October 2020

I'm glad I don't have responsibility today for teaching students in schools about racism and inequality.  I don't think in all my years of teaching in schools and HE that I ever did very much of that, save through trying to...

The cyber waves have been boiling recently with dire warnings about England's descent into fascism because of guidance the Department for Education [DfE] recently published.  Really!  Some people should get out more, read some Nazi or DDR history, or talk...

The draft Professional Standards for teachers in Scotland now include a section which highlights the professional values of social justice, trust and respect and integrity as being at the heart of what it means to become, to be and to...

In the book Learning, Environment and Sustainable Development: a history of ideas – written by myself and Paul Vare, and published by Routledge/Greenleaf on the 12th of November 2020 – we present a number of time-line sketches of some of the significant events...

I was struck listening into the NAAEE research symposium by references to that fact that North American countries are based on settler-colonial regimes that took the land from indigenous peoples.  It seems to have become almost obligatory to apologise for...

This is not an impertinent enquiry into your politics, but a question about your stance on the pros and cons of the putative hydrogen economy.  Do you want blue hydrogen or green hydrogen, or maybe no hydrogen at all? Green...

I attended the NAAEE research symposium this week (9th to 10th October).  It's years since I've been and I was happy to be there by virtue of the internet.  It cost me $100 which is a bargain compared to conventional...

The National Library of Scotland has announced that it will be addressing the “silences" in its collection by placing place people such as David Hume, Adam Smith and Robert Burns, in the “context” of their day.  John Scally, the national librarian,...

I wrote last week about the National Trust's Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery.  Subsequent to this, I wrote to the Trust about this passage...

I know it's an indecent question as the poor man's not dead yet, but the race has been on for a while now to find the new David Attenborough.  The BBC 's quite desperate about this and has come up...