October 2011

  • Is your glimp on its zort?

    I have been trying to follow the rather arcane discussion around the new reading test for 6 year olds.  This is from the BBC: The government's new reading test for six-year-olds is a waste of money that will not identify...

  • Another day, another questionnaire ...

    This time, from the Higher Education Academy, consulting across the sector on its strategic direction for the next five years.  After some persistent nudging from SHED-SHARE and others, I gave it a go.  I thought the questions sensible and apt....

  • My poor divided brain

    I have just watched the latest, rather breathless, RSAnimate by Iain McGilchrist on The Divided Brain.  Some myths debunked, and some ironies exposed.  Not sure which bits of my brain I was using, but I shall have to watch it...

  • The ethics of teaching ethics

    Significant publicity has been given recently to a new educational resource from Susted: Ethica -The Ethical Finance Game. Susted says: This is an educational board and role-play game. It lets players assume the roles of bank customers, investment bankers or co-operative...

  • The Tamsin Tristram Tamara Index

    Around 30 years ago, when I spent more time than was good for me driving round the west country watching student teachers work in schools, I developed – tentatively – what I called the Tamsin Tristram Tamara Index. I'd check...

  • Alex Steffen meets Ellen MacArthur

    To the RGS on Thursday night for a talk by Seattle futurist guru Alex Steffen, and a conversation between him and Ellen MacArthur. According to a NY Times blog, Steffen is a "designing optimist, [who] lays out the blueprint for a successful...

  • Weirdest journal article title of the year

    Although the competition is always fierce for this title, and there is a distinct people in glass houses element to my commenting on it at all, the following paper must surely have very short odds with the bookies this year:...

  • Talking Rubbish

    The benefit of belonging to the EAUC Member list is not just that you are kept up to date with issues that universities are trying (and often succeeding) to resolve, but also that eagle-eyed members share interesting events that they...

  • The Significance of a Missing s

    This text was sent to the EAUC's SHED-SHARE Maillist last week: I have been engaged in the dialogues leading up to Rio+20 through the PrepComs and seen various texts which will be informing the policy positions and statements arising from...

  • Back when Legends and History Collide

    A good day in Birmingham on Saturday chairing NAEE's AGM.   I wrote this recently for an Association News Bulletin: The argument that education programmes should help (young) people to have a critical understanding of the relationship between the environment quality...