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Recent Posts
- Zola : a political reading. August 13, 2023
- Hotter than July? August 5, 2023
- Rethinking work July 30, 2023
- Educating for political literacy in an age of crisis. July 21, 2023
- Savoirs et valeurs : pratiquer et conjuguer July 21, 2023
- ‘Transformative Teaching and Learning in Further Education – Pedagogies of Hope and Social Justice’ July 18, 2023
- Dilemmas of Growth June 14, 2023
- A broader view of skills? June 7, 2023
- In praise of ‘low value’ subjects. February 27, 2023
- Frigga Haug and the mystery of learning December 6, 2022
- Debating Growth. November 29, 2022
- Code red for human survival November 8, 2022
- The politics of silence. September 4, 2022
- Posts on Corsican themes. August 10, 2022
- When Corsica welcomed thousands of Serb refugees (1916) August 9, 2022
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Category Archives: Politics
French elections 2022
Electing a French President. #1 The presidential election system. 2022 is a big election year in France, with the presidential election in April followed by the parliamentary (National Assembly) elections in June. Each of these elections has two rounds, meaning … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
Tagged Democracy, elections, France, French presidential elections, politics, voting
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Zola’s ‘Money’
Rougon-Macquart #18 A powerful anti-capitalist novel. Emile Zola’s wonderful 1890 novel ‘L’Argent’ (‘Money’) is set in the world of finance and share-speculation in 1860’s Paris. It is still fresh and relevant and should be on any reading list of anti-capitalist … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Fiction, Politics, Reviews
Tagged capitalism, economy, Emile Zola, France, investment, money, Napoleon III, Paris, Second Empire, socialism, speculation, Yanis Varoufakis
1 Comment
“You either bend the arc or it bends you”
‘Attack Surface’ by Cory Doctorow. ‘Attack Surface‘ (2020) is a gripping action-packed story of oppression and resistance with plenty of insights into the potential of new technologies and big data. It is also a powerful manifesto for the necessity of … Continue reading
‘The Ministry for 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
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
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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
2 Comments
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
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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
The promise of a National Education Service
The proposed creation of a National Education Service (NES) for England offers us the possibility of a decisive break with the market model, where education is treated as a commodity and where individual and institutional competition are regarded as the … Continue reading
Easing student debt won’t cut it.
Apparently, the prime minister is considering ways to ease the burden of student debt (story here). That sounds like a good idea; she might also take the opportunity to consider how the tuition fee and loan system has changed the … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy, Politics
Tagged Education, Labour party, marketisation, politics, student debt, student loans, Universities, university fees
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Edgar Morin on ‘Thinking Global’.
How do we understand the difference between the behaviour of an individual and that of a society, between a small group of like-minded people and a political movement or between the ecosystem of a few acres and that of a … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Politics
Tagged complexity, Edgar Morin, emergence, global citizenship, Hegel, Penser Global, reductionism, thinking, Thinking Global
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Giving young people a stake in their future
In the wake of the general election there’s been a lot of talk about the youth vote and young people’s renewed commitment to the political process. At the same time, there is evidence of young people’s pessimism about their future … Continue reading
Reconstruction in an age of demolition
A national project is always a ‘work in progress’ as implied by the title of Carol Ann Duffy’s brilliant performance piece based on the words of people across the country during the EU referendum campaign. So what sort of work is … Continue reading
Education 2022: market or system?
What will education in England look like in 2022? An election is the decisive moment where we are offered, and can select from, alternative futures. Following an inconclusive general election outcome which has delivered a hung parliament, we now await … Continue reading
Eddie Playfair 