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Recent Posts
- ‘The Ministry of the Future’ by Kim Stanley Robinson December 20, 2020
- Why the comprehensive college? September 20, 2020
- Exam results – what just happened? August 23, 2020
- Starting to rethink education. June 10, 2020
- Knowledge and education for the future. May 25, 2020
- England’s unexpected exam revolution. May 5, 2020
- Tsitsi Dangarembga’s ‘Nervous Conditions’. May 3, 2020
- Rebecca Solnit on Hope. April 23, 2020
- In praise of lightness – Calvino’s Leggerezza. March 29, 2020
- An A-Z for a world which has to change. March 22, 2020
- Decarbonising education. March 15, 2020
- The mighty pencil November 2, 2019
- Knowledge-rich and skills-rich August 18, 2019
- ‘Unsheltered’ by Barbara Kingsolver August 11, 2019
- ‘The Overstory’ by Richard Powers. March 10, 2019
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Author Archives: Eddie Playfair
‘The Ministry of the Future’ by Kim Stanley Robinson
Fiction can change the world and the didactic approach or the ‘novel of ideas’ can be compatible with good storytelling. Like any work of art, a work of fiction can change us as individuals and, through us, help to make … Continue reading
Why the comprehensive college?
When we talk about education, we are talking about both the personal and the social – the ‘small’ and the ‘big’. As individuals, what we know and can do goes to the very heart of our identity. We are engaged … Continue reading
Exam results – what just happened?
Most years, the national drama of A Level and GCSE results days in England plays out in two distinct but related acts one week apart, focusing on the performance of the education system and the young people navigating their way … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged A levels, Assessment, Centre assessed grades, complexity, Covid-19, Education, Education policy, England, exam results, Exams, GCSE
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Starting to rethink education.
There are different ways to think about life after a crisis. One is: ‘let’s try to get back to things as they were as quickly as possible’, another is: ‘we can’t go back to things as they were, this is … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education Futures, Politics
Tagged ASCL Blueprint for a fairer education, Commission on the College of the Future, crisis, Education, Education policy, future, future education, hope, Hope in the Dark, politics, Rebecca Solnit, Thinking Global, transformation, UNESCO, UNESCO Futures of Education
5 Comments
Knowledge and education for the future.
Edgar Morin’s seven lessons for the future. When the French sociologist Edgar Morin was asked by UNESCO for his thoughts on education for the future, he organised his proposals around seven key aspects of human knowledge and understanding. In his … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education Futures
Tagged climate emergency, crisis, Edgar Morin, Education, emergence, error, ethics, future education, global citizenship, human condition, Human rights, purpose of education, reductionism, Science, Seven lessons for the future, Solidarity, UN, uncertainty, UNESCO
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England’s unexpected exam revolution.
One consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic is that we are embarking on an extraordinary national experiment in the way young people achieve their exam grades in England; switching from a heavy reliance on externally set and marked written exams towards … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy, Teaching and learning
Tagged A levels, Assessment, Centre assessed grades, Colleges, Covid-19, Exams, GCSE, GCSE English, GCSE Maths, GCSE retakes, Ranking
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Tsitsi Dangarembga’s ‘Nervous Conditions’.
The personal is political, and this wonderful book is both entirely personal and deeply political. Nervous Conditions (1988) is the story of Tambudzai, a young woman growing up in rural Zimbabwe (then known as Rhodesia) in the late 1960’s, told … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Fiction, Reviews
Tagged Africa, colonialism, Equality, inequality, liberation, Nervous Conditions, Race equality, racism, sexism, subjugation, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Zimbabwe
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Rebecca Solnit on Hope.
In a crisis, it is easy to despair. ‘Don’t mourn, organise!’ is a good mantra in such situations. Mourning has its place, but our response should be neither blind despair nor blind hope. We need to understand the objective reality … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Politics, Reviews
Tagged Coronavirus pandemic, crisis, hope, Hope in the Dark, learning, optimism, pessimism, Rebecca Solnit, Thinking Global, utopianism
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An A-Z for a world which has to change.
In the midst of a global coronavirus pandemic which threatens many lives, we need to remember that this is just one of several global crises we face which will change our world in profound ways. All these challenges require us … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
Tagged Anti-war, basic income, co-operation, Coronavirus pandemic, Democracy, Equality, global citizenship, inclusion, inequality, knowledge, marketisation, mutuality, poverty, rationalism, resilience, Solidarity, state, Sustainability, Thinking Global, trust, universalism, wealth, xenophobia, young people, zeitgeist
1 Comment
Decarbonising education.
The climate emergency is a global reality and the large scale catastrophic weather events we face on a regular basis remind us that it is affecting us in the here and now, while also threatening far more serious impacts in … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy, Politics, Students, Teaching and learning
Tagged AoC, citizenship education, climate change, climate emergency, Climate Emergency Education Bill 2020, global citizenship, Nadia Whittome MP, NUS, student activism, Students Organising for Sustainability UK, Teach the Future, UK Student Climate Network
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The mighty pencil
The mighty pencil It’s just a pencil Making a mark in a specific place On a specific piece of paper On a specific day. It only takes a second or two, No time at all. Such a simple thing. But … Continue reading
Knowledge-rich and skills-rich
We can learn a lot from the telly. Skills competitions like ‘Bake Off’ and ‘Strictly’ and quiz shows like ‘University Challenge’ and ‘Mastermind’ are among the most popular programmes on TV. These shows fall into two main camps, reflecting a … Continue reading
‘The Overstory’ by Richard Powers.
Richard Powers is an extraordinary writer. If you’ve not yet discovered his novels, I strongly recommend them. He tackles big ideas which concern all of us while at the same time telling compelling stories about complex and conflicted characters who … Continue reading
