Posted in Ideas, Education, Sociology on Jun 8th, 2011 Comments
Why are there so many Chinese maths and music prodigies? Because Chinese mothers believe schoolwork and music practice come first, that an A-minus is a bad grade, that sleepovers, TV and computer games should never be allowed and that the only activities their children should be permitted to do are ones in which they can eventually win a medal – and that medal must be gold. These methods certainly seem to get results, so perhaps western parents should start being more pushy with their children. But is it defensible to cajole and bully one's offspring to success? Isn't it better to be raising happy, rounded individuals rather than burnt-out brainboxes? Who's right and who's wrong?
Come and hear the arguments presented by Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, set to be one of the most talked about books of 2011, and on the opposite side Justine Roberts, co-founder of Mumsnet, the phenomenally successful parenting website.
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Proposing the motion is James Groves, Head of Education at think-tank Policy Exchange. Opposing the motion is Reni Eddo-Lodge, a student and Guardian blogger.
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Posted in Education, Literature on Oct 19th, 2010 Comments
“Bring back the canon” sounds a bit like a call to return to some unspeakably violent backward social educational practice. But this is about the literary canon - those works that are so clearly central to culture that they have been “canonised”.
At the Conservative party conference, Education Secretary, Michael Gove urged; “the great tradition of our literature – Dryden, Pope, Swift, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Austen, Dickens and Hardy – should be at the heart of school life.”
This front in the culture wars pits conservatives and traditionalists against a diverse army of feminists, multiculturalists, anti-colonialists and other proud minorities. Another skirmish in this war has been unfolding around Katharine Birbalsingh, once a Marxist teacher who delighted the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham with her very traditional educational opinions. She argued that children are “lost in a sea of bureaucracy”, that teachers are “blinded by leftist ideology” and that children love nothing better than to be told what to do by an authoritarian teacher. She won Michael Gove’s friendship but lost her job as deputy head of a South London academy for her comments about the shocking failures in the school system.
So, should the government - or indeed the State - be behaving as super-head-teacher and telling us what to read? And if so, should it be the Govian canon?
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Posted in Science, Education, Britain on Sep 5th, 2010 Comments
“Science is value free. So is a gun.” And similarly, science writing is used instrumentally towards political and social ends, exemplified most clearly in the Daily Mail’s schizophrenic reporting of the cervical cancer vaccine; they were ferociously negative in Britain where the vaccine is legal, yet wrote with impassioned outrage that the drug was not available in Ireland.
Here, British science writer and medical doctor Ben Goldacre describes the problems with science coverage in the mainstream media. In the Times Literary Supplement there are plenty of references to authors you’ve never heard of, yet with scientific pieces editors insist on dumbing down the content. Goldacre laments the lack of challenging and interesting science writing and points to the approach of Radio 4, in which the vast majority of material comes from the scientists themselves, as the correct approach.
Clearly in the case of the cervical cancer vaccine, the reports were not about the suitability of the trial process or the validity of the scientific conclusions but about political agendas; this is Goldacre’s main grievance with science writing not by scientists.
He does, however, identify the huge potential of the new mass media to change the way science is reported. Whether it be a lecture recording that goes viral or a fantastically entertaining and eloquent blogger, there are many channels to bring great science to the public sphere.
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Anti-semitism is in the headlines, after 87-year-old Israeli President Shimon Peres made comments which many people have interpreted as accusing the English of anti-semitism. "Our next big problem is in England,” Peres said in an interview with historian Benny Morris. “There are several million Muslim voters. And for many members of Parliament, that’s the difference between getting elected and not getting elected.” "In England,” he continued, “there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment." These comments came after David Cameron compared Gaza to a prison camp while on a visit to Turkey. Though Peres’s spokesman later issued a statement partially retracting his comments, many people do believe that there is a deep-rooted strain of anti-semitism in Britain - and not just in the explicitly racist far right.
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Posted in Politics, Education on Jul 3rd, 2010 Comments
Speakers for the motion:
Lynn Barber Sunday Times journalist and author of "An Education", a coming-of-age memoir which was made into an Oscar-nominated film last year.
Kelvin MacKenzie Media entrepreneur and former editor of The Sun.
Speakers against the motion:
Professor Germaine Greer Feminist author, academic and broadcaster.
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Professor of Global Environment History at Queen Mary, University of London, and William P. Reynolds Professor of History, University of Notre Dame. Formerly a history master at Charterhouse School.
Chair: Dr Anthony Seldon Master of Wellington College.
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Posted in Ideas, Education, Media on May 14th, 2010 Comments
If PowerPoint was a drug, says Edward Tufte, a globally acknowledged expert in graphic communication, it would be subject to a "worldwide product recall". The program, he believes, is a hopeless and, indeed, a damaging communication tool which "routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content," making millions of people’s working lives less productive and efficient but also undermining our culture and even endangering lives. But can hundreds of millions of PowerPoint users really be so wrong?
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Posted in Ideas, Education on Apr 17th, 2010 Comments
Intelligence Squared's Quick Debate is a For and Against analysis of the week's most hotly disputed public issue.
This week's debate looks at the possible effects of search giant Google scanning and digitising some ten million books
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Has Europe fallen into an "us vs them" mindset? Have Europeans nurtured the perception that Islam is alien to the continent? Do they know what to make of people who don't conform to their Enlightenment values?
Speakers: Tariq Ramadan, Zeinab Badawi, Petra Stienen, Douglas Murray, Flemming Rose
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Is it simply envy that inspires hatred of public schools? Should we not applaud them as the standard bearer of all that is best in a free meritocratic society - as academies of excellence whose pupils receive not just a first class education, but also a sense of discipline, good manners and social responsibility? Or is it more accurate to view them as little citadels of privilege, sucking the talents and energies of the middle classes out of the state system? And shouldn't we acknowledge that it's not only the children of the excluded majority who get hurt in the process but also the pampered inmates of the citadels themselves, whose limited social horizons and cut-glass branded accents cut them off from the mass of their fellow citizens and make them resented strangers in their own land?
Speakers for the motion:
David Aaronovitch Author and columnist on The Times.
Martin Rowson Satirical cartoonist and novelist. He was London's Cartoonist Laureate under former mayor Ken Livingstone.
Francis Wheen Author and broadcaster. His latest book is "Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia".
Speakers against the motion:
Mary Beard Professor of Classics at Cambridge University and author of the blog "A Don's Life" which has recently been published as a book.
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Professor of Global Environment History at Queen Mary, University of London, and William P. Reynolds Professor of History, University of Notre Dame. Formerly a history master at Charterhouse School.
Barnaby Lenon Head Master of Harrow School.
Chair:
Francine Stock Broadcaster and novelist. She presents BBC Radio 4's "The Film Programme".
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