Blogs & articles

The RSA at its best

Blog

03 Mar 2010

Matthew Taylor

Not every day is good but sometimes in my job I stumble on unexpected treasures. Yesterday afternoon I helped host the awards ceremony for the UK finalists of the European Business Awards for the Environment (EBAE). The awards process is overseen by the RSA Environment Awards Forum which has at its heart a group of talented, committed, Fellows. For years these Fellows have been working to develop proper accreditation for a multitude of environment and business awards schemes. Their work resulted in DEFRA choosing the Forum to decide which award winners should be entered for the prestigious European awards. The process has been very successful with the UK regularly being European winners.

You read it here first...

Blog

01 Mar 2010

Matthew Taylor

As the election nears politicians of all parties are being pressed to come up with new policies. Here is a simple, cost-effective, socially inclusive, modernising one they can all have for free.

Collectively thinking about the curriculum

Blog

01 Mar 2010

As promised, Friday's seminar on the implications of social brain theory for how we think about the national curriculum resulted in a fascinating discussion.

What can we do to make classroom education more effective?

Comment

01 Mar 2010

Ask 20 people the question above, and you would probably get 20 different responses – and offered readily. It seems everyone is an expert when it comes to saying what is wrong with education, and what should be done about it. But there is hard evidence on one ubiquitous aspect of school life - classroom talk - which now makes a very strong case for talk to be given special attention by policymakers and practitioners.<!--more-->

The social curriculum - how who we are affects what we learn

Blog

25 Feb 2010

Social brain theory, which looks at insights from a range of disciplines that deal with human brain, mind and behaviour sciences, posits that our rationality is more emotionally driven, that we are more socially responsive, and that our decisions are made more unconsciously than simplistic models of rational, individualistic beings making rational decisions allow.

A price worth paying

Blog

25 Feb 2010

Matthew Taylor

From the first day I was appointed to be Chief Executive of the RSA my over riding ambition for the Society has been to enable and support our amazing Fellowship to be a powerful force for good. Yesterday was an interesting day on that journey.

Localism - the way to save Whitehall

Blog

24 Feb 2010

Matthew Taylor

With OFSTED reporting that progress in primary schools has been hampered by too many central initiatives, and the the inquiry into events at Stafford Hospital in part blaming the ‘target culture’ of the NHS, today is going to be another bad day for centralism.

Jaron Lanier: admirable apostate of the digital revolution

Comment

23 Feb 2010

For a society and, increasingly, a culture facilitated by digital networked tools, we have a surprisingly unsophisticated discourse about their impact, or about their aesthetics.

Citizenship politics - part 3

Blog

23 Feb 2010

Matthew Taylor

I fear readers will approach the final instalment of my three-parter on citizenship politics with all the enthusiasm of a vegan starting work placement in a steak pie factory. I had my doubts as to both the intellectual and entertainment value of these posts and as the comments have dried up (not that I’m not enormously grateful for those who have posted) my worst fears have been confirmed. Tomorrow I will gather up the pieces of my shattered self esteem and return to more palatable fare; some jokes about dogs perhaps?