Layer 497 . . . Multiple Intelligences and the Life of Pi

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Multiple Intelligences and a Novel - 'The Life of Pi', by Yann Martel

I have friends who own Kindle devices who no longer consider buying proper books from bookshops unless they're unavailable for the Kindle. Personally I love having proper books around me, and I continue to find so many good books at bargain prices. I've been meaning to buy and read this prize-winning novel, The Life of Pi, for the past decade, and recently came across it in the books section of my local MIND charity shop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_Martel

In his author's note, Yann Martel says this:

If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.

This sentence has several key words - citizens, artists, sacrifice, reality, belief, worth, dreams and imagination.

These are all important words. As far as 'imagination' is concerned, Albert Einstein once made the observation that imagination is more important than knowledge.

Whilst an artist apprehends life through direct observation, analysis, reflection, deduction, inference, intuition and empathy, it requires an effort of the imagination by writers and artists to translate and shape ideas into a form that gives them the power to communicate with others.

The Life of Pi is a book created by a true artist. The only real complaint that one could have with it is the claim it's a story which will make its readers believe in God. Maybe it works with those who would quite like to believe in God, but it didn't do that for me. What it does do is provide, within the context of a gripping narrative, some very interesting thoughts on nature, consciousness, and different kinds of intelligence.

Quotes from the book:

"Father was a natural. [?] He made up for a lack of formal training [education] with an intuitive gift and a keen eye. He had a knack of looking at an animal and guessing what was on its mind. "

[Leaving aside the fact that animals don't have reflective minds, we can understand this means 'guessing' the animal's concerns and intentions. However, we might want to query the author's use of the word 'intuitive', and we might wish to substitute 'empathetic', which is a very different kind of intelligence. Even so, Pi's father could also have had quick flashes of intuition.]

"I have no conscious memory of my first go-around in a temple, but some smell of incense, some play of light and shadow, some flame, some burst of colour, something of the sultriness and mystery of the place must have stayed with me. A germ of religious exaltation, no bigger than a mustard seed, was sown in me and left to germinate. It has never stopped growing to this day."

[The rest of the description of the sights and sounds and smells of a temple is brilliant, and well worth reading, on page 47. However, we might have to query the use of the term religious exaltation. Why religious? Why not 'spiritual'? After all, the temple could as well have been Buddhist. Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion. It has no use for a God, or gods. Its essence is spiritual intelligence, which is a quality we can all possess, to a greater or lesser extent. The highest form of spiritual intelligence is the ability to experience exaltation, awe and wonder. Buddhists, atheists, agnostics and humanists can all, through their spiritual intelligence, experience transcendental exaltation, awe and wonder.]

On page 63 is a description of someone experiencing exaltation in a Christian context:

"I saw the Virgin Mary . . . When I say I saw her, I don't quite mean it literally, though she did have body and colour. I felt I saw her, a vision beyond vision. I stopped and squinted. She looked beautiful and supremely regal. She was smiling at me with loving kindness . . . My heart beat with fear and joy."

[Of course, lovingkindness is a key concept in Zen and Buddhism.]

Page 193

"Nature draws the grandest of pictures, and I felt the feelings of wonder and smallness that we all feel, and I got a clear sense of direction from the spectacle, most definitely, but I mean that in a spiritual sense, not in a geographic one." 

P 195, on instinctual intelligence:

"With time and experience I became a better hunter. I grew bolder and more agile. I developed an instinct, a feel, for what to do."

[Don't we all. Or maybe we're born with it, and often lose it along the Way.]

Page 232

""Look . . . a bolt of lightning!" I saw how he felt about it. He was flat on the floor . . . limbs splayed and visibly trembling. The effect on me was completely the opposite. It was something to pull me out of my limited mortal ways and thrust me into a state of exalted wonder."

[Many of us have times when we're keen to transcend our 'limited mortal ways' and reach for more spiritual dimensions of consciousness - states of exalted wonder.]

Page 233

""Stop your trembling! This is a miracle. This is . . . this is . . . " I could not find what it was, this thing so vast and fantastic. I was breathless and wordless . . . But I was smiling . . . one of the few times during my ordeal when I felt genuine happiness." 

"At moments of wonder it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far."

[This raises questions about how often in our schools, colleges, universities and workplaces we transcend 'small thinking', and entertain thoughts that span the universe, both the near and the far, the interior and the exterior.

Do we not owe it to our young people, at least, to enable them in various ways, through various means, to recognise, understand and appreciate the spiritual and the transcendental? Why would we not want them to see the difference between the spiritual and the merely religious? Why would we want them to leave their spiritual intelligence completely unrecognised, untapped and undeveloped?]

Page 297

"Don't bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?"

"We're just being reasonable."

"So am I! I applied my reason at every moment. Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater."

Page 311

"He was  such an evil man. Worse still, he met evil in me - selfishness, anger, ruthlessness. I must live with that."

[Spiritual intelligence requires a spirit of lovingkindness - the opposite of 'evil' - which can be a word to describe the destructive unleashing of destructive emotions. Even decent people, and certainly young people who have yet to acquire the skills required to exercise emotional intelligence and to combat destructive tendencies, sometimes display behaviour they are not proud of and must afterwards live with. Emotional intelligence is the harmonious working together of the six intelligences in three dimensions to combat destructive emotions and their potential consequences.]

As for valuing and supporting our artists - shouldn't we should be even more concerned about how we produce artists, and creative people generally? Shouldn't all of us have a right to an education that develops intelligent artistic perception, expression and skills - in all of us and not just potential professional artists?

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Layer 459 . . . Work, Education, Management Culture, Creativity, Collaboration and Character

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BBC2  - The British At Work

Unfortunately it's not just Brits who got sucked into fuckwit work culture and management culture. It's been a worldwide phenomenon - working ever-longer hours under management that's either Hitlerian, Machiavellian or David Brentian. Possibly all three simultaneously, depending on whether management thinks your 'performance' is OK or not.

The good thing about working in a public service not-for-profit 'professional' environment used to be that you were treated as an intelligent being who didn't need to be 'motivated' - you did more and gave more than you should, simply because you were there to serve others. Very sadly this is, by and large, no longer the case. Nowadays management consultants and business schools have convinced senior management everywhere that target-setting and payment by results should be applied to the 'workforce'. Nowadays everyone has to be micro-managed and performance-managed to death.

Throw into this mix management by email, by text, and by 'bonus' culture, and you have total alienation, stress, anxiety, loss of morale, illness and breakdown.

Work-life balance? Don't be stupid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zg047

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zvf3f#synopsis

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Here are some quotes from an essential article in Guardian Education:

Let's look at all the evidence from top educators abroad

Michael Gove is keen to see what we have to learn from education systems internationally, but the lessons may not be as straightforward as he thinks, says Valerie Hannon

"Recently Michael Gove has stressed the importance of comparing education systems internationally, as seen in the OECD's Pisa studies, and of learning from the most successful nations. But what should our response be?

"The education secretary enthuses about Andreas Schleicher, of the OECD, calling him the "most important man in English education" for the insights his work confers. Schleicher's analysis, according to Gove, shows, first, that "we [England] are falling further and further behind other nations"; and second, that the key to success is "to recruit the best possible people into teaching and provide them with high-quality training and professional development". This is true – as far as it goes. But it is a partial analysis.

"What have successful systems to tell us about the issues we face today? Schleicher's work demonstrates compellingly that demand for the competencies 20th-century school systems were good at imparting (routine cognitive and manual skills) is falling sharply among employers across the world. He shows that 21st-century systems need to prepare young people with the skills to undertake non-routine analytic and, especially, non-routine interactive tasks. Schleicher's conclusion is: "The skills that are easiest to teach and test are also easiest to digitise, automate and outsource."

"The implication of these findings is that systems need to prepare students "to deal with more rapid change than ever before … for jobs that have not yet been created … using technologies that have not yet been invented". This is about learning how to learn, and new ways of thinking that involve creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making. It is in sharp contrast to an emphasis on the capacity to reproduce facts." 

The really outrageous aspect to all this good sense is that 'progressive' educators have been saying these things since the early 20th century, and others like Dryden & Vos (The New Learning Revolution) have been banging on about it in more recent years - to no good effect in dopey old England.

"For this is the perspective being adopted by the world's leading systems. Rather than relying on past achievements, they are reconceiving how they approach the future. Take Finland – always at or near the top of the Pisa rankings. The director of the Finnish board of education has described how their system has identified the key competencies for lifelong learning, and is setting about transforming their system to ensure they're acquired. Critically, this entails enabling learners to "undertake meaningful problem-based inquiry, which might be multi-disciplinary, supported by blended teaching methods and hybrid resources". The Finns aren't giving up on acquiring knowledge. They just know it's not enough.

"Then there's South Korea, another "top performing" system. Perceived as exam-driven, cramming its students, Korea is set to change. Exploring the work of its very best schools has revealed that they focus on providing concentrated time for some subjects (rather than shallow drip-feed); on personalising learning; on evaluating creativity; and on experience-based learning. South Korea is basing its innovation agenda on the "three C's": creativity, collaboration and character.

"And finally, take one of the most improved cities in the world in terms of education performance – New York City. Gove recently hosted the former chancellor of the NYC school system, praising the rapid progress made by the city. What he omitted, however, was that NYC has acknowledged its current set of school improvement initiatives is inadequate to deal with the challenges young people face. So it has a launched an Innovation Zone, comprising a distributed network of schools, specifically to test and refine new approaches to learning and teaching that are more personalised and emphasise higher-level skills.

"So yes, let's join the global education community seeking out the best ways to make learning engaging and relevant to young people in the digital age. But let's do it with open minds, and attention to all the evidence."

Valerie Hannon is a board director of the Innovation Unit

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Layer 434 . . . . Egypt, Mubarak, Intelligence, Human Values, Spiritual Intelligence, Knowledge and The Uprising Continued

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There was someone on Midweek (R4) this morning who said, "My mum said she wanted me to have the best possible education. And it was my mum who gave it to me. She taught me about values."

Someone else reminded us that Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge.

Then again, so is empathy; so is instinct; so is intuition; so is sensory feedback; etc. [Only the government, the entire political establishment, plus their civil service lackeys, think that knowledge and 'attainment' are the only aspects of human growth and development that matter. But why should reasonable people give a fuck about what THEY think?]

However, instead of getting into endless arguments about which is more important, why don't we just agree that none of these aspects of intelligence is more important than any other aspect? Lets just agree they're all equal. And lets agree to give them all equal emphasis for development within schools and colleges.

And let's remember what the Dalai Lama said about knowledge -

Scientific knowledge alone cannot provide the happiness that springs from inner development, the happiness that is not reliant on external factors. Indeed, though our very detailed and specific knowledge of external phenomena is an immense achievement, far from bringing us happiness it can actually be dangerous. It can cause us to lose touch with the wider reality of human experience and, in particular, to overlook our dependence on others.

 http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-16-ancient-wisdom-modern-world.html

 http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/05/layer-34-iq-sats-and-other-complete.html

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Talking of intelligence - you can't help being struck by the intelligence and decency of the anti-Mubarak protesters. Their humanity and their values shine out of their faces and their voices every time you see them interviewed on TV. These are clearly decent, thoughtful, aware, brave AND knowledgeable people.

By contrast, we saw today the pro-Mubarak scum emerge from their holes and sewers and start to attack the anti-government crowds. They rode into them on horses and camels, and they charged them on foot. They were beating and clubbing anyone they could identify as anti-Mubarak.

These people - as you could tell from their faces, their expressions, their language and their actions - were clearly fucking morons and thugs. Some were the plain-clothes fascist secret police, some were friends and family of the regime and its hired goons. You wouldn't want to meet any of these people on the street in any circumstances. They were seriously scary. They were the Egyptian equivalent of the BNP.

And yet they were confronted, challenged, and eventually driven away by the masses who pulled the bastards from their steeds and gave them a well-deserved kicking. Not that I condone violence by anyone - unless it's done, as here, in self-defence, and it's in order to prevent even greater violence and suffering: what I'd maybe call the Samurai principle.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/02/egypt-protests-live-updates

Human Values - truth, love, peace, conduct and non-violence:

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-12-spiritual-intelligence.html

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Layer 329 . . . Schools of the Future, Education, Gove, F1, Spiritual Intelligence, The Spirit of Football, the World Cup, and South Africa.

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The government's economic policies are, as expected, so disasterously misguided, ideological and awful it's been necessary for the sake of personal sanity & also stable blood pressure to stay away from all consideration of them for a few weeks, and conveniently take refuge in football, tennis and now the cycling extravaganza - the Tour de France, which this year is particularly intriguing and full of sub-plots and ploys to get the favourites split apart over several difficult stages right at the start of the event. The next two weeks, especially in the Alps and the Pyrenees, should be very watchable.

The politics of education, however, keep sucking me back into the revolting reality of a government determined to pursue its ideological objectives at the expense of real education, the needs of children and of course the teachers and support staff who will now be condemned to work in old, badly designed and under-specified premises - all because The Banana (Gove) wants to build his "free schools".

There's no doubt that the Building Schools of the Future scheme was over-bureaucratic and wasteful, but instead of just instantly scrapping it Gove could have set about modifying and simplifying it, and making it work a lot better.

But no - the man wants his Free Schools. He wants his education "market". He also wants, I presume, new schools to be built as cheaply as possible, using standardised cheapo architecture, and prefabricated structures. If an old building is completely falling apart he'll no doubt reluctantly agree to replace it as long as the replacement is a boring and off-the-shelf design that facilitates maximum speed of construction and minimum standards of space, fixtures and fittings. And he'll argue that this is all the nation can now afford. How convenient.

We have to be thankful that he's at least made a complete prick of himself in the way he's gone about his announcements of the cuts - giving out false and misleading information about which existing projects are for the chop, and which towns and cities will no longer get the excellent schools they've been promised.

He's made it clear the "savings" will be used to fund the Free Schools that will be run by cliques of parents and commercial "providers". Having established a "model" of schools run by pushy parents and their tame business partners, this will no doubt then be imposed on existing schools, along with the abolition of local authorities. Some might see this as not a bad thing, given the cravenness of LAs and their willingness to sacrifice children to the 'Standards Agenda' imposed by central government. Some might say what is their fucking point anyway?

The idea of new smaller "free" schools run by community activists might almost be acceptable if they were to be of real benefit to children by offering a type of education that's not available in the mainstream factory schools (and so-called "Academies") where test and exam results are the be-all and end-all. However, it's all too clear that what's being proposed are merely small "crammers" which will cater for parents who want even more emphasis on academic attainment and "discipline", and more pressure on children to be taught to the tests - sit down, shut the fuck up and memorise even more of this shit if you really want to get to a top university.

Cynical, moi?

If you'd like to read a more balanced and rational appraisal of what Gove's been up to then try this Ed Balls column in the Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/08/school-building-michael-gove-balls
This piece could have been written by any number of Balls' unpaid 'interns' and various arse-lickers, but in essence it's all valid.

Me - I'd just like to see Gove kicked to death as publicly as possible. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The man has zero understanding of children and their educational needs, and zero understanding of - let alone interest in - what a fair and equitable education system might look like - one in which all children have equal access to good teachers, premises fit for purpose, and aims of education that include the development of the whole child, the creation of a love of learning for its own sake, and the development of children's capacity for creativity and imagination.

Government by bananas like Gove, of schools lashed together for relative peanuts, with attainment aims devised by neanderthals, can only result in further generations of under-educated primates, instead of future generations of thinking beings who embrace life and are capable of transforming our stupid society.

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The occasional individual who stands head and shoulders above the sea of mediocrity we see all around us needs to be cherished and applauded.

Ahead of last weekend's British F1 Grand Prix there were several favourable comments about the quality of the two (British) guys who currently lead the drivers' championship.

Oxzen has commented previously on the emotional and spiritual intelligence of Hamilton and Button, and here's Hamilton in a Guardian interview with Donald McRea talking about fame and its consequences,

"It's not the easiest thing in the world to deal with. Over time you learn to accept it and handle it in the best way. You have to be very patient and very polite. And you have to be the least selfish person you possibly can be."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/jul/06/lewis-hamilton-british-grand-prix

In the same paper Button is described as having enormous talent but also a great deal of maturity and a sense of what's real and what isn't. He's also praised for his attitude to his work and his well-balanced personality.

You don't get those things through academic attainment or through attending high-pressure crammers. You get a nation of ego-driven, non-actualised, boring, materialistic, uptight, unspiritual emotional retards, which pretty much sums up the type of people who rule the roost on this little island.

Take our footballers, for example, and also the people who run football in this country. Please.

Harry Pearson commented last week on the fact that the World Cup Final was to be controlled by British officials, since our small team of referees and linesmen have apparently done so well in this World Cup.

"It is surely plain after 60 years of achievement that places us on a par with Sweden and Belgium, that we can't play football properly . . .

"Instead of trying to paper over the negatives of our game, let's for once build on the positives. Stop all the talk of coaching, tactics and formations and simply abandon playing international football altogether to focus all our considerable resources on training the world's finest match officials.

Webb, Cann and their compadre, the as yet unsung hero Mike Mullarkey (who I believe will also give good flag should the opportunity arise) are indeed England's men of the tournament, exuding a professionalism, self-belief and steely determination our footballers could only mumble on about in the squeaky, resentful voices of teenagers who've been caught on the school playing field with a shoplifted bottle of Cyprus sherry and a packet of Lambert & Butler.

For English watchers, the Brazil versus Chile game last week was a pivotal point. During the course of the first 45 minutes it rapidly became obvious that the emphasis of our national game was shifting before our eyes. "Good decision by Howard Webb," warbled Peter Drury with the sort of throaty majesty he normally reserves for calling out "Ronaldo!" moments before the pouty Portuguese lone parent blasts a volley 30 yards over the bar. "Oh, excellent advantage there by the man from Rotherham."

Jim Beglin was quickly in on the act, effusively praising assistant Darren Cann for "a great flag" that denied Chile a possible goal. Back in the studio Gareth Southgate, blinking crazily like somebody trying to transmit an unabridged Morse code version of Anna Karenina using his eyelids, was in total accord with his Irish colleague: "And that's a great flag from Darren Cann," he said after the incident replayed, as Andy Townsend nodded wisely and murmured something about "putting down a marker" for the final.

I was watching the game with a German friend and the sudden excitement about the match officials didn't escape his notice. "Darren Cann is fantastic!" he exclaimed merrily. "He is England's man of the tournament," he added with what I suspect might have been something approaching a chortle. "In fact, with that absolutely super offside decision I believe he has maybe overtaken Wesley Sneijder and Diego Forlán as the most eye-catching individual of the World Cup thus far."

It is one thing for the English to be taught a football lesson by the Germans – some truths we take to be self-evident and all that – but when they start giving us a severe thrashing in the sarcasm department it really is time to consider burning your passport. I suppose I should count my blessings he wasn't in the room when Gary Lineker revealed that Paul the Psychic Octopus was "actually born in Weymouth".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jul/08/world-cup-howard-webb

Jim Beglin, by the way, is the world's most boring "expert" commentator bar none, except maybe for Eurosport's very own drone on the Tour de France, Sean Kelly - though in Kelly's case the boredom comes from the awful monotony of his delivery rather than having sweet fuck all of any interest to say for himself. What a blessing when Beglin was ill and unable to co-commentate on the Spain v Germany game.

That game, incidentally, was terrific - played in exactly the right spirit, especially by Germany, who never succumbed to the temptation of trying to win by kicking the Spanish out of it. In fact the Germans have won huge admiration for their efforts to emulate the Spanish in their style of play - open, fluid, expressive, intelligent, and at times exhilarating. Arguably they have been the most entertaining team of the tournament, with their 4-goal demolitions of Australia, Argentina and England. Most neutrals will surely have relished the Argentines and the English being taught a lesson in how to play properly and empathetically as a team, instead of playing like a bunch of Maradona-style prima donnas.

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In contrast to this, the Dutch were disgusting in the way they spoiled the Final by setting out to clog the Spanish out of the game - to win by any means necessary. The very opposite to playing with grace and with respect for your opponents. This was a truly stupid strategy. By all means compete strongly - but for fuck's sake without cheating and violence, without tripping and shirt-pulling, and a total lack of spiritual intelligence.

Thank goodness for Johan Cruyff - the keeper of the flame as far as intelligent Dutch football is concerned. Cruyff immediately condemned the way the Dutch had played. "They played very dirty. This ugly, vulgar, hard, hermetic, hardly eye-catching, hardly football, style . . . They were playing anti-football."

In the Guardian, Paul Hayward commented,

"Creativity . . . does not mean trickery, though there is some of that. It means orchestral passing. Spain exclude the opposition from the game. They have mastered the art of circulation and space manipulation. At Barcelona's urging the nation's team turned their backs on power and automation in favour of agility and self-expression."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jul/13/spain-world-cup-final-holland

Britain is still a country whose education and training policies are based on the triumph of power over creativity, and turning young people, including young footballers, into automatons who follow orders and who never think for themselves. Obedience to bosses (coaches) and systems is all - as if the best football isn't about the self-expression and the creativity of the 11 individuals out there on the pitch, and their ability to create astonishment and delight in their audience.

Modern English footballers are akin to our world-famous boy bands - creatures of the managers and entrepreneurs who put their teams together for commercial profit above all else. Music and football without spirit - cold, ruthless, cynical, soulless and uncreative.

Meanwhile, let's hope the likes of Spain and Germany continue to rock and roll.

Also South Africa. As Dominic Fifield said in the Guardian, one of the very best and the most heartwarming moments of the entire tournament was watching the South African players joyfully singing and dancing their way into Green Point stadium in Cape Town, "which neatly summed up the colour and exuberance of their approach".

What a pity none of the England team did any of that before they slouched off home. Playing and winning, and even losing, with joy, imagination, grace and dignity. We have so much to learn from South Africa.
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Layer 328 . . . A Win and a Loss, A National Disgrace, and a Game in Crisis

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Summer's truly here. It's still 27 degrees at 10.30 pm, and out in the garden there's still blue in the sky, with children's voices drifting through the semi-darkness from distant houses and gardens. It's the first really hot evening of the year.

The unexpected good news is that the English cricketers have defeated the Aussies for the third time out of three this week in the 5-game one-day tournament. Ponting looked pig-sick at such a comprehensive series defeat.

The expected bad news, if you're any kind of realist, is that England have been thoroughly trashed by Germany and knocked out of the World Cup. The writing was on the wall in letters ten feet high, and it duly happened. The commentariat should feel thoroughly ashamed, having tried to talk up England's chances of winning these past few days. The pundits were rubbish. They never had a shred of evidence to support their assertions that England would win - not just this one match, but the final also.

So how was your England v Germany party? Or were you one of those who prefer to suffer in solitude and silence - alone with your TV and free to rant and swear . . . and despair. Fortunately for me, my children invited themselves round to watch the game on my HD TV, and I had the pleasure of having grandchildren around to distract me from the awfulness of England's efforts.

It's not that I'd expected England to win - far from it. In a way I don't even care if they win. But what I do expect is to be entertained by a team playing imaginatively and competently. And did I expect them to do that? Of course not. Grandchildren are much more entertaining.

Not only are England a bad team - they're just a collection of past-it and never-had-it individuals. In many cases they're well past it.

It's a law of nature that the first to mature and blossom will be the first to fade and wilt. At the age of 16 Rooney looked like a bloke of twenty something. He's now prematurely balding and playing without pace or panache. Most of the others are well past their sell-by dates too.

It has to be said also that their preparation, tactics and management were abysmal. Joe Cole had 28 minutes on the pitch in this last game, having had virtually no match practice in the group games. How on earth was he supposed to do well?

Peter Crouch never even made it on to the pitch in ANY of the games, in spite of being the team's most prolific scorer for some two or three years. Capello ignored him from start to finish in these finals. Instead he threw Emile Heskey, who never scores, into the action after it became clear that it was a question of either score goals or say goodbye. Defoe looked sharper than Rooney but it was Defoe who was substituted for Heskey. Lunacy.

Chris Waddle popped up on the radio, ranting very effectively about all the stuff we know is wrong with English football - its organisation, funding, management, coaching methods and so on. Well said Chris. Check out the Radio 4 Today (Monday) website for a replay of Waddle's points, and passion. Round about 8.30.

Also:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8767000/8767126.stm

Will anything now change? Will English football (ie the Premiership) become anything other than an offshoot of the City and the Stock Exchange? Of course not. The selling off of football clubs to ruthless capitalist bastards who somehow manage to get control of the clubs with shedloads of debt which they somehow load on to the clubs themselves will continue to happen. That's why the Premiership exists - to make money for wise guys, insiders and fat cats. Why on earth would anyone in charge of this set-up volunteer to change it when they're getting personally rich because of it?

So well done Germany, with your supporter-owned clubs, your low admission charges and your sensible wage structures. You may not have the most watchable domestic football in the world, but you still produce quantities of intelligent, competent, thoughtful, well-motivated  players who play a damned fine game of football. You played well, scored 4 excellent goals (again) and gave the neutrals something to cheer, unlike Brazil and Portugal. Let alone France, Italy and England.

Japan for the Cup!
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Layer 327 . . . The World Cup Runneth Over, and Lessons We Must Learn

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Two weeks in, and it's half way house. The group stages are complete and we now know the 16 teams that will compete during the next two weeks en route to the final.

Not France (disgraced and shambolic). Not Italy (out-played - and serves them right for electing Berlusconi). For the first time ever the two previous finalists have been knocked out at the group stage.

England have come through by the skin of their undeserving teeth. Played three games against very average opposition and scored only two goals. And it's not like the Slovenian team were markedly worse.

The commentariat have been stupidly positive about England's efforts against Slovenia. The truth is that apart from Milner's superb cross that led to Defoe's shinned goal there was still a complete lack of wit, imagination, creativity and originality, let alone skill, in their play. It's all very well going on about greater effort and passion, but these alone won't win anything.

I heard an interesting theory that pre-tournament training at altitude (especially at the end of a long and tiring season?) can actually make your players MORE tired and LESS sharp in the short term. Let's hope this is the explanation for the complete uselessness of the likes of Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard, and that they'll now begin to re-acclimatise and return to whatever passes for normal, given that Rooney hasn't actually scored for England for literally years.

In boxing they talk about fighters losing their "hunger". Young boxers invariably come from mean city streets where use of the fists and physical strength are the sole means for many young men to guarantee a sense of self-worth and self-esteem - as a means of enforcing their will and desire.

England's footballers - this 'golden generation' - have never been 'hungry', either literally or metaphorically. Over-paid, over-coached, over-praised - their biggest issues are fearing mistakes and remembering what they've been programmed to do. Footballing robots. Hence lack of initiative, lack of spontaneity, lack of creativity.

Even as school kids they're over-coached and taught to follow orders. They fear being dropped from the team if they disregard the coach's instructions. Older readers might remember some notable players who hardly ever played for England because they were deemed to be unreliable and eccentric. It's a question of balance.

Nowadays you step out of line at your peril, even if you're John Terry. Pay attention kids - look and learn. Keep your mouth shut. Your ideas are not wanted, not welcomed, not needed. Industrial management has come to international football. Systems are all. Management strategies and policies rule - OK? England's manager gets £6m a year. It's City culture versus the spirit of the game.

Even the Brazilians seem to be suffering. Their game against Portugal was a disgrace. 0 - 0!!

And so sad England stagger on, with a desperate commentariat doing their best to see positives where there are currently virtually none. Today's the day of the Big One - England v Germany. Again.

Have England recovered from their altitude training? Will Rooney rediscover his mojo? Will Capello be smart enough to play Crouch and Joe Cole? Will Johnson and Milner fulfill their potential?

Maybe England should learn from the Japanese. Oxzen has already commented on the Japanese ( Layer 320). When England played them in a warm-up game last month it took a couple of unlucky own goals to defeat Japan - since England were completely unable to score a goal for themselves. It's worth repeating:

"The (Japanese Samurai) idea seems to be that with genuine effort, experience and application anyone can become good at performing skills and arts that demand high levels of fitness, balance, coordination, anticipation and flair. The Japanese football team seem to have taken hold of this attitude. Shame about the English."

In their last group game the Japanese team scored not one but two superb goals direct from free kicks - the only country to score a spectacular goal from a free kick in this World Cup. Honda managed to smash his kick through a narrow gap created by a Japanese player moving out of the wall, and Endo curled his kick beautifully right around the Danish wall later in the half, after Honda had faked the Danes into placing their wall too far to the left. And this was with a ball that's supposed to be unbendable and practically uncontrollable. It was wonderful to behold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n46e-2IHStg

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2010/matches/match_43/default.stm

Here's another Honda special:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lOZ-n-afY0

The other outstanding thing about Japan's play has been their ball control, again with a ball that's supposedly hard to control. Towards the end of the game against Denmark Honda in particular showed a staggering ability to take the ball in his stride and do things with it that only the likes of Ronaldo are supposed to be able to do. The way he created the third goal, and handed it on a plate to his colleague, was an absolute joy.

My conclusion is that if the Japanese can go from nothing at all to such high levels of skill in just a few years then England should take note and start asking how they can begin to emulate the Japanese.

How to stay calm in a tight spot? How to maintain full concentration? How to play without fear? How to apply imagination, spontaneity and creativity, and add them to discipline, effort, application, skill and determination? How to create empathy between team members? How to improve physical coordination?

Forget Total Football. Bring on Zen and the Art of Football, or Taotal Football.

PS Oxzen is sick and tired of listening to Eurocentric commentators being patronising about Asian and African teams, in a kind of watered-down Ron Atkinson way. Someone should pay attention to their comments and really take them to task about it.

PPS On Desert Island Discs this morning - Tony Adams - "As a young player I didn't know how to deal with life outside of football. The outside world was scary. So I drank." Spiritual Intelligence?

To his credit, Big T now talks about being an 'emotional cripple', and praises others for being emotionally intelligent.

"I now try to live usefully and walk humbly".

He also chose as his favourite track, "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life." Good man.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr

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Don't forget the return of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00srjdl#synopsis

Half a day left to listen to the previous programme.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00srjdl.

Layer 208 . . . Imagination, Education Policy, Truants, Bullies and the Recession

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I'm working my way towards writing about the Primary Review in some detail, but in the meantime here are some letters from Monday's Guardian on the subject of the Alexander report -

Lack of imagination in education policy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/oct/19/primary-education-cambridge-report

Michael Rosen wrote -

The Cambridge review is absolutely right about calling for the abolition of Sats (Too much too young: start school at six says key report, 16 October), and I support this summer's boycott. Sats have turned the primary curriculum into a desert of work sheets, short extracts and a fear of failure.

In the English Sats, examiners have unleashed an abuse of the empirical method by making the reading of literature into a tedious and stunting exercise in fact-spotting, even as children themselves have been reduced to percentages and scores. I have been a school parent continuously for 30 years and visited hundreds of schools. In all that time it has never been any use to me that any child, mine included, be talked of as a number or a level.

The government's education policies were devised without a public debate about how children and teachers learn. You can only do this through the four processes of observation, investigation, discovery and discussion. In fact, finding out about learning has to be at the heart of every teacher's and every school's practice. Children's work itself should be built upon the four processes, with imagination and play as part of the mix.

In the very first key stage 2 Sats paper, the candidates were asked to say what was in a matchbox in a story by Jan Mark. The only correct answer was "nothing", and yet the fun of the story is that the children "fill" the matchbox with their fantasies and ideas. "The children's imagination" would have been a wrong answer. Sats have turned many classrooms into places where children's imagination is always the wrong answer.

…..................................................

Fiona Campbell
London

The danger that we face in sending our children to school at four is that by the time their brains are ready for reading and writing they are utterly alienated from the school environment. And yet ministers are only echoing what so many middle-class parents believe, that we must get our children reading and writing as quickly as possible so that they can keep up in a competitive world. It is a tragedy, because in reality their brains have other things that they need to be learning through play, as the Cambridge report highlights. We need to stop this endless haste to make our children grow up, and allow them to enjoy their short childhood with play-based learning in nursery-style settings, but until society as a whole understands that, ministers will not be able to back the Cambridge report.

…...................................................................

Chris McDonnell
Little Haywood, Staffordshire

Robin Alexander is to be congratulated. The business of young children is play – play that informs and secures a platform for later, more formal learning.

The current pressure on four- and five-year-old children to meet a target-based curriculum not only inhibits their own development but adds to the stress at home, where parents feel the need for their child to achieve against the background of the larger school group. My own experience over many years as headteacher of a primary school convinced me that getting it right in the early years was the touchstone to later success. Now seeing my grandchildren in the primary years, I am even more certain that we are asking too much, too soon.

Ministers have been quick to dismiss this report as "disappointing". I would suggest that it is disappointing that a report of this significance is so easily dismissed.

…....................................................

Tim Nichols

Through play, children follow naturally evolved learning instincts, which stimulate the endocrine system and activate biochemical pathways that promote neurone growth. Neuronal networks become established for basic skills and the architecture of the brain is gradually prepared for learning higher skills.

Push children into formal learning before the basic architecture is ready and they will learn slowly, without enjoyment and enthusiasm, developing negative attitudes towards education. The poorest children – without a private nursery education or a lavishly equipped playroom to stimulate them – are less likely to be ready for formal education at four or five years. So disadvantage becomes entrenched and they fall behind.

The government's dismissal of the Cambridge review and dogged commitment to early formal education is a naive attempt to appear serious about literacy standards. Sadly it is ministers' own lack of scientific literacy that will result in failure and damage to children.

…........................................................

On the Guardian website today is a column under the heading -

Truants, bullies and the recession  

We must help families torn apart by truancy, not criminalise them – but the services that help troubled children are under threat

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/21/education-bullying-truancy-recession-care

This is in the education section of the website, and presumably in the paper itself. It's not a particularly inspiring piece of work, by Francis Gilbert.

The news that truancy rates are soaring won't surprise many teachers like me. Figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families show that children skipped more than 8m days of school last year. The reasons for the rising numbers of skivers are manifold, but I think there is one big underlying reason: the recession is really beginning to bite in many households.

In the UK, 4 million children live below the poverty line and the situation is getting worse: charities such as Save the Children are seeing families of four trying to feed themselves on £20 to £25 a week. That means that lots of children are living in households under severe stress, frequently working illegally or carrying out household chores for parents who need them at home.

It concludes -

A survey by Beatbullying suggests that as many as one in three children truant because of bullying, with 20,000 bunking off school for the same reason. This survey was carried out nearly four years ago now when times were good; the new official statistics suggest that the problem has become a lot worse. Proper investment in public services was never more needed more than in these recession-hit times.

This is Oxzen's response on CiF:

As is obvious from all these [CiF] contributions the causes of poor school attendance can be complex and hard to tackle. Unesco reported that British children are the unhappiest in the developed countries, and yet we've seen no government acknowledgment of that appalling assessment, let alone any sign of being concerned about it, or any ideas about how to improve the state of childhood in this country. Ed Balls won't even accept the recent criticisms of our Primary school system as outlined in last week's Cambridge review.

All that this government has ever talked about is improving test and exam scores and 'cracking down on bullies'. Everything else has lip service paid to it. This very week The Guardian published a Peter Preston column 'In Praise of Targets' repeating the same old rubbish in favour of the targets and league tables culture that has done nothing to improve the wellbeing of children or their enjoyment of school, let alone produce better educated and more enthusiastic learners.

If even the Guardian can't stop repeating the idiotic mantras of those who can't see that cramming pupils for tests is not the same as providing a better education, then what hope do we have, short of expecting the Conservatives, who at least have pledged themselves to get rid of the politically motivated targets and the micromanagement of the system, to do better.

Parents must demand, for the sake of all our children, that the system is changed, starting with the recommendations of Professor Alexander's Primary Review, in order to make our schools places of genuine learning which pupils of all abilities, interests and aptitudes are eager to attend, and where all their intelligences, and not just IQ, are developed by every teacher every day.

Learning to be socially and emotionally intelligent, learning to be non-violent, learning about anger management, and learning to be creative and imaginative, as well becoming academically able, are fully on the agendas of all schools in high-performing countries like Finland and Denmark, and they could and should be in Britain as well. Some of our schools are already doing very well in this regard, in spite of a system that barely supports it or encourages it, but sadly not nearly enough. Hence the high rates of truancy and exclusion.

…..........................................................

Did I Hear You Write?

I'm a huge admirer of Michael Rosen, for his contributions to the education debates as much as his work as a writer, performer, broadcaster and artist. Here are more of his pieces from the Guardian's pages -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaelrosen

See also - http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2009/06/layer-168-michael-rosen-jim-rose-ed.html

http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/did_i_hear_you_write_rosen_michael_i016262.aspx

Here's where you can buy this excellent book for 60p -

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/r/michael-rosen/did-i-hear-you-write.htm
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Layer 75 Sport with EQ, SQ, Maturity, Imagination and Creativity.

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“I imagine that in boxing, going from the amateur ranks to live with the professionals must be a bit like leaving primary school for secondary school. Suddenly you’ve left a world where everyone is looking out for you and trying to build your confidence, and entered instead a place filled with people who exhibit a baffling and frankly scary level of evil and malice (and yes, that is just the PE teachers).” - Harry Pearson in the Guardian, writing about Amir Khan’s first-round knockout.

Now there may well be those who’s experience of PE teachers is much more positive, but the point is well made by the wonderful Harry P.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/sep/12/jamesdegale.boxing

Scary levels of evil and malice are becoming normal in the everyday lives of many teenagers, both in school and out. The only question for most kids is how to defend themselves when attacked. To use a knife or not to use a knife - that is the question. Though there are those who prefer something with a longer reach, like a baseball bat or a ‘samurai’ sword.

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On a much more positive note, the teenager who grabbed the news headlines last week was Theo Walcott, who played brilliantly and scored three goals against a team rated 5th in the world. But what was most impressive about Walcott was the way he spoke to the TV interviewer after the match. It was such a delight listening to a young footballer, of all people, speaking with incredible poise, maturity, intelligence and modesty. No clichés, no gobbledygook, no stumbling over words, no mangling of syntax or struggling to speak in sentences. How does he do it?

The key words, for his interview, as well as his play on the pitch, are intelligence and maturity. These are not qualities we expect of British footballers. Though they also apply to that other sporting prodigy who recently burst onto the scene from nowhere - Lewis Hamilton.

These two guys need to be case studies for every teenager who aspires to be a decent human being, and hasn’t already embarked on a lifetime of evil and malice. How did they come to be so balanced, so thoughtful, so level-headed, so inspirational in their attitudes?

It’s clearly not just the money and the professional support that’s been helpful. Every professional footballer has more money than he knows what to do with, and can afford to hire an army of life coaches, media coaches, therapists, PR consultants, etc. No, there’s an X factor, and it’s to do with intelligence and maturity.

And by ‘intelligence’ we’re not just talking IQ, though these guys probably have that in abundance too. We’re talking about high levels of spiritual intelligence, emotional intelligence and social intelligence. We need to know how they came to have such high levels, and learn lessons that can be applied to the rest of the teenage population.

They also have dedication, imagination and high degrees of creativity. Remember David Pleat’s plea for English football to focus on the need for creativity and imagination, and not just keep banging on about fitness, effort, passion, speed, stamina, etc?

It’s an interesting question whether the new England manager has shown high degrees of creativity and imagination. Surely it’s a no-brainer, totally bloody obvious in fact, that Walcott, given his talents and his speed, and given how important he’ll be in the next World Cup, should be in the team?

Likewise Rooney - the new Peter Beardsley? - able to make as well as take chances, in every sense of the word. Beardsley was another footballer who showed creative intelligence as well as skill, plus modesty and good judgment. Rooney could yet be shaping up in these departments, and given his ratio of goals to games - 1 in 3, which isn’t at all bad given the crap support he’s been given, especially as a lone ‘spearhead’ - he’s another obvious pick.

So is Joe Cole, obviously another talented youth prodigy, who, for all his ego and rashness early on, has surely shown time and again that he’s a natural goal poacher as well as a creative goal-maker, and ought to be in the team, every time.

Where Capello seems to stand out is in reaching the understanding that the team (every team) also needs a big, brave, patient, intelligent front man who can both distract the two central defenders and drag them out of position AND lay on goals for the smaller, more mobile guys who are hopefully buzzing around him. Heskey is a master of that role. I’ve also had a longstanding liking in that role for Crouch, who, for all his physical oddness, has shown himself to have great skills, intelligence, creativity and imagination. His goalscoring record is also exceptional, even if he’s scored most heavily against weak teams. The point with Crouch is that he’s also been let down by lack of proper support and suffered from role confusion.

At this point the obsession with ‘formations’ needs to be ditched. Talking about formations is what pundits love to do, because it fills up time and column inches. But it’s crap, and has been since it got started in the 50’s and 60’s: 3-2-5, 4-2-4, 4-3-3, etc. That stuff makes for static thinking and static play on the pitch, and any game that’s played at high speed cannot, by definition, be static. Imagination, creativity and the element of surprise, all other things being equal, win the game every time.

The Dutch showed this decades ago, and ‘total football’ was nothing more than getting rid of stupid ideas about fixed formations, though having talented and creative players clearly helped.
The current England team arguably need only two conventional midfield players - guys who can hold the ball, switch the direction of play and screen the defence. People like Gerrard, Lampard and Hargreaves can do that stuff, and are also capable of springing forward and scoring goals.

The thing that wins games is having a scary attack, and getting those scary guys as near as possible to the opposition goal as often as possible. Sure, Walcott, Cole and Rooney can chase back and support the midfield with marking and harassment, but their main instinct has to be to get up the field, into the box and along the wings. And be able to shoot and score, which they obviously can.

As for the defence - what’s the point of keeping 4 guys back when most of the time you’re pinning the opposition back in their half or in midfield? I guess we’re stuck with Ferdinand and Terry - but Cole as well? Brown, I have to admit has improved markedly, and is now showing that he can break forward as well as Micah Richards does, who I reckon is a very talented player that has done very well for England.

Ashley Cole used to be capable of making speedy, timely and skillful forward breaks, but he’s become erratic and considerably slower in thought and action, probably because he’s distracted and under-motivated a lot of the time. I’d drop him for good.

Against poor to average teams Richards and Brown should position themselves mainly in midfield with a brief to stay there as much as possible, and get down the wings as much as possible. I might even tell Gerrard he has to play that role - a kind of penetrative fullback cum wingback with a brief to attack but also defend soundly when the other team come forward.

So - in terms of a ‘formation’ I’d suggest a fluid 2-4-3-1 or 2-4-4, with only the two centre backs seen as out and out defenders, plus the goalie, obviously, but let’s not go there.

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Lack of SQ and EQ has also been vary apparent in places like Newcastle recently. This was very well remarked on in Louise Taylor’s recent column in The Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/sep/11/newcastleunited

“Only connect. EM Forster used this phrase as an epigraph to Howards End and it is a theme that also runs through another of his fabulous novels, A Passage to India. Reporting on the muddle, mistrust and multiple fractures in communications at Newcastle United last week the thought struck me that had those books been made compulsory reading on Tyneside, and at West Ham too, Kevin Keegan and Alan Curbishley might not have tendered their resignations.”

“Unfortunately, though, in an era when clubs spend thousands on communications departments, their ego-laden, money and point-scoring obsessed senior employees frequently prove spectacularly bad at connecting with each other.”

“If a list of compulsory reading for 21st-century football men had been placed on club desks everyone might have realised that the subplots of Forster's books centre on the way unpleasantness inevitably flows from a failure to compromise.”

“As Mark Bright admitted when launching a scheme to encourage football fans to read, fiction really can prompt lateral thinking. "Reading helps you see the bigger picture," insisted Bright. "If I was still a player I'd take an hour out of each day and get myself to the library." What a Wise idea.”

Very well said, Louise.
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Layer 56 Summer In The City IV Conscience and Crime.

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The preacher was a’talking, there’s a sermon he gave
He said every man’s conscience is vile and depraved
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it’s you who must keep it satisfied.
It ain’t easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat
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She gave her heart to the man in a long black coat.

Bob Dylan, Man In A Long Black Coat
from Oh Mercy

This is a song I return to, sometimes every day. Melodically, lyrically, instrumentally, atmospherically it’s just superb, as are all of the songs on Oh Mercy.

Most Of The Time, which follows it on the CD, is similar in all those ways. This is the voice of experience, as well as the voice of wisdom and understanding, gently and melodically telling us that this is the way life is - he can keep both feet on the ground and follow the path, handle whatever he stumbles upon, and make it through, all on his own - most of the time.

I’m becoming more and more absorbed in the way Dylan’s voice functions as an instrument - the way in which his sounds and inflections manage to convey states of pure feeling or passion - or love, or anger, or disgust. You don’t even have to pay any attention to the lyrics to tune in to the mood he’s putting across, the feelings he’s conveying. Come to think of it, I’d like to hear versions of his songs with the vocal/melody track removed and replaced by piano, keyboard and guitar, - played, of course, by the man himself, ideally.

Before I get on to the main part of this piece I want to recommend a book called “Dylan’s Visions of Sin“, by Prof. Christopher Ricks, in which he quotes Dylan as saying,

“The politics of sin; that’s what I think of.”

And one of the things that Dylan has noticed is that so many people have turned a deaf ear to this aspect of his work -

“The things I have to say about such things as ghetto bosses, salvation and sin, lust, murderers going free, and children without hope . . .”

Before I get on to some thoughts on crime, schools and the education system I’d just like to slip in another Dylan quote from Ricks’ book.

“As you get older, you get smarter and that can hinder you because you try to gain control over the creative impulse. Creativity is not like a freight train going down the tracks. It’s something that has to be caressed and treated with a great deal of respect. If your mind is intellectually in the way, it will stop you. You’ve got to program your brain not to think too much.”

There speaks a true Gemini, a true air sign!

In essence what he’s saying is that creativity takes place where the planes of knowing, feeling and imagining meet and intersect; the point at which the axes of knowledge and instinct, spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence cross over and link together. Because creativity and originality and personal expression depend upon combining all those elements of knowing, feeling, imagining, empathizing and intuiting. And the process has to be driven by instinct and passion.

So much for the creative impulse. How sad it is that so many never experience it, or do so very infrequently. Unless you count things like destruction and mayhem as a kind of negative creation.

Hicks talks about Dylan’s equilateral thinking - the triangle of music, voices and “his unpropitiatory words”. In the past Dylan has said, “I can hear the sound of what I want to say”.

Hicks has a very interesting way of organizing his book, his study of the art of Bob Dylan. Seven chapters on “The Sins”; four chapters on “The Virtues” - Justice, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude; three chapters on “The Heavenly Graces” - Faith, Hope and Charity.

To people brought up in so-called Judeo/Christian societies these headings, combined with the notion of “sin”, might give the impression that he’s intent on some sort of religious exploration and interpretation, that he’s considering Dylan’s work through the prism of religion.

But of course there is no religious monopoly on, or religious ownership of, these words and concepts, which are, after all, human values, and belong to all of us. They belong to the world, including atheists and agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems and the rest.

Human values are at the heart of any attempt to educate children in the art of living well, as are emotional intelligence, imagination, spiritual intelligence and creativity. A lot of the kids living feral and broken lives would be far better off listening to and studying the music and poetry of Bob Dylan everyday than they are studying what is to them irrelevant and empty subject matter that has nothing to do with their lives.

It was Springsteen who said, "I learned more from a three minute record than I ever learned at school", and there's another passionate genius whose work should be on the curriculum in every secondary school.

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Last night Panorama on BBC1, and Channel 4 with three separate programmes, launched into a combined four hours of documentary, discussion and talking heads on the subjects of knife crime, teenage street gangs and broken lives. More and more kids are dying of knife wounds, and sometimes gunshots. The media is currently full of this stuff.

Dylan says that conscience can’t be relied on to be your guide - it’s you who must keep it satisfied. The comment that’s stayed in my memory from last night’s programmes is a kid saying,

“I didn’t have a conscience. I wanted to hurt people. I wanted to be ‘good‘. I wanted respect. I wanted people to be afraid of me.”

And someone else said, “You call this life? This is death out here, man”.

“Too much analyzing what’s happening just spreads fear.”

“Some of the older kids teach you bad stuff.”

And in conclusion,
“These days all people care about is themselves. Nothing’s going to happen and nothing’s going to get better unless everybody is prepared to stand up and make a difference.”

These kids are not total idiots, notwithstanding the fact that many of them lack consciences and have very little emotional or spiritual intelligence. What they also don’t have is the strength and the know-how to resist the pressures to become part of a gang or a group on the streets. They have no strategies or very few strategies to help them cope with fear, coercion and bullying.

So who’s for standing up and making a difference, as the young man suggested? Maybe no-one should have the right to an opinion on these matters unless they can explain what they are actively doing to make a difference, or unless they have a track record of making a difference before retiring from the battlefront. Unless they have a sick note to explain why they can’t be an activist. Unless they can clearly demonstrate they are making a difference.

Putting in some ground rules like this might exclude from the debate a great many loud-mouthed pundits, as well as most politicians and most civil servants and bureauk-rats too, all the vermin that scurry along the corridors of power and feed off the bounty of hard-working people, whilst despising their lifestyles, language and living conditions.

These are the highly-paid overrated fellows who specialise in scratching one another’s backs as they pontificate on the next great initiative and strategy for dealing with the troublesome proles and their feral offspring.

There are also lots of decent-minded and liberal individuals who also don’t have a clue what to do about the gathering storm. A couple of weeks ago I was listening to some BBC types, some programme-making types, talking excitedly about a documentary project that will focus on teenagers, gang culture and the need to teach kids “emotional intelligence”. There was a pause in their chatter, and then one of them, a very bright and able young woman, turned to me and said, “How do you teach emotional intelligence?” I resisted the temptation to ask her how many days she had, since I’ve spent a career trying to figure that one out.

What I can say very easily is that you can’t give someone a conscience. You can’t inoculate them from the sickness. You can’t inject them with resilience. You can’t force enlightenment on anyone.

Christ - we can’t even give them decent housing and living conditions. Simple, concrete, physical things. We can’t give them pride and self-esteem when we make them live inside chaos and decay. We can’t shield them from deprived, depressed and desperate parents. We can’t cut off their access to drugs and weapons.

But there are things we can do - in principle, very easily. We can stop putting them in schools which are no more than results factories where there is only boredom and cramming on offer. We can offer them opportunities to learn how to be creative and to love learning for its own sake. We can fill their days in school with colour and stimulation, with friendships and laughter and enjoyment. This is not rocket science.

What they increasingly have is just old-fashioned child abuse and denial of human rights dressed up as driving up standards. They know they are just pawns in a political/educational game. They know they have teachers who are too tired, too demotivated, too full of fear and too stressed to give them a smile or a chance to talk, a chance to express themselves.

And this is the real sickness in our society. Deal with this, and let the schools be managed by people who are concerned with meeting the real developmental needs of children, people who can steadfastly and patiently look after children, encourage them, allow them to learn at their own pace and in their preferred manner, and we might start to get somewhere.

Layer 47 Blair, Brown, Blunkett, Blinkers, Bullshit and Blindfolds.

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Back home from the peace and quiet of Somerset. The noise levels here at home today are quite intolerable. This has been happening for the past 3 weeks, thanks to the water mains being relaid up and down the street, but today it’s worse than ever. There’s nowhere in the house I can go to get away from the racket that’s being created by pneumatic drills, cement mixer lorries, men shouting, drilling, etc. It’s incredible.

Of course the minute I write all this down they’ve decided to down tools and have a tea break, and there’s blissful silence, at least for a few minutes. To be fair this particular team seem to spend as much time off the job as on it. Which at least partly explains why the works have gone on for so long.

Right now there’s not even the sound of children over in the school playground because it’s half term. Summer half term. There are no major roads where I live, so for the next few minutes I’ll be able to enjoy blissful, peaceful silence.

I’m desperate to have my quiet street back again permanently. Throughout the six months prior to these water mains works commencing I had to cope with noise coming from directly across the street, where the school was being rebuilt and enlarged. The sound of lorries and vans arriving from very early morning, from earth-moving machines, diggers, cement mixers, dumper trucks, drilling, hammering, sawing - all of it was sheer noise pollution. Enough to drive someone like me, who values and loves silence, totally crazy.

I suppose I should be less egocentric and give a thought to the poor sods who have to operate the angle grinders and pneumatic drills, and show some concern for their health - their lungs breathing in the dust, their ears being battered day after day by the grinding and drilling they’re doing.

Summer half term, and the weather continues dull, overcast, cold, windy and raining. At least down in Somerset, where the weather was even worse, it was peaceful and quiet!

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The War on Teenage Terror.

There’s yet more chatter on the radio about knife crime, and what we can possibly do about it. People yakking and blathering on about the shocking frequency of knife attacks and murders, and the need for teenagers to have positive role models, and adults who are consistent in what they say and do. So might that be consistent in their stupidity and cluelessness, just like the pundits?

Police Commissioner Blair says we need to talk about it more. Someone else says that knee jerk reactions may get some kids off the streets and locked away, but won’t solve the problem. And, errr . . . . that’s about it. Clueless.

This level of national discourse is appalling and shameful. Because all that people in power really want to do is tinker with the issues, apply sticking plaster to these running sores, and keep things pretty much as they are. The idea of a revolution, at least in consciousness, is very far from their minds. That’s the last thing they want - to have to think very differently about how we operate as a society.

At the moment they are incapable of thinking about and talking about what’s happening in terms of our national low levels of social, emotional and spiritual intelligence. They don’t even understand the concept of emotional intelligence, or emotional literacy as some prefer to call it. There’s no way they are familiar with the work of Goleman, for instance, let alone have any capacity to think about what an attempt to tackle these intelligences might mean in terms of the school system and indeed our national ‘culture’.

And yet a radical shift in our thinking and our ways of doing things is the only appropriate remedy for the trends that we see accelerating. It’s only a serious attempt to address the long term issues from the very roots of the problems that can possibly make any difference. Containment and punishment is not a solution or a policy that has any hope of success. And is this shift happening? Or likely to happen? Ha!

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The Standards and Testing Debate.

Estelle Morris, whom I wrote some very positive things about last week, had a column in the Education Guardian this week, which was pure bullshit. Idiotic, useless waffle of the very first order. I regret having to say such things, because it provides yet more ammunition for the political opposition, but then I AM opposed to everything this wretched government has done and is doing to the education system.

Morris’s column was headed ‘Genuine Engagement on this Testing Issue’, and it was anything but that. A good friend had cautioned me last week about being so fulsome in my praise of Morris, when after all she had consistently supported the government’s SATs agenda, and still does. Well here she is, writing and saying the most absurd nonsense.

She begins her piece by saying, “It is very difficult to have a sensible debate about testing”, and then goes on to prove her point by making idiotic assertions that have absolutely no validity. Here’s what she says:

“There was a time when the dividing lines in the testing debate were quite simply whether we should test children or not. That battle has been fought and won. Tests are an integral part of school life.”

Well, Baroness, you ought to know that the rest of the world doesn’t see it this way. Scotland, for example, has never seen it this way. Wales has just abandoned testing. Are these people all stupid? Or do they perhaps have some legitimate claim to having a correct point of view? And if so, then in what sense has the battle been fought and won?

Here’s the good, decent and caring Baroness, still a parliamentarian, still a Labour party member, seeing the world entirely in terms of the narrow debate within England. And yet she must surely realise there are still thousands of intelligent voices in this country, an increasing number in fact, who completely disagree with SATs and summative testing as means of describing and assessing children’s progress and achievement.

What she really means, of course, is that the debate within PARLIAMENT has been fought and won, and that’s all that really matters. She’s into realpolitic. She sees the world in terms of pure political power, and sure enough our politicians are overwhelmingly in favour of SATs and therefore there’s no point in debating testing any longer. There’s nothing like enough opposition to testing within the main political parties and within parliament, so we might just as well forget it and move on.

This is how politicians operate. New Labour has never been about principle and taking a stand, or showing leadership towards some legitimate ideological goals. It's only ever been about narrow political calculation and appeasing the floating voters. The realities of power, yes indeed!

They had a landslide in 1997, and also in the following election, and a massive mandate for radical change towards the type of society we ought to be, and they didn’t know what to do with it. There are no philosophers within New Labour, only ambitious technocrats and power brokers. People who consider themselves effective and efficient managers.

But I digress. Back to Estelle, bless her.

“Teachers use the (test) data to raise the standards further.”
And then she selectively quotes from the estimable Mick Brookes, gen sec of NAHT, to back up her assertions, which is a typically New Labourish thing to do, and leaves a very nasty taste.

“Data”, Estelle? What fucking data? Data that tells us how well children cope with tests, which effectively tells us nothing about anything important. What teachers actually make good use of is not tests but formative assessment (continuous assessment) which steers their teaching from day to day according to how well children are learning from day to day, week to week. Responding to end of Key Stage data helps no child whatsoever! This is nonsense!

Perhaps Estelle should pay more attention to the likes of Melanie Phillips, after all. Tests are there to measure the performance of schools - and that’s it, as dear Mel P will gladly tell you. But they don’t even do that effectively. And what if they did? What if they really did tell us how well schools are processing children through tests? Is that what we really want to know - what we really care about?

All good teachers and all good schools have systems for tracking children’s progress that rely not a jot on summative testing. They assess them in relation to clear targets for learning, in terms of outcomes in learning skills, concepts and knowledge. This is how progress is really assessed - continuously. If you really want to assess and rank how well schools are doing, then you ought to start by finding out whether or not they have good systems for formative assessment and tracking progress against agreed learning targets and outcomes.

We even know which skills, concepts and knowledge they ought to develop in emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence, and we know when children lack them, and no tests can give us this crucial information. Or any crucial information about children’s creativity, imagination and enthusiasm for learning. But then this government, and seemingly Baroness Morris, care not a jot for these things, and they don’t think parents do either.

But they’ll carry on wringing their hands about the crazy, angry kids on the streets and their culture of knives, gangs and guns. And they’ll carry on wondering what to do about these fallen children of the underclasses. And occasionally they may give a thought as to why our children in general are the most miserable in Europe, if not the world.

But will they ever do anything about it? Will they fuck.

Towards the end of her article Estelle tells us that it’s basically the decision of head teachers if their schools choose to restrict and narrow the curriculum and concentrate on teaching to the tests. She comes to the astonishing conclusion that if parents don’t want their children’s experience of school to be limited, restricted and impoverished, then they should speak up and say so.

And this is the most outrageous thing for her to have said. Having spent years battering it into the heads of parents (and teachers) that good test results are all that matters, and it’s through SATs tests that schools will be judged, for Morris to now turn round and say that maybe education should be about something wider and more important and maybe parents should speak up about this, and if they did then “I’m sure the schools - and the government - would respond” - this is pure evil. This is abdication of responsibility and refusal to take a moral as well as a principled stand on crucial issues.

This is someone who knows or at least suspects that children’s rights and well-being are being violated every day in most schools in this country, and that teachers and head teachers, in tough areas particularly (though not exclusively), are being driven to despair and beyond by government policy and the Ofsted regime, and she has the nerve to tentatively suggest that the decision to do something about it might rest with parents - that if they feel strongly enough about it then they have the power to change it!

She’s sure the government would respond? Yes - if there were to be a mass protest by parents on behalf of their poor bloody kids. But don’t expect the government to change anything for the better on behalf of the kids and their hard-working teachers just because it’s the RIGHT thing to do! Clearly that could never happen! Even if they understood what’s right for children and what ought to be happening in schools. Which they clearly do not.

It’s also ridiculous to imagine that this government will disown the policies it’s been pursuing for so many years, or expect them to recant all the reactionary nonsense it’s been purveying. That would be one massive U-turn too many. Which is why the way forward is in fact for this government to be given the bullet. In the hope that a Parliament with no overall majority might actually make a fresh start on looking at key issues anew, and having to argue and debate properly the issues that really matter.

I truly look forward to the day, which I’m convinced will arrive, when we emerge from our delusion and our collective madness and say what the fuck have we been doing to our kids all these years? And who’s to blame, apart from ourselves?

Who led us into this nonsense? Why were those children treated so badly? Why did they miss out on so much? Why were their childhoods so boring and impoverished? Why were they crammed and homeworked to within an inch of their lives? Why did they not come to love learning for its own sake? Why was their creativity and imagination so under-nourished? Why was their mental and emotional health so damaged? Why didn’t they learn to manage their emotions, and develop a sense of awe and wonder, and learn to value life itself? Why were their spirits so downcast and defeated before they even got going?

Step forward all those who really had a chance to change things from 1997 onwards. Step forward Blair, Brown, Blunkett, Miliband, Balls, and the rest of you. Yes, even you wee Jim Knight, and you Estelle. You were our ‘leaders’. On with the blindfolds.

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Layer 25 Cool

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Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton, jazz musician, writer and broadcaster, born May 23 1921; died April 25 2008

Humphrey Lyttelton died last week. He was 86 years old and one of the coolest men on the planet. He was self-actualisation and Zen personified.

He loved art, music and laughter. He lived a life of continuous creativity on his own terms, and brought joy and laughter into the lives of anyone who knew him and anyone who watched him or listened to him perform.

“Politically, he was firmly, if surprisingly, on the left. Before joining the Grenadier Guards in 1941, he was sent to work in a south Wales steel mill to find out if he had the makings of a "captain of industry", but the experience turned him into a lifelong socialist.” (George Melly)

He taught himself to play a trumpet that he’d bought in the Charing Cross Road in 1936. After serving in WW2, with both rifle and trumpet, he went to art college. He became a musician and also a writer, broadcaster, cartoonist, composer, after-dinner speaker and critic.

“While music-making can be about bravura and bold proclamation, it is also about sharing, listening and waiting - and sympathetically responding. There is no conductor, often no score, so the latter qualities have to be even more finely tuned. These are not just pre-requisites for the making of good music, they are qualities for the making of a good life. An abundance of them is what made Humphrey Lyttelton special - and so widely loved, too.” (John Fordham, The Guardian)

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This last paragraph pretty much sums up what self-actualisation and Zen are all about. This paragraph describes a man who had fully developed spiritual, social and emotional intelligence. As well as having talent and intellect, and as well as being highly creative in several fields, Humph knew how to share, how to listen to others, and when and how to sympathetically respond. He was indeed widely loved.

He was a band leader, but he was a ‘servant-leader’. He was the epitome of Taoist ideals. The great books of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching, describe how leaders should fulfill their responsibilities, and Humph, being an enlightened leader, intuitively and instinctually seemed to ‘lead without leading’, as the books say. Although he never shirked ‘bravura and bold proclamation’ when those qualities were called for. He set out to work with the best people and to encourage them to give the best of themselves, and to become even better.

Jazz has always been about jamming. It’s about communication, interaction, improvisation, self-expression, group collaboration, getting the best out of yourself and out of other people who share your passion and your enthusiasm. It’s about putting yourself at the service of a group that’s trying to create something of quality, something meaningful and joyful, something worth sharing with a wider audience. It’s about playing and having fun. It’s about experimenting and trusting those around you to be original and experimental and creative, and getting further inspired by their creativity. It's about honest and direct musical expression of feelings ranging from joy to sadness, which is the blues, and jazz.

Having read a couple of obituaries I’ve picked up a list of words that describe Humph. They add up to a man who was totally cool. Everyone aspires to be cool, but most people know they will never be cool. Humph really was totally cool. He was cool when he was young, and he was still cool at the age of 86.

He was downbeat, understated, straightfaced, ironic, courteous, modest and moderate. But he had natural authority and could be intransigent and determined. He was broad-minded, charismatic, vibrant, funny, entertaining, enthusiastic and influential. “Fun was something he took very seriously”, wrote Jeremy Hardy, who also said Humph could show an austere demeanor, and that he had “disdainful and impassive lips that soon wrinkled into a lovely smile”. Hardy concludes that Humph was naturally and instinctively erudite and elegant, and that all in all “he was a beautiful man”. Blow that out your trumpet. That’s cool, man.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/28/radio.bbc
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/30/bbc.radio1?gusrc=rss&feed=media
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Lyttelton (also contains other Humph links)
http://www.lastingtribute.co.uk/tribute/lyttelton/2805210
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3827144.ece

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Apparently Humph wrote 8 books, one of which I picked up a while ago in the £2 bookshop in Greenwich - “It Just Occurred To Me . . . The Reminiscences and Thoughts of Chairman Humph.(2006)” It’s been sitting near the top of my pile of books waiting to be read.

The front cover quotes Pete Townshend, who, whatever you may think about him, isn’t exactly given to mindless enthusiasm or over-generous praise: “Humph is cool. Humph is now!”

To give you a flavour of the book here’s a quote from Humph’s introduction.

“It just occurred to me that writing this book has been very similar to blowing an extended solo on the trumpet - following thoughts wherever they’ve led, through a jungle of ideas and memories, quotations and clichés, high notes, blue notes and, no doubt, a few wrong notes, for which I apologise in advance. On second thoughts, no, I don’t. You’ll get precious few right notes if you worry about hitting wrong notes.”
A bit like a blog really. Improvise, and be damned. Get blogging! Express yourself!

Gonna miss you Humph.

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Talking About Death, Talking About Life.

Friends are always shocked when I talk about death. “Well I am nearly 60, and I’ve had a very stressful life in some ways . . . ” I think it’s a big mistake not to consider the possibility of heart attacks, cancer, road accidents, whatever, and a mistake to deliberately avoid talking about funerals and wills. You need to sort these things out. It’s only fair.

I want my children to inherit my money, my house, and most of my worldly goods, such as they are. But they won’t want my precious vinyl collection, my CDs even, or most of my books. Or my diaries, notebooks and journals, though my grandchildren eventually might. A lot of my thousands of photos and videos won’t be of any great interest to them, especially the ones concerned with education. (Fortunately it’s easy to run off copies of the digital stuff for those who want them.) They won’t want my guitars, or even my cars. They won’t want my much loved and often played audio tapes. They definitely won’t want my cat, who is determined to outlive me.

Maybe I should just organise an auction for those friends and family who are interested in having any of my stuff, with the proceeds going to my children and grandchildren, or to charity. Anything not attracting bids could be just given away or thrown away. Which could well be most of it. Especially the cat. Then again, maybe auctions just favour the wealthiest, which wouldn’t be very fair.

I need to say loudly and clearly that I don’t want a funeral that’s in any way whatsoever concerned with God or Christianity. Got nothing against either of them. Just don’t want to have anything to do with them. No church, no chapel, no Bible, no priest.

Over the past couple of years I’ve needed to go to a number of funerals, all of them in churches and chapels, and all of them conducted by priests, or women who were very priestly. Every one a preacher. Every one droning out platitudes about life, death and God. Besides finding these things boring and frustrating I found them all quite disrespectful to the deceased and to the gathering.

I don’t blame the individuals - I’m sure they were sincere and were doing their best, as they saw it. But I don’t go to a funeral expecting to hear about and sing about the glory of God. I want to celebrate the life of the person I care about. I want to stay focused on the main business.

Most of the time these priests have never even met or known the surviving members of the family prior to the death, let alone the deceased. No wonder they pad it all out with waffle about God and Jesus and Heaven. They must surely get sick of doing it, the same stuff over and over, just different backdrops and different audiences of mourners for their performances.

I don't envy them. It can’t be easy going round meeting people who have just lost a loved one, asking them to give some information that can be used at the funeral. Meeting people who aren’t necessarily very able to communicate insightful thoughts at the best of times, let alone when they’re full of grief. Though there presumably are some priests somewhere who are gifted at this kind of thing, and gifted at conducting inspirational and meaningful funeral services.

I definitely DO want someone to read out something from Zen and Taoist texts. Something wise and wonderful that might bring some spiritual insights to bear on the situation, something that might be helpful or useful to at least some of those who come to see me off. Something that’s maybe transcendental and joyful and uplifting. Something that’s philosophical and wise, and nothing to do with religion.

Maybe someone should read something that’s funny and likely to make people at least smile. The funnier the better. Much better than crying. I’ve got at least a couple of friends who could MC, tell jokes and stories.

And music. Sweet soul music. Blues and boogie. Rhythm’n’rock. Especially at the party afterwards. Finally I get to play the music I like at a party. Pity I won’t be there to enjoy it. Maybe I’ll organise a pre-funeral party. Have a kind of dress rehearsal to make sure it’s going to go well. Ever the perfectionist.

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The Today programme on Radio 4 today had a feature on death and on American academic Randy Pausch: “Is the taboo about death starting to lift? Listen to Jeff Zaslow who co-authored the book of "The Last Lecture", and to Mike Jarvis, director of the Natural Death Centre.”
Read more about Randy Pausch, and why he decided to do a lecture on life and death when he knew he had only a few weeks to live, on the links below. You can also view his lecture on YouTube. Life, how to live it, and what lessons to take from it (see examples below).
This is another very cool guy. Only 46. Tragic.

"Never lose your childlike wonder. It’s what drives us.
Tell the truth and be earnest
Believe in karma.
Pursue childhood dreams and try to achieve them, but more than anything, live your life well."

http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Meb_-wVop8I
http://it.wordpress.com/tag/randy-paush/