Working Like A Woman

Work Like A Woman is Mary Portas' manifesto for change in the way we look at how our places of work are run.  Mary and I swapped books a little before Xmas, and I've just emerged from her bracing account of what she's learnt from a somewhat unusual life.  I say 'bracing' but I did also feel as if I needed a short lie down after finishing it. The manifesto itself comes at the end and is tailored for different age groups.  Her proposals make eminent sense to me, and my daughters will be getting copies of the sections for their respective decades.  They are stuffed with challenging and yet…
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Violence and cranial feminisation

A slightly unusual title for a blog you might think.  I went last night to the Royal Institution to listen to Richard Wrangham talking about his new book The Goodness Paradox.  I won't even try to summarise the very rich lecture, which covered swathes of evolutionary thinking as well as graphic detail on the brutality of chimps. Richard draws a basic distinction between two types of violence:  proactive (premeditated, calculated) and reactive (spontaneous, sudden).  His basic thesis is that as humans we differ from other animals in being much less inclined to exhibit the latter.  Apparently we do only a thousandth of the 'scuffling' that chimps and even the more peaceful…
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A Reskilling Revolution

We're at that point - it swings around about once a decade - when lifelong learning becomes something people seem to want to talk about as if it mattered.  One prompt for this in the UK is the centenary of the 1919 Report on Adult Education, on which Paul Stanistreet has written so powerfully.  A Commission chaired by Dame Helen Gosh (Master of Balliol College Oxford, whose predecessor in that role chaired the original) is looking at how we might use the date to generate some fresh impetus and thinking. Both of which, plus huge amounts of political effort, are needed if we are to turn around this country's extraordinary…
Read More

Working Like A Woman

Work Like A Woman is Mary Portas' manifesto for change in the way we look at how our places of work are run.  Mary and I swapped books a little before Xmas, and I've just emerged from her bracing account of what she's learnt from a somewhat unusual life.  I say 'bracing' but I did also feel as if I needed a short lie down after finishing it. The manifesto itself comes at the end and is tailored for different age groups.  Her proposals make eminent sense to me, and my daughters will be getting copies of the sections for their respective decades.  They are stuffed with challenging and yet…
Read More

Violence and cranial feminisation

A slightly unusual title for a blog you might think.  I went last night to the Royal Institution to listen to Richard Wrangham talking about his new book The Goodness Paradox.  I won't even try to summarise the very rich lecture, which covered swathes of evolutionary thinking as well as graphic detail on the brutality of chimps. Richard draws a basic distinction between two types of violence:  proactive (premeditated, calculated) and reactive (spontaneous, sudden).  His basic thesis is that as humans we differ from other animals in being much less inclined to exhibit the latter.  Apparently we do only a thousandth of the 'scuffling' that chimps and even the more peaceful…
Read More

A Reskilling Revolution

We're at that point - it swings around about once a decade - when lifelong learning becomes something people seem to want to talk about as if it mattered.  One prompt for this in the UK is the centenary of the 1919 Report on Adult Education, on which Paul Stanistreet has written so powerfully.  A Commission chaired by Dame Helen Gosh (Master of Balliol College Oxford, whose predecessor in that role chaired the original) is looking at how we might use the date to generate some fresh impetus and thinking. Both of which, plus huge amounts of political effort, are needed if we are to turn around this country's extraordinary…
Read More

Working Like A Woman

Work Like A Woman is Mary Portas' manifesto for change in the way we look at how our places of work are run.  Mary and I swapped books a little before Xmas, and I've just emerged from her bracing account of what she's learnt from a somewhat unusual life.  I say 'bracing' but I did also feel as if I needed a short lie down after finishing it. The manifesto itself comes at the end and is tailored for different age groups.  Her proposals make eminent sense to me, and my daughters will be getting copies of the sections for their respective decades.  They are stuffed with challenging and yet…
Read More

Violence and cranial feminisation

A slightly unusual title for a blog you might think.  I went last night to the Royal Institution to listen to Richard Wrangham talking about his new book The Goodness Paradox.  I won't even try to summarise the very rich lecture, which covered swathes of evolutionary thinking as well as graphic detail on the brutality of chimps. Richard draws a basic distinction between two types of violence:  proactive (premeditated, calculated) and reactive (spontaneous, sudden).  His basic thesis is that as humans we differ from other animals in being much less inclined to exhibit the latter.  Apparently we do only a thousandth of the 'scuffling' that chimps and even the more peaceful…
Read More

A Reskilling Revolution

We're at that point - it swings around about once a decade - when lifelong learning becomes something people seem to want to talk about as if it mattered.  One prompt for this in the UK is the centenary of the 1919 Report on Adult Education, on which Paul Stanistreet has written so powerfully.  A Commission chaired by Dame Helen Gosh (Master of Balliol College Oxford, whose predecessor in that role chaired the original) is looking at how we might use the date to generate some fresh impetus and thinking. Both of which, plus huge amounts of political effort, are needed if we are to turn around this country's extraordinary…
Read More