WWF International is looking for both a new Director General and a new Chair for its Board of Directors. Both posts are demanding. The latter, though expecting a 30% commitment of time, is unremunerated. Sound a bit like being Chair of NAEE, though at a somewhat more intense level. When John Fien and I were working with Judy Braus on the evaluation of WWF's international education work, back in 1999, I interviewed the Director General (Claude Martin) and his Deputy (Jurgen Randers) at their HQ. The advert for the renewal of these posts reminds me what a wonderful professional experience that project was.
"The English used to flog children’s bodies, now we flog their minds instead and call it progress. Discuss." This is not a question in this year's compulsory SATS cultural studies exam, although it sounds like one. Rather, it comes from a diverting provocation by Will Lloyd in Unherd, reprinted from February 2021. Titled, "Why it’s time to abolish schools: education has been reduced to childcare", it would be a direct challenge to DfE mandarin thinking, if they understood it.
I see that English Heritage got itself into a spat with jackdaws around the solstice as it tried to exclude the birds from Stonehenge by inserting plastic mesh between the stones and lintels. Quite unnecessary, noted some who'd turned up to see the sunrise. Whilst someone from English Heritage droned on about excrement and rare lichen, a spokesbird from the Corvid Collective (Wilts branch) merely noted that they'd been around for a lot longer than English Heritage, or Stonehenge for that matter.
A survey of 1019 UK undergrad students on behalf of HEPI – the Higher Education Policy Institute – reveals some unwelcome findings. Here's your starter for ten:
- 86% of students support trigger warnings (up from 68% in 2016).
- 39% of students believe students’ unions should ban all speakers that cause offence to some students (more than double the 16% figure in 2016).
The margin of error is +/-3% although that's hardly reassuring.
Respond