Fear of a wireless planet

By Graham Brown-Martin

Read all about it...In an age where there is so much information the headline is king.

So it is with those reader hungry newspapers who live off scare stories where they don’t have practice much, you know, “journalism”.

Journalism is defined in Wikipedia as “the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience”.

The Oxford English Dictionary is more succinct and describes it thus “the activity or profession of writing for newspapers or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television”

Whilst I prefer the more lofty definition presented by Wikipedia I’m more inclined to believe the investigation-free version offered by OED that's more in keeping with the journalistic practice demonstrated by todays mainstream press.

Take this headline from The Telegraph newspaper:

“Ban mobile phones and wireless networks in schools, say European leaders”

Or this headline from the Daily Express:

“CALL FOR SCHOOLS TO BAN MOBILES IN NEW CANCER ALERT”

Or this one from the Daily Mail:

“Ban mobile phones and wi-fi from schools ‘as they are potentially harmful’”

Heady stuff (no pun intended), more than enough to fuel numerous blogs (including this one) and copycat news items around the world much like the story of Chicken Little who after an incident with an acorn decided that the “sky was falling in” and sets off to tell the king collecting, other animals along the way.

Optional cartoon interlude:

Given the shortage of journalists working at these papers perhaps a little critical thinking from an enquiring mind might be in order.

So what’s the background to the story?

Well, a committee from the Council of Europe published a report / working document on May 6th entitled “The potential dangers of electromagnetic fields and their effect on the environment”. The committee proposes a draft resolution that

“all reasonable measures to reduce exposure to electromagnetic fields, especially to radio frequencies from mobile phones, and particularly the exposure to children and young people”.

It then proposes banning

“all mobile phones, DECT phones or WiFi or WLAN systems from classrooms and schools” and also anticipates legislation to “to keep high-voltage power lines and other electric installations at a safe distance from dwellings”.

It justifies this proposed action because “waiting for high levels of scientific and clinical proof can lead to very high health and economic costs”.

So what’s the Council of Europe (CoE) and who belongs to the committee?

First off, the CoE is not the European Union neither is it the European Parliament nor the European Council.

The CoE has been around for over 60 years with 47 member countries and whose objective is

“to create a common democratic and legal area throughout the whole of the continent, ensuring respect for its fundamental values: human rights, democracy and the rule of law.”

Mr Jean Huss MP, Green Party, LuxembourgThe CoE’s Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs responsible for the report is composed of politicians rather than scientists. The report has been prepared by Mr Jean Huss, a Green Party MP in the Luxembourg legislative Chamber.

The report has yet to be debated by Council of Europe which is scheduled for debate in Kiev on May 27th where it will be approved or otherwise. So currently this report does not represent the views of the Council of Europe. Besides even if it did the views expressed are somewhat different from the European Commission.

The reason why our auspicious newspapers would pick up on this non-story and run such misleading headlines is clear, they sell newspapers.

The reason why these politicians would ignore the peer-reviewed research from the World Health Organisation, Health Protection Agency and numerous other organisations including the European Commission in favour of claims made by the anti-RF lobby is less clear.

Hello, may I speak with Mr Huss...It’ll be interesting to learn how the Council of Europe responds to this report.

Certainly if it makes recommendations about mobiles, Wi-Fi, WLAN, health and kids that differ from the advice already provided by the agencies responsible there’s a story worth reporting which may or may not have anything to do with health but until then let’s look at the facts rather than the catchy headlines.

If you've found this post interesting and would like to leave a comment please do!

21st century skills

By Graham Brown-Martin

What are 21st century skills?

The question hangs in the air where responses are invariably peppered with buzzwords such as “collaboration”, “creativity”, “technology”, “agility”, “citizenship” and many others. I’m confident that you’ll be able to add to this list and most of them would, in part, be correct.

I enjoy playing buzzword bingo in my head as I’ve listened to policy makers, corporate executives and other 20th century thinkers take a stab at guessing what these skills might be as they struggle to be down with the kids and their quarterly returns.

Video clip: What is she talking about?

In the UK we have an administration - the part responsible for education at least - that would like to turn the clock back to 1950 to a post-war time and a land of opportunity, prosperity and better living through chemistry, where people knew their station in life. The 80/20 rule where 80% of the population were ruled and guided by the other 20%. How comforting that must be.

But there’s an elephant wearing a day-glo pink tutu who’s been dancing in the room since even the last century.

I have a vision about what happens after we elect a new President or Prime Minister. After they’ve stood at the doorway, family in tow, to their newly won corridor of power for the press shots they enter to find Mr Sinister who closes the door behind them, locks it and takes them for a briefing about “how it really is”.

They get to meet the elephant and boy can she dance.

This elephant was touched on during Sir Ken Robinson’s recent LWF talk and it makes climate change seem like a supporting act. And it wasn’t the well-rehearsed and perfectly delivered arguments about creativity in learning but the very reason it’s essential to the survival of our species.

(Sorry iPad users the bit below needs Flash)

Poodwaddle.com

The elephant is called “population” and her supporting acts are called “resources” and “environment”. There’s also a mad man in the audience who shouts “how the hell are we going to get out of this mess!” but every body assumes he’s a drunk so ignores him.

So let’s break this down.

A recent BBC documentary fronted by David Attenborough presented some startling statistics about the Earths population and our ability to support ourselves.

Video clip: How many people can the Earth support?

It turns out that if every person on the planet consumed and left an environmental footprint at the same rate as a typical citizen of Rwanda then our lovely blue marble of a planet could support 15 billion people.

On the flipside if we consume and leave the same environmental footprint as a typical US (and many a European) citizen then the planet can support 1.7 billion people.

The rub is that we are now at 7 billion people and counting.

Which means there’s a whole bunch of people having less so that a minority can have more.

Now this is a really tricky subject because the majority of people reading this blog, myself included, aren’t too keen on the using less bit. Of course, we talk about it and separate our garbage into the right bins, take public transport when we can but this is like comfort eating in a state of denial.

Nobody knows how many people have walked this planet but some pretty clever people have taken a stab and suggested that currently 10% of all the people who have ever lived are alive today. We are quite simply the most populous generation of our species.

For those of a right wing, nationalistic or religious persuasion - depending on who’s stats you read - you should know that the average age of people in the Middle East is under 30 with a growing population and the average age in Europe is approaching 40 rising to 50+ in the next 40 years with a rapidly declining population.

Sarkozy and Berlusconi anybody?

Whilst the physical size of the planet will one day be an issue the restriction on the number of people this planet can support comes down to our natural resources. The water table in China is now precipitously low and our fossil fuels will eventually exhaust themselves exacerbated by, well, those inconvenient people that, you know, want a bit of what you got.

Optional musical interlude:

So whilst we read about the “Arab Spring” and unrest in the African continent perhaps what we’re really witnessing is that our 21st century skills aren’t too different from the ones we’ve been deploying for a few centuries now.

Regime change, intervention, espionage, bombing, sustainable somnambulism, keeping people poor / uneducated, preventing independence, shotgun diplomacy, fiscal control, looting, pillaging whilst adopting a strategy of we take you buy would seem to be the kind of 21st century skills that we’ve become good at and have perfected through our systems of cultural reproduction since even before the Victorians.

So let’s lighten up a bit and bring it back to the topic of 21st century skills and the purpose of learning.

The next few generations of kids including those in our education systems today have some formidable challenges ahead if we are to see a 4th or 5th generation of our species.

Sounds sort of “woo-woo” dramatic doesn’t it until you think about it for a while and try to answer the fundamental questions about how we will ensure sufficient water, food, energy and medicines that will support an ever-growing population.

All that science fiction stuff about city size populations living in a single tall building and deep space exploration begins to seem a little less science fiction when you consider that we will need to design incredibly efficient ways of recycling and using our naturally limited resources without entering a dystopian world.

If we’re serious about educating the global population then they are going to want what you have or at least the good bits and if this is the case we will need to plot a course for energy and environmental neutrality that will allow this to happen. The alternative is what we have at the moment. Keeping the majority of people down and hiding behind well-intentioned NGO’s to salve our conscience. Unfortunately we know how that story ends.

So the point I’m driving at is that we, as a species, have a massive challenge ahead that won’t be solved by sticking our heads in the sand and pretending it will never happen.

We need to challenge and equip our learners of today and tomorrow with the skills to solve bigger problems.

Peace-keeping and the equitable sharing of resources and culture are going to be a big part of this but we are going to need architects, engineers, scientists, designers, artists and all the other members of the team who can reengineer and reimagine almost every facet of what we know today in ways we can hardly envision. 

This will require a challenge to our societies super-structures that hardly seems possible amongst a population who already consider themselves post-modernists when in reality we still live by a feudal system.

All this at the same time as ensuring we have a society and life that’s worth living.

Perhaps the purpose of education is now not simply to reproduce culture and maintain an elite but to take that elephant dancing until she has to leave the room.

What are 21st century skills?

The ones that will ensure we survive in a world that we want to live on.

Personally I don’t think that learning Latin is one of them.

Now what do you think?

The trouble with free

By Graham Brown-Martin

Free is the new business model and we like free don’t we?

Free search, free information, free social media, free apps, free newspapers - the list is almost endless as businesses adapt to this new model.

Business writer and editor-in-chief of Wired (£2 per copy on subscription), Chris Anderson (not to be confused with the guy who runs TED) followed his best selling Long Tail book with another best-selling book entitled “Free: How today’s smartest businesses profit by giving something for nothing” (available from Amazon for £5.45) which documents this 21st century business phenomenon.

The strap line for the book “How todays smart businesses profit...” is a clue to what’s happening here.

One of the examples in the book concerns that of King Gillette and how he built a hugely successful empire on the back of giving away the razors that were useless on their own but created a demand for disposable blades.

Billions of blades later the rest is history giving birth to a business model that is the foundation of entire industries from free mobile phones with monthly call/data plans to cheap video game consoles with pricey games to free coffee machines in offices with expensive coffee sachets to satellite TV with monthly subscriptions and so on.

The approach pioneered by Gillette became known by economists as “cross-subsidy”. Get something free as long as you bought something else.

Anderson convincingly proposes that a new kind of “free” business model has emerged as a result of the web because the costs of the products themselves is falling fast. Recording artists Prince, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and the thousands of artists who launched themselves off YouTube and MySpace have all benefitted from the audience-building concept of nada.

But you know what? None of this is free

Whether it’s that free newspaper you pick up on your morning commute or that Facebook page you update religiously, someone, somewhere is paying.

But as long as it’s not you it’s great right?

Well, maybe...

Let’s play a game. Answer me these questions, if only in your head.

How much would you charge to sell me:

• your web-browsing history?
• your purchasing history?
• your list of friends and business contacts?
• your social security number and credit card info?

We are now so conditioned to free that we sometimes forget to value these things to balance the deal.

So what has this to do with learning and education?

Well, a friend of mine in the UK education sector recently told me that due to the cuts in public sector spending that he would no longer be able to attend paid-for conferences.

Another colleague in government told me that an edict from the UK Cabinet Office stated that departments could no longer support commercially operated events. Now I don’t mean  events designed for commercial purposes like trade shows that also fall under the ban but also any event that is being operated by a commercial company - like LWF for example.

At first pass given the precarious state of of public finances in the UK these seem like prudent measures to encourage the private sector to become more resilient and less dependent on the public purse.

I’d also be the first to say that during the glory days there were a host of chancers who would set up a conference at the drop of a new government agenda and trouser the cash. These events added little to the idea of debate and were simply promotional exercises for the agenda, its followers and any commercial parties who were in on the act. Those in attendance got their day out, a free lunch and nodded (off) at the required times.

Optional musical interlude:

Naturally, as someone who monetizes their organisation by hosting events, I have an interest here. LWF’s “free” bit is the distribution of valuable resources and facilitating a platform for unfettered dialogue made possible by this “monetization”.

But what if we did it a different way?

What if we made all our events free to attend?

Well, we have thought about it and it could be done. However the nature of the events and the discussion via our various communities would change beyond a point that I would feel comfortable.

There a numerous free events, summits and even “world forums” aimed at the education sector. Some even fly you across the world and put you in expensive hotels.

But are they free?

No, they’re not and someone is paying. Someone who quite reasonably has an interest in gaining a return on their investment which means the programme of these events, just like the editorial in your free newspaper, will be influenced by those who control the purse.

The education supply sector is after all a business, no different from any other. It relies on influencing the thought leaders, opinion formers and budget holders.

Without commercial supporters the delegates would have to shoulder the entire costs of attending the event which could be considerable. The rightly renowned TED conferences charge their delegates upwards of $6,000 to attend and even then take sponsorship dollars for funding the pre-roll on their gorgeous videos.

But what commercial organisation in their right mind would support a dialogue that may question their position in the market or enable an open dialogue that may take the market in a totally new direction that isn’t in line with their business plan and quarterly returns?

Only those who are courageous, authentic and secure in their own position.

Of course, as a reader of this blog you’re smart and savvy. You know when you’re being sold to and when the agenda is being pre-programmed to deliver a certain result.

I’m not as naive as to suggest that some of those free junkets or conferences hosted by a single commercial vendor or consortium don’t hold an element of value, after all if nothing else there’s always a chance to catch up with your mates, but the control of debate and the agenda solely for commercial ends fills me with concern when it relates to the future of learning and that of our children.

And that’s why free ends up being the most expensive option of all.

Sir Ken Robinson

On March 16th, 2011 Sir Ken Robinson presented a talk to the Learning Without Frontiers community followed by an audience discussion where he was joined by Mick Waters, Curriculum Foundation and Keri Facer, Professor of Education, MMU.

Here are the edited highlights of that talk:

 

And the discussion panel



Be part of the conversation and post your comments below

Get this video on iTunes, Blip.TV or YouTube

Pictures from the evening.

What should be taught in our schools?

On March 3rd 2011, an informal evening of discussion and debate took place featuring Katharine Birbalsingh (teacher and author), Toby Young (journalist and author), Dr Ralph Townsend (Headmaster Winchester College), Dawn Hallybone (senior teacher), Tristram Shepard (online educational publisher and former Oftsed inspector) and Donald Clark (e-learning entrepreneur).

The occassion marked both an exchange of views as related to England's National Curriculum Review and the launch of Katharine Birbalisingh's book "To Miss with Love".

Each speaker presented a 5 minute position statement which was followed for a discussion with the 175 people in attendance.

The evening was supported by LWF, BESA and Penguin.

Here is the audio recording from the evening.

What should be taught in our schools? by learningwithoutfrontiers