Consider the following hypothetical : If your child’s future was financially secure would you strongly encourage them to pursue academic attainment? (I’m making the assumption that many of us put a premium on such things in the absence of untold riches. An education is at least some competitive edge in this economically Hobbesian world of … Continued
Our children live in a different world to the one we grew up in or that is at least as this 40 year old woman sees it. This became even more apparent, a few weeks ago, when the government announced mandatory sex education from primary school onwards in council run schools. To fully put that … Continued
Why is it that authority in one area so often confers authority in another? It’s a well-studied phenomenon. One of the most famous examples of this can be seen in the social psychology experiment conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Miligram in the 1960s in which he measured the willingness of study participants to obey … Continued
Children are intrinsically creative. From the moment they become aware of the world around them they carry their own unique representations of it in their heads, right alongside the other imaginary worlds they build there. Albert Einstein once said that his schooling almost destroyed his interest in Mathematics and Physics, but that it recovered upon … Continued
We hear an awful lot about the problems with young people today. The headlines tend to favour the negative stories such as the ASBOs, underage pregnancies, the increasing frequency of teenage on adult violence and so on, but I have some real sympathy for what children face today. Consider what we now know about the … Continued
As knowledge of science and the human animal move forward it becomes ever more apparent of the interrelational nature of things. Our species has a propensity to compartmentalise the world and to some degree this makes sense. To deal with everything in its entirety is overwhelming, impractical and impossible. However, there are circumstances in which … Continued
You don’t have to be a Rockefeller to help a fella I was digging around in a drawer the other day, when I came across an old article from the Sunday Times. It had the emotive title, ‘Stars’ backing ‘cannot save’ kids’ charity’. It was a small piece about Kids Company, the worthy initiative founded … Continued
There has been a serious issue highlighted recently by Tristram Hunt, the shadow education secretary, regarding children of primary school age with profound language deficits. Typically a child of four or five will have a vocabulary of approximately 1500 to 2000 words. Some children are arriving at their first school with as little as 30-50 … Continued
Okay, so I’m just going to throw it out there. Boarding school is an abdication of responsibility. I challenge anyone out there to convince me (should they want to) that this is in the best interests of any child? And please don’t say it builds character. This is a peculiarly specious kind of reasoning. After … Continued