It’s okay to not be okay
It’s an absolute certainty that none of us, educators, educationalist, or parents, could have foreseen the effects of the global pandemic on pupil’s, now student’s, educational experiences, so...
The Silence of the West...
I’m not certain that we, the ‘ordinary’ folk, the ‘men and women on the street’, the ‘working class’, the populace, the constituents, the ‘bourgeoisie’, the proletariat, the...
Your cell phone: Your lifeline... or?
Our mobiles, our cell phones. I can take or leave mine to be honest. But what about you? Are you a prisoner to your phone? Probably... that’s why they are called cell phones.I can hear some of you...
Is thinking over-rated?
Thinking is over-rated! Well, that’s what I tell many of my English Language and English Literature students.It’s not as bad as it sounds though, as the otherwise blasé statement has a caveat. It...
Respect, through understanding dementia
It’s happened to all of us, hasn’t it? We’re doing something or nothing and get a wee bit distracted... then we forget what it was we were doing. Then, either we think, or someone says,...
Adrenaline junkie or sloth? Which are you?
“Adrenaline junkies give leisure a bad name,” said a colleague last week, and I had to smile wryly, as while I have known, and seen hundreds, I have rarely felt the need to become one.Taking part...
Nothing more than a fable
According to a Professor of History from Columbia University, Adam Tooze, if you are waking up today to the realisation that the weight of the world is on your shoulders, it may not be your...
A poet sensitive to light...
The poet Carol Rumens tells a story as she writes in ‘The Emigree,’ of the complexities of migrant life that the ordinary person can probably never understand. From a collection by the poet...
The captivating Paris Olympics...
They’re here again! That festival of sporting excellence that is the Olympic Games, as for the past fortnight, Paris, France has delivered what we want from our athletes, with excellence,...
Hope: More crumbs than banquet
Although its origins are not verifiable, the phrase ‘Hope is not a strategy,’ must resonate strongly with all of us as a ‘wake-up’ call, and really, wherever it comes from, we should be...
Men behaving badly: It’s just not on
IT doesn’t really matter how much we men love, treasure, or appreciate our women, does it?It doesn’t matter how much we adore them, enjoy having them around us, and how our adoration sees us put...
Work/Life Balance: Two Pennies' Worth
We hear so much today about achieving a work-life balance, don’t we? However, there is a problem with the concept in that unless we have absolute commonality, a ‘line in the sand’ so to speak,...
Can the faith make itself heard abroad?
The United Kingdom has expressed its dissatisfaction, no, its lack of trust, in returning to a left-of-centre political model, in a humiliating result for Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party. It is...
Tilting at windmills: OCD in action
“Habit,” wrote Saint Augustine, “if not resisted, becomes necessity,” and that may well be the infrequent revelation of how much we know, or don’t, about obsessive compulsive disorder, or...
Just where did our humanity go wrong?
Have we become so entrenched in our comfortable lives that our humanity no longer has meaning?In 1989, Omar al Bashir, backed by the National Islamic Front, wrested power from the Sudanese leadership...
Defy the intolerance of youth
What is it about this younger generation? They question everything! Even when they don’t have an answer, or an alternative opinion, they still question everything. But most of all, they don’t know...
Their legacies enhanced by the years
It’s quite amazing, how someone, hundreds of years ago, could have thought in the same way as much of our contemporary society does today, and even more confounding when we consider so much has...
Relationships: Two way streets...
Relationships: Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. They are so much a part of our lives aren’t they? They may be a consequence of blood, love, lust, culture, necessity, economics,...
An educational concept that works
In the County Durham town of Newton Aycliffe, an educational establishment that had its beginnings in 2016, is gaining a genuine reputation in the education sector, with a concept I believe, has...