Aug 18

Fantastic A Levels … but where are our future communicators?

This week has brought another excellent crop of A Level results, and I send a special congratulations to the leavers of St Mary’s Calne, who are now headed for leading universities across the UK and the world, including seven (of the year group of fifty) to Oxbridge, and three to North America. They are raring to go, and will most definitely make their mark at university and beyond – well done to them!! There are plenty of scientists and linguists amongst them, and this consoled me to some degree as I read Thursday’s Guardian article about the decline in the take-up of languages at A Level across the country, which is alarming.

According to the article, only around 12,500 students took A Level French this year, and fewer than 5,000 took German. The number of entries for Spanish dropped slightly too, to approximately 7,300. A few languages saw a slight increase: from 844 last year to 923 for A Level Polish, and from 3,237 to 3,425 for Mandarin, for instance. These figures hide the age of the candidates, but it is a fair guess that not all of them are 18 year old school students, ready to extend their knowledge of the subject at university and beyond; also unclear is the proportion of native speaker candidates, but again it is a fair guess that some of the increases come from heritage or native speakers of the language in question. All told, this paints a pretty bleak picture of the level of preparedness of our new generations to be able to communicate effectively in a global world.

Of course, English is widely spoken, widely used and widely recognised as one of the major languages of the world. But my time in China earlier this summer, for example, reinforced to me the power of Mandarin as almost a necessity in tomorrow’s – if not, in fact, today’s – world. With a population of almost 1.4 billion in China alone, and native Chinese speakers spread throughout the world, Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in the world. Being able to speak to someone on their own terms in a sign of respect for them and for their culture, and is equalising – sharing a common language brings with it a level playing field of communication.

But above all we need to learn language – any language, in fact – because, as the gateway to another culture, it teaches us that, of ourselves, we are not the centre of a private universe. We are part of a gloriously diverse world, where unique individuals are knitted together through shared customs and cultures, and when we travel, meet people and communicate in different tongues, we discover that although we are all different, we all share an essential humanity in which we are all equal to one another. Languages open doors to a richer understanding and appreciation of the human race. They should be taught by experts in all primary schools. A language course – not necessarily an exam course, but a meaningful course of study – should be taught all the way through senior school. Our politicians should extol the virtues of learning languages, and lead by example.

In this world, we all need to be communicators. Let’s make sure our young people this.

 

Aug 15

BBC Breakfast TV, a London cabbie … and positive role models for women

On Monday this week I was a guest on BBC Breakfast TV, hosted by Bill Turnbull and Susannah Reid at Lund Point, a block of residential flats overlooking the Olympic Park. What a view! The studio itself was actually on the roof, and I and Liz Nicholl of UK Sport, who was also speaking in the same slot, walked up a set of rather rickety steps into the open air before we were ushered into the compact but highly efficient studio with, as I said, that fabulous view over a now very empty Park. It was the morning after the night of the Closing Ceremony, and we were there to talk about the legacy of the Olympic Games, particularly for girls and women. I made the point that the Games had been incredibly inspirational for girls and women, and we now had to keep up the momentum and keep enabling us all to watch lots of women’s sport. As is always the case with the media, there is never enough time to say all that could or should be said, but it was a very good experience, and an opportunity to make the case for more sustained support of sport for girls and women.

When I left Lund Point, because the weather was threatening and the territory was unknown, I decided to catch a taxi back to Paddington. This turned out to be a little bit of a mistake, as the Olympic lanes were still in operation, and it was rush hour … It took a long time to reach my destination, but it was a fascinating journey. Steve the Cabbie and I had a great conversation. I told him all the things I had not had time to say on air – the fact that only 12% of 14 year old girls do enough exercise, that only 0.5% of corporate sponsorship in sport is given to women’s sport, and that only 5% of media coverage of sport is of women’s sport. I spoke about the backdrop to girls’ lives, and how they needed positive female role models who were valued for what they did, not how they appeared. He told me about his daughter, a recovering anorexic, and we agreed that while anorexia is a psychological illness, it didn’t help one jot to have all of these pictures of ‘perfect’ women around. Nor, he said, does it help boys: the number of boys in the eating disorders unit which his daughter had attended as an in-patient for 5 months had more than doubled in the past few years. Boys as well as girls are susceptible to the influences and images they see around them, and the backdrop of their lives is increasingly sexualised and airbrushed too.

So – for the sake of Steve the Cabbie, his daughter, and all our young girls and boys who need positive role models around them if they are to feel inspired and fulfil their great potential, let us keep the spirit of the Olympics alive. Let us not allow our female – or male – athletes to become sucked up into the celebrity machine and to become shadows of their physical, real selves. Let us re-run, again and again, those marvellous interviews just after the athletes got off the track, or out of the water: real people with real stories, real exhilaration, sometimes real pain, but above all … real.

These people are our heroes – ordinary, non-surgically altered people who have worked hard and given their all for their own self-respect and to try to win for their country. Beside them, the significance and power of airbrushed models will fade, and we will start the process of creating a more balanced, realistic, grounded backdrop to our society: a backdrop of positive, empowering images to influence the lives of our young people.

Let these Olympics truly and genuinely inspire the whole of the next generation.

 

Aug 12

London 2012: Inspiring a Generation … of Girls

The motto of London 2012 has been “Inspire a Generation”, and now that the Olympics are over, the work to make this happen must begin in earnest. And although we want all boys and girls to be inspired, there is a particular case to be made for working to inspire the next generation of girls. A report earlier this year by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation showed that just 12% of 14 year old girls – half the number of 14 year old boys – are physically active to the levels recommended for healthy living. Over half of the 1,500 children surveyed, both boys and girls, said that there were more opportunities for boys to succeed in sport than girls. 48% of the girls surveyed said that getting sweaty was perceived as “not feminine”. Similarly, and worryingly, nearly a third of boys said that “sporty girls” were not very feminine. 43% of girls – almost half, in fact – said that there weren’t many sporting role models for girls.

Well, this has to change, and it can. The health and wellbeing – mental and emotional as well as physical – of our young people is too important, not just for them but for the future of society and for our world. When we are fit in body, mind and spirit, we are able to contribute and make the difference that the world needs; sport provides us all with a positive focus, an opportunity to work hard, individually and as part of team, to develop ourselves in every way … for so many reasons, sport should be a central part of our lives, and this is why we need to ensure that our young people have the opportunities that will enable them to play and grow into sport. We must look forward, and we must commit to this goal.

As we look forward, though, we can draw inspiration again and again from the memories of these amazing Games. Here are my top, female-focused, memories to inspire the next generation of girls …

– the participation: these were the first Games – of many, we hope – in which every nation represented brought both female and male competitors. Remember the cheer in the Olympic Stadium when Jacques Rogge announced this at the Opening Ceremony …;

– the GB medal tally: the first medal on the table was a Silver earned by female cyclist Lizzie Armitstead, the first Gold medals on the GB tally were earned by female rowers Hannah Glover and Heather Stanning, and the women’s medals continued to flow in, helping to make this the best Games of modern times for Team GB;

– the role-models: all our female athletes deserve role-model status, but who can help but admire especially athletes like Jessica Ennis (just think of all those personal bests, and her storming approach to no fewer than 8 disciplines). These are celebrities worthy of our adulation and interest;

– the determination: Katherine Grainger’s performance was an example of sheer doggedness, leading her to win Gold after winning Silver (no mean feat either) in no fewer than three previous Olympics;

– the hard, hard work: no words were more truly spoken than those by Rebecca Adlington as she took back her apology to the crowd for earning Bronze rather than Gold in the 800m Freestyle Final: “that was so painful … I gave it my absolute all … I hope people see that and don’t think I let them down.” Being an Olympian means being among the fastest and best in the world for that sport – it is tremendously worthwhile, and it is this because it is hard work.

– the real females: women of different shapes, sizes, heights and appearance, interviews without make-up, with sportswomen expressing real emotions … this was hugely refreshing to see, and a reminder that we have to fight against the airbrushed, sexualised images of women that surround us most of the time. When Joanna Rowsell, who has lost most of her hair to alopecia, stood on the podium, holding a Gold medal for the cycling team pursuit, we were proud of who she was in her entirety;

– the former pupil: Laura Bechtolsheimer, a Calne pupil in years gone by, won Gold in the Team Dressage and Bronze in the Individual Dressage. It is always fantastic to have connections with medal winners, and the girls at school will be even more inspired by this connection;

– the great female commentators: Clare Balding, Hazel Irvine, Sue Barker, Gabby Logan – the Olympics have showcased their intelligence and humour;

– the women’s team sports: from football to hockey to basketball to handball – we have seen how thrilling they are, and we want to see more. Saturdays should no longer just be about men’s sport.

So – it is up to all of us not to let these memories fade. Let us keep them alive in the media, in our conversations, in our school lessons. Long live London 2012, and may the Olympics indeed inspire a generation of children and, especially, girls.

 

Aug 10

Inspirational Women

I came across a fantastic website recently, and I thoroughly recommend that you visit it. In fact, it is a subsection of the magazine Marie Claire’s website, and it is entitled ‘Inspirational Women‘. The introduction on the site says it all: “There’s no doubt about it – the women of the world are truly inspirational. Read their stories, and other reports here, in our Inspirational Women section. And who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be profiled here, too. Because we know better than anyone that you’re more than just a pretty face.” Stories of women who have achieved, a focus on action and substance than appearance, and an exhortation to girls and women to be inspired … what is there not to like in this!

The site is the American online home of Marie Claire, and so it will not be surprising that many of the women profiled are based in the States, although there is an international element too. Including the archives, well over 50 women are profiled, and what I found remarkable when browsing these profiles was how upbeat, refreshing and – yes – inspiring the stories are. From the well-known (the actress Calista Flockhart, for instance, who focuses now on leading a campaign to end violence against women) to ordinary women with extraordinary tales to tell (for example, Katie Miller, a 27 year old autistic artist from Maryland), the stories are rich in detail, and draw the reader into their lives. Fascinating stuff!

I believe – and say this frequently to the students at school – that we can learn so much from the lives of other people. We have to look beyond the celebrity glitz and glamour which surround us in the media, none of which is more than merely a brief and insubstantial snapshot of a moment in time, and look out for insights into people’s lives which reveal the depth of their passion and purpose. When we read inspiring stories – and the London 2012 Olympics have given us many more of them – we remember that we are not alone in this world, and that we are connected with a shared and common sense that we can, together, make a positive difference, in our own unique ways.

Be inspired today.

 

Aug 07

Shakespeare, bloody Shakespeare

A couple of months ago, I had a preview of elements of the St Mary’s Calne Venus Flytrap production of ‘Macbeth Unsexed’, which opened today at the Edinburgh Fringe and is showing at C Eca, Venue 50, at 3pm for the next week. The immensely talented actors, most aged 17, took their A Level Theatre Studies this summer, a year early, and as part of their portfolio they devised a clever and chillingly captivating ensemble piece, focused on death and murder, which was terrifying to the core. For Edinburgh, they have woven these elements, into a portrayal of Lady Macbeth, ‘unsexing’ her as she herself asked to be, and binding her to the madnesses of ‘unsexed’ women throughout Western literature.

And yet, although I had had a preview, and although I was steeling myself for the onslaught, as characters rose out of anonymity, formed in front of my eyes, challenged me and attacked me, bruising my sensibilities in a way that only powerful drama can, I was not sufficiently prepared, for how can one be when one is faced with such shocking insights into the mind of a twisted humankind – womankind – that it is all too easy to deny exists? As the cast themselves drove home – “Do not look away … The future holocausts and genocides and murders for which man is to blame … Are we all damned?”

Are we all damned? Is it all – everything we do – pointless, meaningless? Well, of course not. My father, who came with me to the performance, remarked wryly afterwards that – on the evidence of the tales of destruction, suicide and murder we had just witnessed – all my efforts to impart social and moral education at school had obviously not had any effect whatsoever; when I told the girls, they laughed out loud. In that laughter was all the evidence one needed of the power of a liberal education to challenge us to think differently, to stretch to the furthest extreme our understandings even of the darkest parts of the human psyche, and yet still to enable us to return to our strong core of knowing what is right and what is wrong, born of centuries of our moral traditions.

“A deed of dreadful note”, to quote Macbeth himself, is something that he recognised and that we recognise. But remember – it is education that teaches us so, and without it, we might just risk being damned.

Thank you, girls, for reminding us of this. And keep wowing Edinburgh.

 

Aug 04

The Women’s Games?

Before the Olympic Games even started, the omens were good, with the news that for the first time, every country represented had both male and female athletes. Then, the first GB medals came from women, and the tally at this point still looks fairly female heavy. Commentators have been delighting in the performance of the British women in every sport, and it has been hugely uplifting to watch women in action, from the nifty footwork of the women’s football team to the power of the rowing pairs. I considered myself extremely lucky to see women’s hockey, basketball and handball live at the Olympic Park, and the level of performance was, quite simply, astonishing. Even the GB handball team, which was only formed in 2006, especially for the London 2012 Olympics, and which has suffered from severe lack of funding, scored the opening goals against an ultimately stronger Russian team, and made some spectacular saves during the course of a fast-paced, exciting match. What an impressive set of women!

Women are gaining a greater prominence in these Olympic Games than, it would appear, has ever happened before. The Deputy Editor of the Guardian tweeted yesterday that although she had been editing the paper since 2003, never before had they run so many stories about women athletes: “Thank you, Olympians and Team GB”, she wrote. The question is on many, many lips – are these the ‘women’s games’?

Well, they should be. Not because the goal is for women to perform better than men, and not because we would wish to deny male achievement. No – these should be the women’s games because they should mark a turning point in how we recognise our female athletes. Our sportswomen deserve equal recognition alongside their male counterparts. We should celebrate women as we celebrate men; they should be recognised equally, and we should glory in their amazing abilities.

There is a long way to go, of course. Earlier this week the Huffington Post reported research that showed how female athletes suffer from an over-sexualised representation in advertising, and a lack of visibility; we know how little female sport is available to watch on TV. Funding is a major issue – commentators earlier in the week compared the seven figure salaries of the top male cyclists to the small lottery grants afforded to top female cyclists. Lizzie Armitstead herself raised the issue of “overwhelming sexism”in sport as she displayed her silver medal.

So … we may not solve this glaring inequality immediately, but the Olympics have given us a great boost and a great reason to make a significant difference. Women shouldn’t have to fight harder to get funding than men, and they shouldn’t have to fly economy while their male peers fly business, as happened to the Japanese football team and the Australian basketball.

Let these Women’s Games mark the tipping point for a more equal, fairer, more balanced future in sport. What an inspiring legacy that would be!

 

Aug 02

Education changes the world

‘A changing world’: how often do we hear these words?! More frequently than not, they are accompanied by a frisson of anxiety, of an age gone by and lost forever, of an attempt in vain to halt the progress of time, in search of a better, more stable past. Undeniably we live in – and, perhaps more crucially, are educating our young people for – a world that is in flux. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – in fact, it is in many ways a good thing, as when we look around us, there are lots of things that need to change. The point is – the world is changing even as I write this blog, and you read it.

There are changes brought about by technology, gender and social changes, climate change, population explosion. We keep finding out new ways of doing things, we keep exploring and stretching the bounds of our knowledge. This is the post-industrial age – arguably even the post-information age – this is Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society in action, where what we are doing all the time is effectively weighing up risks and learning how to make the best judgements we can with what we have to hand.

We often worry about all of this because we can’t easily pin down who we are and where we are. Events come out of the blue, and hit us, and we have to re-evaluate how we view the world around us.

The global financial crisis, for example – where will it take us? What will it mean for us? For our schools? And for our children? And their future?

This is a different world from the world 50 years ago, or even 10 … but actually, of itself, this shouldn’t worry us at all. The world is always changing – always has, always will. Today’s world, compared to yesterday’s world, has different, unique combinations of different, unique human beings, thinking different, unique thoughts. In 50 years time, or even in 10 – or even tomorrow – it will be different again.

Change is inevitable – change is a creative part of our very being – for me, change in itself, the fact that we live in a changing world, isn’t the point. The point is – is it good change? Is it based on solid values rooted in our society and its moral purpose? Is it the change we want and need? And what should schools be doing about it if it isn’t?

Because – and this is one of my key messages to whomever will listen – I firmly believe that schools have a real responsibility, through the work they do with young people, to help shape the changes in our changing world.

This is what education does – it creates change, it provokes it and it thrives on it. Change is good, change is great … We just have to empower our educators to let them do their work.

 

Jul 28

The World’s Greatest Sport

Well, I thought the Opening Ceremony of London 2012 was just amazing! What a tour de force – a visual and musical retelling of British history from before the industrial revolution to today, reminding us all of Britain’s contribution to world history, while avoiding jingoism and one-up-manship. The staging was magnificent, the inclusion (of patients, of NHS staff, of a choir of deaf and signing children, of just ordinary people, of 7,500 volunteers) was tremendous, the music was amazing … and as the petals of the cauldron rose up into the centre of the stadium, the fire (lit by the young athletes of tomorrow – in a symbolic passing from the old to the new) blazed with hope and warmth for the Games ahead. One of the final shots – of the Olympic rings lifted into space, with the Earth as their backdrop – was simply breathtaking.

‘Breathtaking’ is one of the adjectives used by today’s London Daily Telegraph to describe the ceremony; another is ‘bonkers’, and madness and humour pervaded the evening in an absolutely unprecedented and completely entrancing fashion. Mr Bean made his debut as the newest member of the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Rattle, in their performance of the Chariots of Fire theme tune, and had (me and) my children in stitches on the sofa. The title of ‘The World’s Greatest Sport’ might well be reserved in its entirety, too, for Her Majesty the Queen, who agreed to be filmed accompanying Daniel Craig – aka 007 – in a sequence that apparently culminated in them both parachuting out of a helicopter above the stadium. It may be that I was caught up in the euphoria of the moment, but I felt myself impelled (almost) to shout out ‘Respect!’. What a woman!

There was sadness too, and no attempt to hide the effects of war and disaster – the pause in the opening historical segment when we remembered the First World War, and the memorial wall to which spectators had been asked to contribute pictures of loved ones who had passed away. When the flagbearer from Rwanda entered the stadium, the commentator reminded us that this athlete had stated expressly that he wanted to put Rwanda on the map for more than its horrific genocide – a remarkable statement, given that he had lost six of his brothers in the atrocity in 1994. The Iraqi team was given a particularly warm welcome, recognising the efforts the country is making to recover from war. When the Syrian team entered, reference was made by the commentator to the civil war. All of these sadnesses and horrors exist in the world, and the explicit and shared message of the ceremony was that diversity is something to be valued, inclusiveness is to be striven for, and we must move on, as a human race, to forgive the past, to be tolerant of the present, and to hope for the future.

An estimated one billion people watched last night’s ceremony; an estimated four billion people will watch the Olympic Games over the next fortnight. To bring together almost a third of the world’s population for a single event is an astonishing concept, but it is also an empowering one; if we can unite nations and people through a sporting competition that takes place every four years, then we should not stop there. The ingenuity and creativity of last night’s performances, the placing on centre stage at one point of the man who has connected the world more than any other through the world-wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the visible enthusiasm and excitement of competitors and participants – all of these spoke of the very best of humanity, and we should feel spurred on to seek to make that positive difference in the world that we know that we need.

Onwards, then … and let the Games begin!

 

Jul 25

An Olympian responsibility: Taking the opportunity to celebrate female shapes

An article in Monday’s Daily Mail reported the latest in a series of research studies on body image and body confidence in young people, and the results were unsurprising. This particular study, of 31,354 boys and girls aged 10-15, conducted by the Schools Health Education Unit, added to the increasingly loud alarm bells ringing about how young people view themselves, and how we have come to this point. According to the study, schoolgirls as young as 12 are unhappy with their weight and are skipping meals in order to be thinner; half of 12-13 year olds said they wanted to be thinner; and 58% of girls in Year 10 (ie aged 14 or 15) said that they wanted to lose weight. In case you were wondering whether in fact this was an appropriate response to an epidemic of childhood obesity, the researchers set the record firmly straight: “An analysis of the characteristics of the year 10 females shows that most wanting to lose weight are within the limits of ‘healthy’ weight, and some are already underweight.”

The reaction of Beat, the eating disorder charity, was quite straightforward: “One of the key features of current popular culture is a preoccupation with weight and shape … The fascination with celebrities, their bodies, clothes and appearance has all increased the pressure that young people feel … Celebrities are scrutinised for flaws and imperfections, leading young people to consider their own bodies in a critical light too.” Young teenagers are at a particularly vulnerable point in their lives, as their bodies are changing and they are developing their own identities; it is no wonder that low self-esteem and poor body image result from this obsession that we seem to have as a society.

So … with the Olympics almost upon us, we have an opportunity to celebrate a different range of female shapes, rather than the über-thin, airbrushed sea of images of models in which our young people are drowning. Sportspeople are of course obsessive and obsessed too, but their obsession lies in what their body can do, not what it looks like. With only two days to go before the opening ceremony of London 2012, it is a fair bet that all our Olympians are focusing, totally and utterly, on getting their bodies and their minds into exactly the right place to perform extraordinary physical feats. Yet even with this focus, danger lies not far off. A worrying and disappointing rash of pictures of British athletes in sexualised poses have been scattered over the Sunday papers – some in adverts, others simply illustrating articles. Britain’s beach volleyball pair have QR codes on their briefs, which effectively encourage spectators to take pictures of their backsides. Jessica Ennis was criticised recently for weighing too much – a statement that should be laughable.

Our Olympians have a real opportunity over the next few days (and, hopefully, weeks and months, in the afterglow of a successful Games) to be real, realistic, amazing role models for our young people in how they act, think, speak and behave. How they treat their bodies – and how they allow other people to treat them – is an enormous part of this responsibility.

 

Jul 22

The eighth habit

Stephen Covey’s death last week has sparked – quite rightly – a flurry of accolades for a man who has been described as a pioneer in the genre of self-help literature which aims to enable people to lead their best lives. His 1989 bestseller, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, subtitled ‘Powerful Lessons in Personal Change’, has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. Whatever his personal and religious beliefs, with which many disagreed, there is no doubt that he was instrumental in making change happen for countless individuals. At his funeral, his children spoke warmly of his sense of humour and empathy, and it was clear that he was driven – positively and without taking himself too seriously – to make a real and personal difference amongst human beings in the world.

This was very much the tone of his sequel to ‘7 habits’ – his 1984 work called ‘The 8th habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness’. In it, he explained how being effective was not enough – we all need, in this age of information overload, to rise above mere competency and seek to ensure that whatever we did, it was with a greater goal in mind. “Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs”: this was his message, and it is in itself an inspiring one. It speaks to our need as a society to become more than a collection of individuals, and instead to recognise that we are all interrelated, and that our actions can and should affect positively those around us. We need to move beyond a self-restraining selfishness – or embarrassment – to realise that we all have something to offer the world, and that it is our duty and responsibility to do so.

Certainly, I feel that this is what we seek to communicate in school. In order to become fully themselves, our young people need to learn first who they are – to test themselves and stretch themselves to become the best of themselves; then, they must learn the courage to take the next step – a step which will see them making a strong and useful impact on the world. ‘Making the world a better place’ is an incredibly useful mantra for each and every young person. We just need to keep enabling them, empowering them, and reminding them … and let us not forget to remind ourselves to do the same.