Trivium 21c ltd.

Grid of Posts 3×2

  • Tower of Babel: Where ED Hirsch Gets It Wrong

    “Those who in the Elysian fields would dwell Do but extend the boundaries of hell.” Oakeshott – Tower of Babel In his book ‘Cultural Literacy, What Every American Should Know’ ED Hirsch writes that: The complex undertakings of modern life depend on the cooperation of many people with different specialties in different places. When communications Read more

  • A Load of Pollocks?

      “Beauty, which is what is meant by art…is no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life…” William Morris Are we all Luddites now? In the dim and distant past some people suggested that pupils wouldn’t have to learn their times tables Read more

  • Voices: An Initiation Into The Conversation Of Mankind.

    For Oakeshott: “…education is not a technocratic process of creating future workers, or even a simple transfer of knowledge. It is an adventure, an initiation into what he called “the conversation of mankind”. It is how we learn to be human.” Jesse Norman MP How refreshing to think of education, not as a journey but as an Read more

  • True grit? Whose job is it to build resilience and character?

    This is the text of a talk I gave as part of an excellent and interesting panel at the London Festival of Education, 28th February 2015, some of the words below might be different to those uttered! To paraphrase Mary Shelley: “It may…be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion; but when Read more

  • Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered: Betwixt and Between

    “I’m wild again, beguiled again A simpering, whimpering child again Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered am I…” Oh to be wild again, beguiled again, a child again… bothered, bewildered – the state when ambiguity, uncertainty takes over… Drinking brandy, falling in and out of love, full of foolish charms, not quite asleep… Schroedinger’s catnap… a place Read more

  • Workload: A Load Off My Mind

    In order to reduce workload the Government has decided to do nothing to reduce workload. This will come as a relief to many hard pressed, end of tether teachers, who were fearing free time to spend with their friends and family as they haven’t seen them for so long except in a drunken stupour they Read more