I have so far resisted taking a stance on the phenomenon of selfies – those snaps of oneself, taken and posted on social media, despite the fact that they are ubiquitous, a recognised word in Oxford Dictionaries Online since 2013, and increasingly institutionalised, as is evident by the development of mainstream paraphernalia to ease the …
Category: Uncategorized
Feb 24
Levelling the playing field for women: the IMF perspective
The IMF have spoken: in a staff discussion note published a few days ago, entitled ‘Fair Play: More Equal Laws Boost Female Labor Force participation’, the authors outline research which supports women’s involvement in the workplace in all countries of the world. Their main finding is that “less legal discrimination against women is strongly associated …
Feb 10
Finding out what works in education
The UK Telegraph’s newspaper interview with Tom Bennett, published today, is worth a read. It follows on from widely publicised recent comments make by Andreas Schleicher, Director of Education and Skills at OECD, which attempted to debunk various myths about the top-performing school systems … again, these too are worth a read. What both educationalists …
Jan 28
All things being equal …
The Equaliser (which I watched recently on another longhaul flight) is not necessarily a film I would recommend – the body count is high, the pre-movie warnings about the propensity of adult themes are accurate, and while Denzel Washington plays his part well, one is left rather morally uneasy at the thought that one bad …
Jan 09
The Power of the Comparative Adjective
On a recent longhaul flight, which is about the only opportunity I have to watch movies, I was very taken with the espionage thriller, ‘A Most Wanted Man’. Based on the novel by John Le Carré of the same title, it was Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last leading role before his death in February 2014, and …
Dec 31
Lessons for the future, learned from the past – but only if we actually learn them
Sometimes you need to see something in order truly to understand or appreciate it. For years I have been telling school students that they owe it to the world – past, present and future – never to forget the horrors of the world wars of the 20th century, and I had these words ringing in …
Dec 23
A season of renewal and rebirth – sending ripples of kindness in response to tragedy
The world sometimes seems so full of tragedy, terror and sadness that it can be hard to believe that it is worth hoping for – and working towards – a better, fairer, more harmonious future for all those who inhabit our planet. Certainly, the last couple of weeks could easily have shaken our belief in …
Dec 10
The Art of School Inspection
In recent years I have come really to appreciate the value of critical reflection that is embedded in the curriculum in British schools. In fact, it is so embedded that it is often taken for granted, as is its cousin, scepticism, and – perhaps as a result, and certainly rather ironically – critical reflection and …
Nov 16
World peace? Learning and delving deeper will set us on the path
Last week I gave a talk at Loretto Senior School in Edinburgh, which I enjoyed enormously. The students I met were committed and reflective, and we managed to experience a moment of real peace – uplifting peace – in beautiful surroundings. It was therefore fitting that I should encounter there a Gaelic Blessing which is …
Nov 05
When will “the first woman to do …” become consigned to history?
A great profile article on Dame Ann Dowling appeared earlier this week in The Independent, and – as is to be expected in a piece on a fascinating and successful person of our times – it makes for really interesting reading. We can learn so much from other people’s lives: the twists and turns of …