Education, education, education: we hear the mantra all the time, but do we really know what education even means? Can we tell the educated person from the ignoramus? How? Are there metrics and standards we can apply to education? Are people more educated today than they used to be, or are the barbarians inside the school gates?
To decide just what it does mean to be educated nowadays, our panel will take part in a balloon debate. Will you vote for foreign languages to stay in the balloon? Or is it imperative that one knows one’s classics from one’s canon? Does travel broaden the mind, or should we jettison it in favour of scientific understanding or culture, philosophy and general bookishness? Come and have your say as we try to separate the well educated from the merely well trained.
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Mark Vernon journalist; author, God: all that matters and The Big Questions: God |
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Michele Ledda coordinator, Civitas Supplementary Schools Project, Yorkshire; co-organiser, Leeds Salon |
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Dr Shirley Lawes researcher; consultant and university teacher, specialising in teacher education and modern foreign languages; Chevalier dans l’ordre des Palmes Académiques |
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Dan Travis director, Brighton Salon; tennis coach; author How to teach Young Children Tennis and In Defence of Competitive Sport. |
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Peter Smith director of tourism, St. Mary’s University College, Twickenham, London; co-author, Volunteer Tourism: the lifestyle politics of international development |
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Simon Watt freelance science communicator; currently touring 'Sperm Warfare', an entertaining lecture on evolutionary biology |
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 | Angus Kennedy convenor, The Academy; author, Being Cultured: in defence of discrimination |
From age eight, primary school pupils will be learning about puberty and the facts of life, and about the effects of heroin and cocaine
Alexandra Frean, The Times, 24 October 2008Naughty or shy pupils who use the back of the classroom as a haven for daydreaming or mischief could be in for a nasty shock if a teaching scheme being adopted by a leading educationalist takes off.
Nicola Woolcock, The Times, 7 October 2008
Drawing on the insights of the ancient Greek philosophers, "Wellbeing" challenges us to think about our values and beliefs, to discover a sense of place in the universe, and to work out how to give ourselves to love and life.
Mark Vernon, Acumen Publishing, 18 September 2008
If global travelling makes a good political leader, Judith Chalmers would be prime minister
Ross Clark, The TImes, 16 September 2008"A British pupil can go through the entire school system and get the top marks in English and English Literature without knowing that Spenser, Milton or Pope ever existed."
JM Shaw, standpoint, 14 August 2008On the value of classical learning.
Victor Davis Hanson, The New Criterion, 26 May 2008
Education is a practical activity. It is concerned with means to be employed or devised for the achievement of an end.
Mortimer Adler,
