lifestyles and vocations that don’t fit us, but in casting them off we find ourselves one step closer to finding what it is that suits us best for this life.

So you could say that the measurable outcome of an author’s visit is to make it clear to mathematicians that they are not going to be writers of fiction. That is as important as inspiring the writers in the audience to see the possibility of a future for them.

These things are not measurable and never will be. The true value of education, the stuff that really helps children grow up to be useful and happy adults is never checked or measured. It comes from the hours spent learning hierarchy in the playground, the quiet words of advice after class, those odd moments of connection between teacher and pupil.

The measurable stuff is the white fluffy bread that fills up the day of the school sandwich. Spread thinly in between is the home made jam that can’t be measured – but it is the best part of education.

What do you think?