Entries by Penelope J. Corfield

MONTHLY BLOG 4, ON THE SUBTLE POWER OF GRADUALISM

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2011) Currently, fashionable chatter on the new political Right refers approvingly to the case for ‘chaos’. That view is voiced by Nick Boles, Conservative MP for Grantham and Stamford, author of Which Way’s Up? The Future for Coalition Britain (2010). Out of institutional turmoil, financial […]

MONTHLY BLOG 3, WHY DO HUMANS STILL LEARN CHIEFLY VIA FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATION?

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2010) Having written last month about the power of Continuity, my next discussion-point reverts to an issue within Education that is much influenced by Continuity. And that is the question of why face-to-face group teaching is not only surviving, in this time of technological alternatives, […]

MONTHLY BLOG 2, WHY IS THE FORMIDABLE POWER OF CONTINUITY SO OFTEN OVERLOOKED?

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2010) My discussion-points aim to alternate between big themes relating to Education and big themes relating to Interpreting History. So, since the October debate highlighted the current mania for wrongly prizing Skills over Knowledge (instead the two go integrally together), this November discussion-point takes a […]

MONTHLY BLOG 1, WHAT SHOULD A NEW GOVERNMENT DO ABOUT THE SKILLS AGENDA IN EDUCATION POLICY?

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2010) Clearly, an educated and skilled population is a ‘good thing’, socially, culturally, democratically, and economically. Why then is it a mistake to define education as a process justified by – and organised around – the inculcation of skills? The answer is that people cannot […]