Here’s a wonderful toolkit for all teachers who want to inspire their students
February 10th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
“Values And Visions” is a book written to engage students between 8-16 years old and to empower the teachers of such students with a conceptual framework and no less than 130 practical exercises. This work of over 300 pages looks, feels, and reads like no other book you will have ever seen in a classroom:
- size A4 and ring-bound so that one can open out any part with ease
- full of colour pictures, diagrams, quotes and different styles of text
- shiny, heavy-duty pages that are a joy to hold and likely to last with use
- elegantly-organised material with beautiful and inspirational language
The conceptual framework – what the authors call the Dynamic Learning Cycle – consists of three stages: identification of the values that colour our experience, tools of reflection that enable us to respond to this experience, and purpose and action to flow from this reflection.
Eight tools of reflection are offered, each with lots of incredibly useful exercises:
- stillness which is taking the time and space to quietly reflect
- listening which involves attention, respect and empathy for others
- story which uses short narratives to engage and illuminate
- encounter which examines how we relate to others and the world
- celebration & joy which embraces gratitude and enthusiasm for life
- grieving and letting go which requires a recognition of suffering and loss
- visioning which is imagining a better future for our self or community
- journalling which is a written exploration of our thoughts and feelings
There might have been a time when I was sceptical about some of these concepts and tools but then I met the authors, Georgeanne Lamont and Sally Burns, and worked with them on courses. I saw the hugely beneficial impacts of this imaginative thinking and rich array of engaging exercises, so I know that any teacher and any student would find “Values And Visions” quite truly transformational.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (1)
Now that Brexit is ‘done’, what happens next?
February 7th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
A week ago, the United Kingdom left the European Union after membership of 47 years. In a practical sense, nothing changed because we now have a transition period but, in an emotional sense, everything changed because – depending on your point of view – either we took back or control or (my view) we stupidly cut ourself off from a huge market and a family of nations.
In the hours running up to Brexit, I was at the London School of Economics for a panel session on Brexit involving five expert commentators. A major theme of the evening was that Brexit is far from ‘done’; this is just the beginning.
The Government has talked about this being “an implementation period” but, as one panellist put it, “There is absolutely nothing to implement”. The theory is that we now have a year to negotiate the details of our future relationship with the EU , mainly trade but lots of other issues ranging from fisheries to security.
In reality, all of this month will be involved in the two parties determining their respective negotiating positions and negotiations themselves will not begin until the start of March. The transition period concludes at the end of December, but any deal has to be approved by 32 EU national and regional parliaments which means that any agreement will need to be available by September.
That means that, in truth, there will be a mere seven months to negotiate any agreement. Of course, in a rational world, there is an option of extending the transition period by up to two years, but the Government has ruled this out and, if it was to change its mind, it would have to do this as early as July.
The Government appears to favour something like the EU agreement with Canada. But a Canada-type deal is not on offer from the EU and it does not cover many areas such as energy and financial services. Another option mooted by the Government is a so-called Australia-type deal. But there is no such deal since negotiations between the EU and Oz are still in progress.
If there is no deal, the theory is that we fall back on the terms provided by the World Trade Organisation, but these are minimalist terms and would not cover major sectors such as energy and aviation.
Ivan Rogers, a former UK Permanent Representative to the EU, said “There’s big trouble ahead” and forecast “a major crisis in late 2020”. My guess is that, at the very last moment, a deal will be done but it will be what Rogers called “a skinny deal” leaving a mass of detail still to be sorted out.
Brexit is far from ‘done’. This is going to run and run and run.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (2)
A review of “The Secret Commonwealth” by Philip Pullman
February 5th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
This is the second part of the trilogy “The Book Of Dust”, following the original trilogy of “His Dark Materials”. This novel is a sequel to the first three, set some 10 years after them and therefore some 20 years after “La Belle Sauvage” which was the first part of “The Book Of Dust”. The whole of the narrative is set in the same universe as “La Belle Sauvage” which, in the words of “Northern Lights”, is like our own universe “but different in many ways”.
We already knew from the first trilogy that there were people (witches) and places (the world of the dead) when humans and their daemons could be separated, but the shocking revelation of this novel is that Lyra Belacqua/Silvertongue (now a 20 year old Oxford University student) and her pine-marten daemon Pantalaimon are not just separated but estranged, so that they are apart both physically and temperamentally. Even more troubling, we learn that there is trouble in the Far East with men from the mountains (aka The Brotherhood of This Holy Purpose) attacking both a research institute and rose growers because apparently a type of rose oil has some special characteristics in some way connected with the powerful instrument the alethiometer and the strange phenomenon of Dust.
This means that much of the narrative is a constant switching between journeys on the way out to this Far East by Lyra herself, her separated daemaon Pan, and the resouceful Malcolm Polstead (who as a boy rescued Lyra in “La Belle Sauvage” and is now an Oxford scholar). At the same time, they are being tracked by a part of the Magisterium known as the Consistorial Court of Discipline which has an althiometer and someone who can read it – as can Lyra – with the new method (Olivier Bonneville, son the the man who tried to kidnap Lyra some 20 years earlier).
Meanwhile what is the secret commonwealth of the title? We are told little, but advised that it is a “world of half-seen things and half-heard whispers” including “fairies, spirits, hauntings, things of the night”. And we learn no more about Dust itself. As Lyra asks herself: “And Dust? Where did that come in? Was it a metaphor? Was it part of the secret commonwealth?” We are told that” “We need to imagine as well as measure”.
This immensely readable work of some 800 pages finishes with nothing resolved, so that the reader can barely wait for the third and final element in “The Book Of Dust” when hopefully all our questions will be answered.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
American politics in (in)action
February 4th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
- They can’t impeach a president who is as guilty as hell.
- They can’t count caucus votes in one of the least populous states in the union.
If you want to know more about the American political system, check out my guide.
But we Brits can’t be smug.
- We couldn’t hold a clean referendum on the most important constitutional question of our lives.
- It took us three and a half years to implement this deeply flawed decision.
If you want to know more about the British political system, check out my guide.
Two cheers for democracy!
Posted in American current affairs, British current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the latest Clint Eastwood film “Richard Jewell”
February 4th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
I’m not sure how well this film will do outside the United States since the titular name will be unfamiliar to non-Americans. Jewell was a security guard at a concert celebrating the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta when he spotted a suspicious backpack and managed to have most of the nearby spectators cleared from the area before three pipe bombs exploded causing one death and injurying over 100. At first he was hailed as a hero but then the FBI and a local newspaper decided that he was the prime suspect for the crime.
Directed by the veteran Clint Eastwood, this a familiar story for him of a brave individual battling against an incompetent and uncaring bureaucracy, last told in his movie “Sully”. Certainly it is well-acted with a convincing portrayal of Jewell, the obese, obssessive, loner, by the little-known Paul Walter Hauser and a fine support cast of better-known actors including Kathy Bates as Jewell’s adoring mother, Jon Hamm as an FBI agent who pursues him, Olivia Wilde as the journalist who sets him up, and Sam Rockwell as the attorney who defends him.
Eastward is an acccomplished fim-maker and story-teller, but this is a by-the-numbers tale that is hardly his best work and understandably it has been criticised for its misleading representation of “Atlanta-Journal Constitution” reporter Kathy Scruggs.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Why does Iowa always vote first anyway?
February 3rd, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Today Democratic Party supporters in the state of Iowa will hold caucuses to decide who they want as their candidate in November’s American presidential election. Iowa always goes first in the selection process which gives this small, rural, white state exceptional importance – but why?
Well, it hasn’t in fact always been the case. Democrats started the practice in 1972 and the Republicans followed in 1976. When Jimmy Carter surprisingly won Iowa in 1972 and went on to become both the candidate and the president, the importance of the state being first became firmly established.
“The really important thing to remember about Iowa is not that it’s first because it’s important. Iowa is important because it’s first,” said Kathy O’Bradovich, political columnist for the Des Moines Register
But, still, why does Iowa go first?
It happened after the 1968 Democratic National Convention which was marred by violence over the Vietnam War and racial tension. The Democratic Party nationally and in Iowa decided they wanted to change their process to make it more inclusive.
Part of that meant spreading the presidential nominating schedule out in each state. Since Iowa has one of the more complex processes — precinct caucuses, county conventions, district conventions, followed by a state convention — it had to start really early.
You can learn more here.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
“The Night Of The Bayonets” – a World War Two story that you’ve never heard
February 1st, 2020 by Roger Darlington
In the dying days of the Second World War, a group of Georgian soliders rebelled against their German ‘comrades’ on Texel Island off the coast of The Netherlands. It’s an amazing story brought to light by my good friend Eric Lee.
In December, he was interviewed by Dan Snow (also known as “The History Guy”) about his upcoming book, “The Night of the Bayonets”. The interview went live on the History Hit website this week and you can listen to it here.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
While British politics has calmed down a lot, American politics remains as exciting as ever
January 31st, 2020 by Roger Darlington
By the end of today, Britain will have left the European Union after being a member for 47 years. A foreign friend asked me if there was an air of excitement. I explained that, since the decisive general election of 12 December 2019, there has been a sense of resignation. Those who supported Brexit thought it should have happened soon after the referendum, while those who opposed Brexit (which includes me) are really sad at our departure.
Meanwhile, over in the United States, there has been massive media coverage of the impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives and now the Senate. As expected the Democrat-controlled House supported Articles of Impeachment, but the Republican-controlled Senate will dismiss the charges.
The only questions are: will the Senate agree to call witnesses and how damaging will the Congressional proceedings be to Donald Trump’s chances of re-election to the White House? It looks like the Senate will block the attempt to call witnesses – in which case proceedings could be over in a day or two – but then I expect that former National Security Adviser John Bolton will go public on television with confirmation that Trump did insist on a ‘quid pro quo’ with Ukraine.
Of course, we still do not know who the Democrats will field to oppose Trump in November’s presidential election, but the nomination race is about to enter a decisive phase.
Iowa will hold its caucuses this Monday 3 February; New Hampshire will have its primary on Tuesday 11 February; Nevada will hold its caucuses on Saturday 22 February; South Carolina will have its primary on Saturday 29 February. All of these four states are small and the first two are very white – so not representative of the overall electorate but maybe decisive in choosing the eventual winner.
Vermont’s independent senator Bernie Sanders looks like doing really well in these early races and the Democratic establishment is scared that, if he eventually wins the nomination, it will be a repeat of the Jeremy Corbyn experience in the UK: a man who is enormously popular with activist party supporters but unappealing to the voters at large.
Former Vice-President Joe Biden may do badly in the early voting and his assumed support among African Americans will not help him in the first four states in the nomination contest. But he has enough money to stay in the race even if initially he does poorly.
The radical Elizabeth Warren and the centrist Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar are the other main contenders in these early polls. However, the billionaire Michael Blumberg is not running in these four states but spending an unprecedented amount on media in the states that will vote later.
So things may not become much clearer until Super Tuesday 3 March when no less than 14 states have primaries, including huge ones like California.
Posted in American current affairs, British current affairs | Comments (1)
Last of the RAF’s Battle of Britain fighter aces dies – but the victory was not a wholly British effort
January 30th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
The Battle of Britain in 1940 was a decisive turning point in British history and we owe an immense debt of gratitude to the 3,000 Royal Air Force pilots who defended this country against a proposed German invasion.
We have just heard the news that the last of the British aces of that conflict has died aged 101. He was Paul Farnes who shot down five Luftwaffe aircraft in the Battle and more later in the war. But this is a time to remember that one-fifth of all the RAF’s pilots in the Battle of Britain were not in fact British.
There were contingents from many other Allies countries, most notably Poland and Czechoslovakia. The 88 Czech pilots included Josef Frantisek, who was the top-scoring RAF pilot of the Battle, and Karel Kuttelwascher, the father of my ex-wife. You can read more about the contribition of Czechs to the wartime RAF here.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
Could the explanation for dark energy be something called massive gravity?
January 25th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Sometimes it’s good to raise our eyes above national and global politics and think about cosmological matters. For instance, why is the universe expanding at an accelerating rate when the known laws of physics suggest that this ballooning should be slowing down?
The explanation might be something to do with what scientists have called dark energy which is estimated to account for 70% of the contents of the universe. A radical theory that would support this is called massive gravity which – contrary to Einstein’s theory of general relativity – postulates that the particles that mediate the gravitational force have mass.
A theortectical physicist promoting this theory is Professor Claudia de Rham and you can read a little more about her thinking here.
Now, didn’t that take your mind off Trump and the coronavirus?
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)