Tag: Education
German Romanticism and the Philosophy of Beauty
My interest in romanticism comes from the way in which it might address some of the key problems of modern technology. Today's technologies - our phones and gadgets, screens and notifications - disconnect us from the real world, other people and ourselves, triggering a crisis of both identity and authenticity. I've written before about Neil ...
It Ends in Suits (How Law Firms Buy the Best Students)
It's 2016 and I'm at a networking event run by one of the major law firms in Sydney, Australia. Around me, canapés are being served by waiters in tuxedos. They ask me if I would like the salmon tartar. I politely decline. It's a formal event, so I am dressed in my one and only ...
Law Schools: Alternative Assessments & Teaching Methods for a Liberal Arts Education
In this article, I argue that alternative assessments should be used in law schools to re-orientate student learning towards a broader, liberal arts education in law. Students should be given new assessments that challenge them to think for themselves about the origin of law, the purpose of law and the effect of law on society. ...
We Need Less Experts: The Power of Educating Generalists
Imagine that you’re a doctor and that your patient has just died on the operating table. Now, you have the difficult task of telling the family the bad news. You’re an expert in medicine but you have no knowledge of...
Top UK universities remain unreachable for 70% of students
Eight top schools have as many Oxford and Cambridge admissions as the next 2894 UK schools combined, according to a new report by the Sutton Trust. The Trust suggests that little has changed regarding access to opportunity at Oxbridge since its last report in 2011. For nearly three quarters of school leavers across the UK, ...
Oxford’s Libraries Should Be Open and Free To The Public
In the last two years, over 100 public libraries across the UK have been forced to close down. A further 500 are now being run by all-volunteer workforces, often made up of retirees working for nothing to keep their local communities alive. Even in the best-case scenario, volunteer-run libraries lack oversight and accountability, let alone ...
Thomas Jefferson: How Law Should be Part of a Broad Training in the Liberal Arts
I find it interesting sometimes to contrast the narrow, vocational-based education system we have today with the kind of education system envisaged in the late 1700s. Often, the aim back then was to receive a broad-education in what today we understand as the liberal arts and sciences, before advancing onto a broad education as to ...
How Physical Proximity (and Social Psychology): Can Prevent Racism, Sexism and Discrimination in Our Society
In previous centuries divisions of society were mended and band-aided by communal meeting areas: Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and other religious and civic halls. The decline of religion, or at least the decline of religious attendance, has seen the decline of these common meeting places for the collective consciousness of mankind. No longer can you strike ...
