December 2013

This is
 John Clare’s December that speaks of simple pleasures of a child’s Christmas, which, despite our more material, comfortable, and increasingly electronic times, can still make winter memorable. While snow the window-panes bedim, The fire curls up a sunny...

I wasn't able to be at the launch of the Manifesto we all Want the other day.  Had I been there, however, I hope that I might have managed to write the sort of perceptive review that the University of...

Are you tired of life?  Are you jaded by its materialist urgings?   Do you feel yourself helpless in a neo-liberal embrace?  Have you lost sight of what it is to be inter-human?  Do you no longer know who you...

I commented a while back on draft guidance produced by HEAQAA experts.  This included 50+ (E)SD learning outcomes for students leaving universities.   In my response, I raised a number of issues about their content and about who they were...

I am slowly catching up with the changes to English Heritage [ EH ].  These are visionary or desparate, according to taste.  EH is to be broken up:  one part, still to be called English Heritage, will become a charity...

About a year ago, I wrote this: We are encouraged to take both the Copernicus Alliance, and EAUC’s LiFE (Learning in Future Environments), seriously, as major initiatives supporting sustainability and learning, and I have no doubt that, for those involved, there...

The headline to a Guardian HE Network blog, published last week, says:  Why have academics been so slow to work with students on sustainability? It's always a newspaper temptation to identify a culprit or two.  The blog post itself, by...

The day began with a free vintage (c. 2007) e-book offer from Arjen Wals: Social learning towards a sustainable world.  The publisher's blurb begins with commendable understatement: "This comprehensive volume – containing 27 chapters and contributions from six continents  presents...

A while back, I had an "interview" by questionnaire.  An odd process; whilst it certainly gave me a lot of time to consider and shape my responses, there no time to interact with the interviewer.  I sent a few papers...

This began well with an extended cabaret on the lawn by a green woodpecker and then the arrival of the first fieldfares.  Fortunately, we have enough apples and ants to cater for all. Poor PISA scores were heralded by Sunday newspaper...