When should schooling begin?
An interesting question that we in the UK certainly need to consider in more depth than what the government says! Over the past few decades there has been a pressure to get toddlers into some form of schooling! Two years old. Hmm.
Also the question presumes that schooling should begin at some point. Perhaps.
But it's not necessary to send your child to school (or legally mandatory in the freer nations of the west, although I believe Germany still forbids it...!) The homeschooling or home education movement is gaining strength across the UK and it's very strong in the USA reflecting many people's beliefs that school is either not conducive to learning for most people or just for their children.
Aristotle, whom I've written on (might be in paperback soon, so look out for it at stations, airports, WH Smiths...), argued that we owe our civilisation to the polis (the state) and therefore it's the state's duty to educate the children as it sees fit. Despite being a highly influential philosophy, it's not the philosophy of a libertarian or one who embraces the need for plurality, individuality, and creativity in life. State education, by its very nature, must be directed - the government pays for it and it will want to ensure that the taxpayers are getting their money's worth and therefore it will inevitably end up interfering.
It made it! It's in paperback...(Oct 2014)
Now to assume that all children's education should be directed by the state reeks, or it should reek if you know your history, of totalitarianism. It does not matter how 'well-intentioned' the politician is, or how 'in tune' with the people he or she is: imposing a curriculum upon the children is totalitarian. Quite simple really. It also explains why so many pupils (who want to learn) and teachers (who want to help them learn) feel repressed. The room for manoeuvre is crushed by such things as a national curriculum. And even though the UK government is allowing more flexibility in 'the system', it's still a system and systems attract systematisers and people who enjoy fiddling with the exam boards and curricula.
If you think, oh, but when I'm in power, or my party's in power, we'll do things better...that's the reason the classical liberal heritage exists: to block such moves. To curb such grandiose dispositions. Power corrupts, n'est ce pas? Such thoughts are totalitarian and our constitutions should be such as to inhibit any bureaucrat or politician imposing their values on others.
Instead, let's begin with the assumption that the child does not have to go to school and that schooling is something extraordinary. (Just because you went doesn't mean to say your children should go...anyway, did you enjoy it? Seriously? Or was it the social life you enjoyed?).
This is the move I make in political philosophy - begin with a small community who live without government (I'm not saying without laws): this is an anarchistic community.
Then try to justify the formation of a government...it's quite interesting and hard to do. (Rather than presuming the existence of the state, as Aristotle does, and then justifying its diminution or abandonment. You'll find most philosophers accept Aristotle's position and so abhor the notion that people could live without government, even though they have done for most of our evolution and continue to do so quietly and small groups - and such communities tend not to wage genocidal and total war campaigns against neighbours by the way, something governments are particularly good at...don't believe me? Please, look through a history book.)
So the child is born to a family and a particular culture. It belongs in the family as a maturing person, gaining greater moral distinction and intellectual and spiritual independence as he/she develops. Okay - so why then pass the child over to someone else who will instil in him/her values that may be very different from your own and who will be thrown in with other children, many of whom, if you do have values of sorts, you would not invite back into your home?
To get an education you say.
Really, what kind of start is it when the young forming child is cast into a jungle warfare of children all the same age yet with highly variant needs and demands and actions (violent, sullen, fashionable, afflicted with poor diet and too much screen time...). Is the nursery or kindergarten or school such a great place to get an education?
Didn't do me much harm, you say. Really? It's hard to tell - most of us went to school and we survived. We enjoyed bits, we were bored for most of it, we were subtly and not so subtly manipulated and conditioned into accepting authority. Some wanted to gain that authority to wield over others, others collapsed with a failing sense of self-confidence in the world and end up working for the 'headmaster' bosses of the work place.
I exaggerate. Really? Why do many parents get nervous when they have to go and speak to the head of their child's school then? Why do so many yield authority to teachers when helping to forge their child's educational programme? Or why do others get so angry with school teachers that their rebelliousness is echoed in their distrust of the educational system and teachers in general...
But the teachers are trained to teach...
What is teaching? In a school, much of the teacher's skill is crowd control. It has to be given the curriculum and lack of freedom they possess: give that control up and they will have mayhem. The whole system is authoritarian and obedience by the individual to the dictates of the teacher is necessary.
Great education...? Now, are you literate? Can you do basic numeracy. That is all you need to impart to a child. Once they can read and do basic numbers, you can explore together (many great books on that out there, never mind the internet!) and you'll be amazed what your child gets interested in...and you will be learning with them rather than imposing. Much teaching is teaching ON children not WITH. There are many great teachers out there - lovely people, lovely values, people you would invite home and with whom the children feel comfortable: but the system is against them. The systems governments (inevitably) create attract managers and target manipulators rather than inspirers. There are inspirers and for goodness' sake - tell them! It's not just their salary that keeps them propping up kids' lives.
We (or I) have to work...
That's the big issue for most parents who would love to home educate. For a great part of the day, they require their children to be schooled so that they can earn the living required to live. Fair enough. But don't then expect that the school will teach all that you or they would like to learn: schooling is from 9-3.30, but education never stops. When you all return to the family nest, don't put the tv on (get rid of the damnable thing) - listen to your children, encourage new interests, expose them to your learning, learn something new yourself if you're not already (why should they continue to learn if mum and dad don't? - you're the greatest role models they have (or should be)). When the child is with you - you are home educating!
So the last resort is economic. For that we must turn our attention once more to how we got ourselves into such a state, in such a rich economy - why do we have to give up so much of our time to the market place?
Well, because taxes are so high, inflation rampant and there is so much distortion in the economy because of government intervention and regulation. I consider myself a feminist in the sense that men and women should be held morally, legally, politically, and intellectually equal, but it does seem as if we are poorer when both parents have to now work compared to the past. There is an economic necessity that both work - yet we are so rich as a country! Taxes, my friends, taxes, keep many from making the choices they would like to make. (Don't think taxes make a difference - check the taxes you pay...on everything, you may be dismayed by the proportion of wealth that is diverted through government offices [and at the moment of writing, Kiev is revolting over the amounts being diverted]).
If you can properly justify sending your child to school, explain to them why you do. That also helps kids, especially those going through a tough time for whatever reason.
Don't just say - you have to go to school. Because that is a lie. Be honest: you have to go to school because your mum and I have to work to pay for the food. But when you're back home, we'll have fun and learn about dinosaurs, the Romans, rocket science, Pythagoras, the use of calculus, politics, world issues, psychology...together.
Check out the books below for further research (there are many for those interested in home schooling, from educators who like structured school-like days, to those who prefer to let the children come to learning themselves, also called "unschooling"):
Monday, 13 January 2014
Friday, 10 January 2014
Avoiding the No word - how to change our conditioning to be negative!
In dealing with children it is easy to block their actions and intentions with a simple, single syllable word, "no."
How many times do were hear it when we go out amongst people? Can we avoid using and instead teach a principle instead?
"No you can't do that..." Easily said but then it creates a duality between authority and obeisance rather than a position of mutual equality in which information is exchanged.
Now, I think using "no" is appropriate for wrong answers. "Is the capital of France Berlin?" "No, it isn't."
But what about forming letters, as my elder is doing:
"Is this the way I form an A?" "It's better to start at the bottom, it makes it easier to form the A shape..."
Or:
"Can I have a chocolate?" "You've had a couple today already...why not save the next one for tomorrow..."
I'm going to try a week of avoiding saying "no" to my children and see what alternatives I can generate...
A few days later - okay, score coming in: two no's on the factual account - "no, that's not a brontosaurs" sort of reply and six on the "don't do that..." Hmm, one a day on average. I'll get that down!
Best way to stop the "don't" habit is to pause and let the negatives fly around the brain for a while, let the conditioned reflex do all its jumping around and when it finally runs out of power, think about what would be better said. Each time I caught myself uttering a "don't" phrase, there was no pause between what I was thinking and saying. Wedge a pause in a get a different result!
How many times do were hear it when we go out amongst people? Can we avoid using and instead teach a principle instead?
"No you can't do that..." Easily said but then it creates a duality between authority and obeisance rather than a position of mutual equality in which information is exchanged.
Now, I think using "no" is appropriate for wrong answers. "Is the capital of France Berlin?" "No, it isn't."
But what about forming letters, as my elder is doing:
"Is this the way I form an A?" "It's better to start at the bottom, it makes it easier to form the A shape..."
Or:
"Can I have a chocolate?" "You've had a couple today already...why not save the next one for tomorrow..."
I'm going to try a week of avoiding saying "no" to my children and see what alternatives I can generate...
A few days later - okay, score coming in: two no's on the factual account - "no, that's not a brontosaurs" sort of reply and six on the "don't do that..." Hmm, one a day on average. I'll get that down!
Best way to stop the "don't" habit is to pause and let the negatives fly around the brain for a while, let the conditioned reflex do all its jumping around and when it finally runs out of power, think about what would be better said. Each time I caught myself uttering a "don't" phrase, there was no pause between what I was thinking and saying. Wedge a pause in a get a different result!
Wednesday, 8 January 2014
Bastiat on liberty - just get the "G" out of economics.
I love reading Frederick Bastiat (1801-50) - two centuries ago, Bastiat was explaining the fallacies in people's economic thinking and supporting freedom and free trade as the quintessential foundations for liberty.
The ideas he espoused have not lost any meaning, but since his time new attacks on economic and political freedom arose. Firstly, there was the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, which effectively reduce the life of the individual to that of expendability.
Here's an excellent quotation that captures much of the political philosophy I've espoused over the past two decades:
“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”
This is why we seek to limit political interference in our lives and economies. When there is interference - the ubiquitous G in macroeconomics - guaranteed it will create chaos and economic distortions that hurt people. The people who 'run' our economies (into the ground) are not made of finer clay than us - we believe they are because we have three to four thousand years of conditioning that authority somehow gives people godlike abilities.
Remember King Canute? He showed his courtiers that a king could not turn back the tide. He was - in that respect - a humble and good king.
Today, our politicians think they can drive economic wealth. No they can't. They do better by getting out of the way.
The ideas he espoused have not lost any meaning, but since his time new attacks on economic and political freedom arose. Firstly, there was the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, which effectively reduce the life of the individual to that of expendability.
Here's an excellent quotation that captures much of the political philosophy I've espoused over the past two decades:
“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”
This is why we seek to limit political interference in our lives and economies. When there is interference - the ubiquitous G in macroeconomics - guaranteed it will create chaos and economic distortions that hurt people. The people who 'run' our economies (into the ground) are not made of finer clay than us - we believe they are because we have three to four thousand years of conditioning that authority somehow gives people godlike abilities.
Remember King Canute? He showed his courtiers that a king could not turn back the tide. He was - in that respect - a humble and good king.
Today, our politicians think they can drive economic wealth. No they can't. They do better by getting out of the way.
Principles - of life and death
A disciple is a person who follows a set of principles.
What are your principles?
Do you have any? Or are you just stumbling through life taking what it throws at you and falling into positions, friendships, having children, going into debt ... as it comes?
Principles can be very broad or very narrow depending on the action we're talking about.
A broad principle is one that helps us understand life as a whole.
Is life a series of lessons for the soul, or am I just a bunch of chemicals randomly thrown together? Do my actions have any meaning? Should I conjure up visions of our purpose on earth or leave it to others or chance? Do I think I have meaning? Do I have right to pursue happiness and live in freedom? Or should I forego my pleasures for the greater good? Who determines the greater good? Are there actions that are right in themselves, and what makes them so? Is there a God and if so does God care what I do? Does the past have any meaning for me? Should the future? What is the nature of reality - is it a figment of the imagination or is it a hard rock upon which we founder when not looking carefully? What is death? Indeed, what is birth and sentience, conscience and consciousness? Do we need a government at all? What is justice or fairness? Do rights make sense?
A narrow principle is one that helps us understand what to do in a certain situation. Etiquette helps us smooth our passage through society - don't eat with your mouth full, don't drum your fingers while someone is talking, don't interrupt.
Except, I don't like negatives...let's rephrase that otherwise we get into a vicious logical circle: I prefer positives. So - don't eat with your mouth full becomes: when chewing food, chew the food and let the saliva do the work, i.e., respect other people's views of your actions.
Don't drum your fingers while someone is talking becomes pay attention to what others are saying, they may be saying something useful or about you! i.e., respect and listen.
Don't interrupt becomes what you have to say is critical and may be the things that the other person is saying too i.e., respect and be patient.
The broad principle behind much etiquette is respect for others and how we are seen by them. When we enter the day with an attitude of 'I don't care how I look' don't be surprised that other people may be offended or find your appearance distasteful.
Then there are the principles of every day personal action - these need to be in harmony with the grander principles. When they are not, you feel it, your whole body and demeanour say some thing's up and some thing needs to change.
Let's take a principle that's quite popular today: "There are no principles, we'll just make it up as we go along."
Okay, you're ill, you fall into ill health and have no energy and no desire to move; your body is fatigued all the time and you're pale and lethargic. Do you say, oh well, there are no principles, whatever happens to me is random and I can't do anything about it, because life and all its events and actions are random. Nothing makes sense and nothing I can do will help it to make sense.
Or do you pop into the doctor's? Do you start reading up on why you may be so lethargic? Do you start thinking about what go you into this state...several nightlong parties, a heavy work load, alcohol, smoking, poor diet, stressful marriage, redundancy...and then when you join the dots things make a little more sense?
Logically, the argument that there are no principles is a fallacy, because the statement admits at least one principle: there are no principles, as a principle (vicious logical circle). But if there's one, there may be others ... But life and experience shouts loudly that there are principles of good living as well as principles of bad living. Similarly, there are principles of good thinking, and principles of bad thinking.
Good principles are those that are life affirming, life supporting, and life enhancing. They are the good food for our actions, they keep us strong and healthy, mentally sound and focused, and on track with what we're striving for. They are loving, friendly, ethical, fair, just, creative, enjoyable; they are free and voluntary.
Bad principles are those that are destructive and detrimental to life, they hinder, harm, thwart, hold back, impinge; they keep us weak and ill, mentally addled and unfocused, random in our actions with ourself and others; they are unloving, unfriendly and unsociable, unethical, unfair, unjust; they keep us unfree, servile, enslaved mentally or physically to other people and their opinions, they imply fear.
So what are your principles? To love and give love, or to avoid people and to shun the love they may have? In any given moment there's a principle to be used (or learned). Life tests us and tests our commitment - do we run at the first sign of awkwardness, or do we hold fast?
What are your principles?
Do you have any? Or are you just stumbling through life taking what it throws at you and falling into positions, friendships, having children, going into debt ... as it comes?
Principles can be very broad or very narrow depending on the action we're talking about.
A broad principle is one that helps us understand life as a whole.
Is life a series of lessons for the soul, or am I just a bunch of chemicals randomly thrown together? Do my actions have any meaning? Should I conjure up visions of our purpose on earth or leave it to others or chance? Do I think I have meaning? Do I have right to pursue happiness and live in freedom? Or should I forego my pleasures for the greater good? Who determines the greater good? Are there actions that are right in themselves, and what makes them so? Is there a God and if so does God care what I do? Does the past have any meaning for me? Should the future? What is the nature of reality - is it a figment of the imagination or is it a hard rock upon which we founder when not looking carefully? What is death? Indeed, what is birth and sentience, conscience and consciousness? Do we need a government at all? What is justice or fairness? Do rights make sense?
A narrow principle is one that helps us understand what to do in a certain situation. Etiquette helps us smooth our passage through society - don't eat with your mouth full, don't drum your fingers while someone is talking, don't interrupt.
Except, I don't like negatives...let's rephrase that otherwise we get into a vicious logical circle: I prefer positives. So - don't eat with your mouth full becomes: when chewing food, chew the food and let the saliva do the work, i.e., respect other people's views of your actions.
Don't drum your fingers while someone is talking becomes pay attention to what others are saying, they may be saying something useful or about you! i.e., respect and listen.
Don't interrupt becomes what you have to say is critical and may be the things that the other person is saying too i.e., respect and be patient.
The broad principle behind much etiquette is respect for others and how we are seen by them. When we enter the day with an attitude of 'I don't care how I look' don't be surprised that other people may be offended or find your appearance distasteful.
Then there are the principles of every day personal action - these need to be in harmony with the grander principles. When they are not, you feel it, your whole body and demeanour say some thing's up and some thing needs to change.
Let's take a principle that's quite popular today: "There are no principles, we'll just make it up as we go along."
Okay, you're ill, you fall into ill health and have no energy and no desire to move; your body is fatigued all the time and you're pale and lethargic. Do you say, oh well, there are no principles, whatever happens to me is random and I can't do anything about it, because life and all its events and actions are random. Nothing makes sense and nothing I can do will help it to make sense.
Or do you pop into the doctor's? Do you start reading up on why you may be so lethargic? Do you start thinking about what go you into this state...several nightlong parties, a heavy work load, alcohol, smoking, poor diet, stressful marriage, redundancy...and then when you join the dots things make a little more sense?
Logically, the argument that there are no principles is a fallacy, because the statement admits at least one principle: there are no principles, as a principle (vicious logical circle). But if there's one, there may be others ... But life and experience shouts loudly that there are principles of good living as well as principles of bad living. Similarly, there are principles of good thinking, and principles of bad thinking.
Good principles are those that are life affirming, life supporting, and life enhancing. They are the good food for our actions, they keep us strong and healthy, mentally sound and focused, and on track with what we're striving for. They are loving, friendly, ethical, fair, just, creative, enjoyable; they are free and voluntary.
Bad principles are those that are destructive and detrimental to life, they hinder, harm, thwart, hold back, impinge; they keep us weak and ill, mentally addled and unfocused, random in our actions with ourself and others; they are unloving, unfriendly and unsociable, unethical, unfair, unjust; they keep us unfree, servile, enslaved mentally or physically to other people and their opinions, they imply fear.
So what are your principles? To love and give love, or to avoid people and to shun the love they may have? In any given moment there's a principle to be used (or learned). Life tests us and tests our commitment - do we run at the first sign of awkwardness, or do we hold fast?
Sunday, 5 January 2014
Goal setting and actually achieving them
Setting goals is not a mundane task but a fun and exciting one that enables us to progress clearly. If we don't know where we're going then any path is fine, so don't complain if you end up poor, alone, and ill. After all, if you don't set goals, other people will set them for you.
When my clients (I work with pupils aged 9-19 on a one to one basis) say that they don't know what to do, I cajole them into making a decision of sorts, because if they're indifferent to their future, they will become flotsam and jetsam on life. And life's too important to float around. (Something I pick up on in my first novel, Wither This Land, which follows a character who doesn't have any ideas and who gets caught up in an ideological battle between animal rights activists and hunters). Excuse the plug, but I'm in charge of marketing my own novels...:
In a sense, we have lost the childish ability to want things. Children have great way of focusing their attention on something they want and then working on us or themselves to get it. Amazing. What happened to us adults - we were told that it's wrong to want, or we experienced too many times when our wants were dashed by others or life's circumstances. Well - I'm here to tell you: don't give up. A child doesn't give up pestering and we should not give up pestering ourselves until we win.
Now let's focus in on what we're doing: setting goals.
Primary goal: what is the most important thing in 2014 that you want to achieve? If you're stuck on that one, give yourself a year to live. Morbid, I know, but go with it. It's December 31st 2014, and you are just about to pass over. What would you have wanted to experience. It's no good lying there dying thinking, oh, I should have visited the Taj Mahal while I was capable. Use that immediate image of what you think you should be doing and jot it down ... visit Taj Mahal...What else?
As it's the New Year, it's always considered to be a good time to write down resolutions. But resolutions don't really get anywhere unless we take action towards them. Most people fail within a month of attaining their resolutions; they are quickly forgotten and ignored until the next New Year when we confess, as Zig Ziglar notes, what we didn't do this year: didn't lose that fat, didn't get that promotion, didn't get that room cleared...
If you keep doing the same thing and expect the same results ... what do you expect?
So do something different this year. Goals need not just writing down but also revisiting regularly. Hey, if you achieve something early (wow, we get a bargain flight to India and saw the Taj Mahal...) put something new down, don't wait till the New Year.
We're going to work backwards from what we want - and give ourselves a year to do it in. It's also important to set up life goals, ten year goals, five year goals...but since this is a starting place, a year's a good one to get your head around.
Take a blank piece of paper - any size will do but big sheets, like A3 or A2 are great as you can write your goals in large writing, and that makes them important to you.
In the middle, write the year 2014.
Then do a spider diagram branching off into the various areas of life that you live:
E.g.,
Health:
Wealth:
Self-development:
Family:
Acquisitions:
Holiday:
Friendships:
Relationships:
Charity/Church:
Sports:
Culture/entertainment:
For each one write the main thing you want to achieve.
E.g., Health - reduce body fat/weight
Wealth - reduce personal debt and increase income
Self-development - read more books, learn piano.
Family: spend more time with the kids
Acquisitions: purchase new car
Holiday: two weeks abroad
Friendships: catch up with old friends
Charity/Church: give more to charity.
Sports: take up golf.
Culture/entertainment: see opera at Covent Garden.
As they stand, these are not very good goals and are more likely to be ignored. Why? They're not SMART:
SMART is an an acronym used in business to get focused, and in setting goals we need a focus.
SMART stands for:
SPECIFIC
MEASURABLE
ATTAINABLE
REALISTIC or RELEVANT
TIME-FRAMED.
Let's look at each of our targets:
HEALTH: reduce body fat/weight.
So far this is NOT specific, not measurable, therefore we don't know if it's attainable or realistic (it's just so vague) and there's no time frame.
I'll put my own goal here - I want to drop from 15% umbilical fat to less than 10% (SPECIFIC and MEASURABLE) by May 2014 (NOW TIME FRAMED).
Is this ATTAINABLE (within the time frame)? In conjunction with the training programme I'm on it is highly attainable (and I'll check my trainer on that!);
REALISTIC OR RELEVANT? Sure - it's part of my overall goal to be healthy, and it's within my ability to drop the fat levels, since I've managed to drop similar amounts in the past.
WEALTH: to aim for less debt and more money is not yet SMART. So let's change it.
SPECIFIC: how much debt do you want to get rid of? Let's say you reply "all of it." How much is all of it? £5000, you reply. Okay. Now we have something specific.
Next useful question here is - how long do you want to take to reduce this debt? A year. Okay - now, that's TIME-FRAMED, but then we can ask whether this is attainable. Using a debt calculator (assuming £200 monthly payment, interest at 18%), if you increase the payments to £419.51 per month, you'll have zipped the debt in 12 months. Is this ATTAINABLE though? Finding an extra £220 per month means finding an extra £55 per week, or £7.55 a day. Where are you going to get this from?
If you can save it from your budget by cutting back on extraneous spending (on stuff you can live without) then that makes sense: renegotiate the phone contract - say that saves £10 a month; give up the magazine subscription (saving £8 a month); cut back on some luxury groceries (saving £20 a month) - hey, we're up to £38. That means only £17 to go. Can you work some extra hours? What if you can't and you've screwed your budget down as best as you can - well, it will take more than 12 months to kill the debt: 14 months. That's not bad is it? Now we have adjusted the time frame to make it more attainable.
FAMILY: okay, when, how much time, how?
I aim to put an hour a day into my children. When? After work and dinner - I'll make it special daddy time so they get me without interruptions. Is this attainable? Indeed - we don't watch tv, in the evening I can settle down with both children and have uninterrupted play.
ACQUISITIONS: what car? by when? how much?
Specifically, I want a hybrid car, a Honda Jazz, second hand £10,000. By when? October. How will I pay for it? Save £1000 per month for ten months. Is that attainable? Say current disposable income is £800 per month, then again I have to adjust my goal if I want to avoid paying for it on finance (and that is a complex issue, but say that's the goal). Okay, I can put £800 a month - that means the TIME FRAME is now twelve and half months.
Some prefer to use RELEVANT instead of REALISTIC. This makes sense with a car purchase: is it a relevant goal according to everything else I'm doing? Well, if my current car can last another two years or so and I am reducing my personal debt, then I may want to put the £800 a month into debt reduction and get out of debt quicker instead of buying a car. It depends why I want to buy the car - if the current car is on its last legs and I will need a car for work and I'm likely to face increasing bills with the old one, then it certainly becomes relevant.
And so we go on.
Pick up the paper, sketch out the primary goals. Then add in the SMART categories under each goal (another good reason for using a large sheet).
E.g.,
For each balloon, you can add in the specific goals with dates to achieve them. E.g.,
Tick them off as you achieve them or set them into motion.
Once you've got the ideas down, it's time to add the visuals. Without visuals to help, the ideas can remain just words on paper. So time to do some research on the web or in magazines and get the printer going (which is fun in its own right!)
Consider for acquisitions the hybrid car: get a picture and slap it onto the visualisation board you're creating:
Now we can see it our brain starts to understand that we're on a path to get it.
We'll set up a standing order to put money into an acquisition account (or earn more money to acquire it through more work or reducing other bills); we'll automate that process so that in eight months we can go into the market and get the deal. Naturally, we'll aim to pay less than the full price and any reduction can go into another money account to earn interest/be traded/put towards self-development/holiday/debt reduction, etc.
The picture is worth a thousand words - it gets into our subconscious and starts to drive us towards the goal of acquiring what we want. This is the The Secret or Law of Attraction: when you visualise, you train your brain to believe in having what you want, this alters your behaviour and sends out vibes to mirror what you want. Things start coming your way - however we explain it.
Be a kid for a while - write out your proper Christmas list and then build up a visualisation board.
When my clients (I work with pupils aged 9-19 on a one to one basis) say that they don't know what to do, I cajole them into making a decision of sorts, because if they're indifferent to their future, they will become flotsam and jetsam on life. And life's too important to float around. (Something I pick up on in my first novel, Wither This Land, which follows a character who doesn't have any ideas and who gets caught up in an ideological battle between animal rights activists and hunters). Excuse the plug, but I'm in charge of marketing my own novels...:
In a sense, we have lost the childish ability to want things. Children have great way of focusing their attention on something they want and then working on us or themselves to get it. Amazing. What happened to us adults - we were told that it's wrong to want, or we experienced too many times when our wants were dashed by others or life's circumstances. Well - I'm here to tell you: don't give up. A child doesn't give up pestering and we should not give up pestering ourselves until we win.
Now let's focus in on what we're doing: setting goals.
Primary goal: what is the most important thing in 2014 that you want to achieve? If you're stuck on that one, give yourself a year to live. Morbid, I know, but go with it. It's December 31st 2014, and you are just about to pass over. What would you have wanted to experience. It's no good lying there dying thinking, oh, I should have visited the Taj Mahal while I was capable. Use that immediate image of what you think you should be doing and jot it down ... visit Taj Mahal...What else?
As it's the New Year, it's always considered to be a good time to write down resolutions. But resolutions don't really get anywhere unless we take action towards them. Most people fail within a month of attaining their resolutions; they are quickly forgotten and ignored until the next New Year when we confess, as Zig Ziglar notes, what we didn't do this year: didn't lose that fat, didn't get that promotion, didn't get that room cleared...
If you keep doing the same thing and expect the same results ... what do you expect?
So do something different this year. Goals need not just writing down but also revisiting regularly. Hey, if you achieve something early (wow, we get a bargain flight to India and saw the Taj Mahal...) put something new down, don't wait till the New Year.
We're going to work backwards from what we want - and give ourselves a year to do it in. It's also important to set up life goals, ten year goals, five year goals...but since this is a starting place, a year's a good one to get your head around.
Take a blank piece of paper - any size will do but big sheets, like A3 or A2 are great as you can write your goals in large writing, and that makes them important to you.
In the middle, write the year 2014.
Then do a spider diagram branching off into the various areas of life that you live:
E.g.,
Health:
Wealth:
Self-development:
Family:
Acquisitions:
Holiday:
Friendships:
Relationships:
Charity/Church:
Sports:
Culture/entertainment:
For each one write the main thing you want to achieve.
E.g., Health - reduce body fat/weight
Wealth - reduce personal debt and increase income
Self-development - read more books, learn piano.
Family: spend more time with the kids
Acquisitions: purchase new car
Holiday: two weeks abroad
Friendships: catch up with old friends
Charity/Church: give more to charity.
Sports: take up golf.
Culture/entertainment: see opera at Covent Garden.
As they stand, these are not very good goals and are more likely to be ignored. Why? They're not SMART:
SMART is an an acronym used in business to get focused, and in setting goals we need a focus.
SMART stands for:
SPECIFIC
MEASURABLE
ATTAINABLE
REALISTIC or RELEVANT
TIME-FRAMED.
Let's look at each of our targets:
HEALTH: reduce body fat/weight.
So far this is NOT specific, not measurable, therefore we don't know if it's attainable or realistic (it's just so vague) and there's no time frame.
I'll put my own goal here - I want to drop from 15% umbilical fat to less than 10% (SPECIFIC and MEASURABLE) by May 2014 (NOW TIME FRAMED).
Is this ATTAINABLE (within the time frame)? In conjunction with the training programme I'm on it is highly attainable (and I'll check my trainer on that!);
REALISTIC OR RELEVANT? Sure - it's part of my overall goal to be healthy, and it's within my ability to drop the fat levels, since I've managed to drop similar amounts in the past.
WEALTH: to aim for less debt and more money is not yet SMART. So let's change it.
SPECIFIC: how much debt do you want to get rid of? Let's say you reply "all of it." How much is all of it? £5000, you reply. Okay. Now we have something specific.
Next useful question here is - how long do you want to take to reduce this debt? A year. Okay - now, that's TIME-FRAMED, but then we can ask whether this is attainable. Using a debt calculator (assuming £200 monthly payment, interest at 18%), if you increase the payments to £419.51 per month, you'll have zipped the debt in 12 months. Is this ATTAINABLE though? Finding an extra £220 per month means finding an extra £55 per week, or £7.55 a day. Where are you going to get this from?
If you can save it from your budget by cutting back on extraneous spending (on stuff you can live without) then that makes sense: renegotiate the phone contract - say that saves £10 a month; give up the magazine subscription (saving £8 a month); cut back on some luxury groceries (saving £20 a month) - hey, we're up to £38. That means only £17 to go. Can you work some extra hours? What if you can't and you've screwed your budget down as best as you can - well, it will take more than 12 months to kill the debt: 14 months. That's not bad is it? Now we have adjusted the time frame to make it more attainable.
FAMILY: okay, when, how much time, how?
I aim to put an hour a day into my children. When? After work and dinner - I'll make it special daddy time so they get me without interruptions. Is this attainable? Indeed - we don't watch tv, in the evening I can settle down with both children and have uninterrupted play.
ACQUISITIONS: what car? by when? how much?
Specifically, I want a hybrid car, a Honda Jazz, second hand £10,000. By when? October. How will I pay for it? Save £1000 per month for ten months. Is that attainable? Say current disposable income is £800 per month, then again I have to adjust my goal if I want to avoid paying for it on finance (and that is a complex issue, but say that's the goal). Okay, I can put £800 a month - that means the TIME FRAME is now twelve and half months.
Some prefer to use RELEVANT instead of REALISTIC. This makes sense with a car purchase: is it a relevant goal according to everything else I'm doing? Well, if my current car can last another two years or so and I am reducing my personal debt, then I may want to put the £800 a month into debt reduction and get out of debt quicker instead of buying a car. It depends why I want to buy the car - if the current car is on its last legs and I will need a car for work and I'm likely to face increasing bills with the old one, then it certainly becomes relevant.
And so we go on.
Pick up the paper, sketch out the primary goals. Then add in the SMART categories under each goal (another good reason for using a large sheet).
E.g.,
For each balloon, you can add in the specific goals with dates to achieve them. E.g.,
Tick them off as you achieve them or set them into motion.
Once you've got the ideas down, it's time to add the visuals. Without visuals to help, the ideas can remain just words on paper. So time to do some research on the web or in magazines and get the printer going (which is fun in its own right!)
Consider for acquisitions the hybrid car: get a picture and slap it onto the visualisation board you're creating:
Now we can see it our brain starts to understand that we're on a path to get it.
We'll set up a standing order to put money into an acquisition account (or earn more money to acquire it through more work or reducing other bills); we'll automate that process so that in eight months we can go into the market and get the deal. Naturally, we'll aim to pay less than the full price and any reduction can go into another money account to earn interest/be traded/put towards self-development/holiday/debt reduction, etc.
The picture is worth a thousand words - it gets into our subconscious and starts to drive us towards the goal of acquiring what we want. This is the The Secret or Law of Attraction: when you visualise, you train your brain to believe in having what you want, this alters your behaviour and sends out vibes to mirror what you want. Things start coming your way - however we explain it.
Be a kid for a while - write out your proper Christmas list and then build up a visualisation board.
Friday, 3 January 2014
Can the government really create jobs? The Welsh government pays companies to hire people.
Jobs Growth Wales is a government funded programme (partly and perhaps ironically EU funded) designed to put encourage young people into work.
On January 3rd it celebrated creating over 10,000 jobs. 81% of those entering private sector jobs (fully subsidised by the government for six months) retain employment afterwards. From a public sector viewpoint, the programme is a success - officials have spent 12 millions on providing jobs in high unemployment areas or about £12,000 per person.
What's the economics here? Companies are offered the services of an 18-24 year old for free (to them) for six months during which time the youngster has an opportunity to learn the key skills required either for that job or to make themselves more employable.
If each of the 10,000 people managing to get government funding, the state is in reality spending £24,000 per annum per person - a relatively high salary for a low employment area. Could the money have been spent better elsewhere?
Possibly, but when it comes to spending tax payers' money, governments will generally tend to be highly inefficient spenders.
Arguably, from a free market perspective, the deprived areas would have been served better if that money was returned to the people rather than taxed from them in the first place: when the government 'creates' a job, all it is doing is diverting funds from one area of the economy (and so depriving that area of funds and jobs) and giving it to another.
As such, many people may think of this as a simple game in redistributing income, but because the funds are also funnelled through government offices, they also have to support all the officials involved in the scheme.
Say £12m was removed from the economy somewhere ... £10m may be used in 'job creation' but £2m may be spent on the programme. Simply put, it's robbing Peter to pay Paul, with Patrick being paid as a middle man. The minimum wage does not help of course: if a young person has to be worth £5.03 (18-21) or £6.31 (for over 21 yr olds) and a company views there skills as not worth that much (for there are other costs in hiring people) is it any wonder that there are so many unemployed young people? To encourage companies to take on these victims of state education (we could call them) the entire salary and national insurance bill has to be covered.
This indicates how poorly educated these folk have been (more of that in a moment) but also that the minimum wage acts as a barrier for them to be able to compete in the market place for work.
Consider it from an employer's perspective. She wants to hire a person to work in her shop; at the minimum she has to pay £5.03 (who came up with the .03?). She has two applicants (to make things simple): one applicant who has never worked, didn't get great grades, has never volunteered (couldn't be bothered), has a few interesting piercings and believes the world owes him a living; the other has worked since the age of 12, had paper rounds, baby sat, acted as a mentor at school, volunteered in the town, played team sports, got okay grades, has ambitions of passing a business diploma and becoming a manager... hmm, which one, which one... same price...hmmm, difficult.
Now imagine that the ambition-impaired youngster could be taken on for a pound an hour to see how they get on with some responsibility, time keeping, and general workplace duties. The employer may take on both - one for £4 an hour, as they seem good, the other for £1 an hour as they have to prove their worth. They may do this in the space of a week, but the minimum wage bars them from competing. Their only alternative, and one that is often recommendable, is to work for free for a week to build up work experience. This can be a very successful way of getting on the job ladder - but it doesn't attract the entitlement minded however.
Ethically though, other issues arise.
Is it right to remove funds from one area of the economy (and it doesn't matter if it is Cardiff or Rome) to channel money into deprived areas? Removing those funds is taking money from a productive area, from people who are creating wealth through their commercial activities and then are distributed to areas not producing relatively as much. For a socialist, for whom the world should present a picture of social and economic equality, there's no ethical problem on taking from the productive to the give to the unproductive.
In other words, there's no problem in stealing (or being a recipient of stolen goods). From a consequentialist point of view, we can ask troublesome questions concerning the propping up of economically deprived areas. If a company needs subsidising, it means that the market does not want its services in sufficient quantities; likewise, if a worker needs subsidising, the brutal truth is that the market does not want his or her services in sufficient quantities. Take away the subsidy, and the company and worker go bankrupt.
That's the name of the game of the market: each of us has to serve our fellow neighbours with what they want and if we fail to do so, then they do not provide us with sufficiency and we get a big hint to change what we are doing.
If the government comes in to rescue us, we are given a false sense of security (which is lying to us about our job's chances) as well as presenting us with resources taken from other people who are (or even were following a tax hike) succeeding. The market is not, by the way, some whimsical Grendel like monster that kills people indiscriminately (something the military tend to be good at); the market is you and I and millions of other people making decisions about what to purchase - and what not to purchase.
When we serve more people, we earn more people; when we serve only a few, we earn little. When we have low level of skills and are easily replaceable, funnily enough we don't earn much relative to someone whose skills or aptitude for a job are less replaceable.
But now let's look at this from another viewpoint: from the educational point of view. We can ask: is this really job creation or is it providing the young people with the education that their initial (ironically state sponsored) education failed to offer?
This is another sharp critique best avoided if you wish to remain fuzzy headed about things governmental. But seriously, the government 'educates' people for around eleven years in the UK leaving many of them (currently one in five in the UK, fifty percent in Spain, Greece, and France) as unemployable as they went into school.
Now that is a failure of education. (We can of course ask, what do you expect when the government runs the school system? Did you really expect highly productive, literate, cultured, critically individualists capable of adaptive thinking and innovation in the market place...? Dream on.)
The scheme is however, from this point of view, nominally successful - as a re-education programme. It is finally providing some of the Welsh youth with an education that is relevant and indeed gets 81% of them a 'real job'; but that should encourage Welsh taxpayers to look at the value for money they've (not) been getting over their children's education!
The failure is manifest and a human tragedy when young people leave school with little or no skills that can gain them access to the job market. But perhaps we can underline the deeper malaise: attitude.
When deprived areas are subsidised, the people living there are given a false sense of security that some day, some how, the real jobs will return. Perhaps they may - if the government gets out of the way of wealth creation. But throwing welfare into deprived areas creates an entitlement attitude that perpetuates the belief that someone else should be providing them with a living - people in London for instance, or people who live in big houses.
Again, we're back to theft - and generalisations about other people's wealth and their ability and willingness to fund strangers' lives.
The false hope that is fostered with welfarism is compounded with the entitlement attitude that creates, in the words of Bill Bonner (the "rogue economist" newsletter writer) a zombie class: unskilled, poor attitude, dependent on the living, and not going anywhere fast.
Ministers in the Welsh government may counter that at least the programme is giving people hope - and I agree: it is. Hope is vital for all of us, and if the money is to be spent anyway (and not given back to the taxpayers), then assuredly providing people, especially the young people whose lives have been thwarted by an inadequate education and perhaps an entitlement philosophy (i.e., socialist principles), then certainly I would condone spending money on helping people gain hope and a sense of self worth through work sponsorship. Because once people gain a sense of self worth and can act daily towards bettering themselves, then we all gain.
Nonetheless, that is more likely to come from the people themselves than patronising politicians dishing out other folk's money.
On January 3rd it celebrated creating over 10,000 jobs. 81% of those entering private sector jobs (fully subsidised by the government for six months) retain employment afterwards. From a public sector viewpoint, the programme is a success - officials have spent 12 millions on providing jobs in high unemployment areas or about £12,000 per person.
What's the economics here? Companies are offered the services of an 18-24 year old for free (to them) for six months during which time the youngster has an opportunity to learn the key skills required either for that job or to make themselves more employable.
If each of the 10,000 people managing to get government funding, the state is in reality spending £24,000 per annum per person - a relatively high salary for a low employment area. Could the money have been spent better elsewhere?
Possibly, but when it comes to spending tax payers' money, governments will generally tend to be highly inefficient spenders.
Arguably, from a free market perspective, the deprived areas would have been served better if that money was returned to the people rather than taxed from them in the first place: when the government 'creates' a job, all it is doing is diverting funds from one area of the economy (and so depriving that area of funds and jobs) and giving it to another.
As such, many people may think of this as a simple game in redistributing income, but because the funds are also funnelled through government offices, they also have to support all the officials involved in the scheme.
Say £12m was removed from the economy somewhere ... £10m may be used in 'job creation' but £2m may be spent on the programme. Simply put, it's robbing Peter to pay Paul, with Patrick being paid as a middle man. The minimum wage does not help of course: if a young person has to be worth £5.03 (18-21) or £6.31 (for over 21 yr olds) and a company views there skills as not worth that much (for there are other costs in hiring people) is it any wonder that there are so many unemployed young people? To encourage companies to take on these victims of state education (we could call them) the entire salary and national insurance bill has to be covered.
This indicates how poorly educated these folk have been (more of that in a moment) but also that the minimum wage acts as a barrier for them to be able to compete in the market place for work.
Consider it from an employer's perspective. She wants to hire a person to work in her shop; at the minimum she has to pay £5.03 (who came up with the .03?). She has two applicants (to make things simple): one applicant who has never worked, didn't get great grades, has never volunteered (couldn't be bothered), has a few interesting piercings and believes the world owes him a living; the other has worked since the age of 12, had paper rounds, baby sat, acted as a mentor at school, volunteered in the town, played team sports, got okay grades, has ambitions of passing a business diploma and becoming a manager... hmm, which one, which one... same price...hmmm, difficult.
Now imagine that the ambition-impaired youngster could be taken on for a pound an hour to see how they get on with some responsibility, time keeping, and general workplace duties. The employer may take on both - one for £4 an hour, as they seem good, the other for £1 an hour as they have to prove their worth. They may do this in the space of a week, but the minimum wage bars them from competing. Their only alternative, and one that is often recommendable, is to work for free for a week to build up work experience. This can be a very successful way of getting on the job ladder - but it doesn't attract the entitlement minded however.
Ethically though, other issues arise.
Is it right to remove funds from one area of the economy (and it doesn't matter if it is Cardiff or Rome) to channel money into deprived areas? Removing those funds is taking money from a productive area, from people who are creating wealth through their commercial activities and then are distributed to areas not producing relatively as much. For a socialist, for whom the world should present a picture of social and economic equality, there's no ethical problem on taking from the productive to the give to the unproductive.
In other words, there's no problem in stealing (or being a recipient of stolen goods). From a consequentialist point of view, we can ask troublesome questions concerning the propping up of economically deprived areas. If a company needs subsidising, it means that the market does not want its services in sufficient quantities; likewise, if a worker needs subsidising, the brutal truth is that the market does not want his or her services in sufficient quantities. Take away the subsidy, and the company and worker go bankrupt.
That's the name of the game of the market: each of us has to serve our fellow neighbours with what they want and if we fail to do so, then they do not provide us with sufficiency and we get a big hint to change what we are doing.
If the government comes in to rescue us, we are given a false sense of security (which is lying to us about our job's chances) as well as presenting us with resources taken from other people who are (or even were following a tax hike) succeeding. The market is not, by the way, some whimsical Grendel like monster that kills people indiscriminately (something the military tend to be good at); the market is you and I and millions of other people making decisions about what to purchase - and what not to purchase.
When we serve more people, we earn more people; when we serve only a few, we earn little. When we have low level of skills and are easily replaceable, funnily enough we don't earn much relative to someone whose skills or aptitude for a job are less replaceable.
But now let's look at this from another viewpoint: from the educational point of view. We can ask: is this really job creation or is it providing the young people with the education that their initial (ironically state sponsored) education failed to offer?
This is another sharp critique best avoided if you wish to remain fuzzy headed about things governmental. But seriously, the government 'educates' people for around eleven years in the UK leaving many of them (currently one in five in the UK, fifty percent in Spain, Greece, and France) as unemployable as they went into school.
Now that is a failure of education. (We can of course ask, what do you expect when the government runs the school system? Did you really expect highly productive, literate, cultured, critically individualists capable of adaptive thinking and innovation in the market place...? Dream on.)
The scheme is however, from this point of view, nominally successful - as a re-education programme. It is finally providing some of the Welsh youth with an education that is relevant and indeed gets 81% of them a 'real job'; but that should encourage Welsh taxpayers to look at the value for money they've (not) been getting over their children's education!
The failure is manifest and a human tragedy when young people leave school with little or no skills that can gain them access to the job market. But perhaps we can underline the deeper malaise: attitude.
When deprived areas are subsidised, the people living there are given a false sense of security that some day, some how, the real jobs will return. Perhaps they may - if the government gets out of the way of wealth creation. But throwing welfare into deprived areas creates an entitlement attitude that perpetuates the belief that someone else should be providing them with a living - people in London for instance, or people who live in big houses.
Again, we're back to theft - and generalisations about other people's wealth and their ability and willingness to fund strangers' lives.
The false hope that is fostered with welfarism is compounded with the entitlement attitude that creates, in the words of Bill Bonner (the "rogue economist" newsletter writer) a zombie class: unskilled, poor attitude, dependent on the living, and not going anywhere fast.
Ministers in the Welsh government may counter that at least the programme is giving people hope - and I agree: it is. Hope is vital for all of us, and if the money is to be spent anyway (and not given back to the taxpayers), then assuredly providing people, especially the young people whose lives have been thwarted by an inadequate education and perhaps an entitlement philosophy (i.e., socialist principles), then certainly I would condone spending money on helping people gain hope and a sense of self worth through work sponsorship. Because once people gain a sense of self worth and can act daily towards bettering themselves, then we all gain.
Nonetheless, that is more likely to come from the people themselves than patronising politicians dishing out other folk's money.
Thursday, 2 January 2014
Pakistan economic growth and education
Intellectuals and economic growth. Hmm. What can we offer?
In recent news, Prof Ahsan Iqbal, the Minister for Planning etc in Pakistan (sounds ominous when there's still a Planning department!), proclaimed that economic stability was possible through a knowledge based research economy.
Poignant words in a country wracked by bubbling civil disorder and fundamentalism.
He is in many respects right. When we invest in ourselves we reach beyond the basics that our parents and home culture can give us, we stretch ourselves into the unknown and we improve our own understanding of life and of others. Far better to be educated than to be ignorant and Prof. Iqbal rightly alludes to Muslims' excellent history of education and the legacy, we can infer, than the Arabic world bequeathed the west and its scientific and industrial revolution.
Prior to the Renaissance, higher learning was to be found in the great universities of the east - the academics of the Arabic world sustained the momentum that the Greeks had provided: they produced great philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians.
Then sadly academic growth was stifled by a rise in fundamentalism and the wars with the crusaders. Arabic learning passed subtly but surely into Spain and then into Paris and Oxford and Cambridge: the division in the Christian church them permitted nonconformism to emerge and that was a fertile ground for thought to flow freely; and as governments took a back seat, entrepreneurs were relatively free to develop what became the industrial revolution. That revolution empowered the west (and its aggressive governments); it relieved people from poverty (gradually but surely, as even Marx admitted); it produced the plethora of goods and services we increasingly take for granted.
But is education the cause of economic stability (and growth) or a symptom? It's a controversial notion - yet we can gain a glimpse of the causal logic when we look at our academics in the universities: are they financially free? Some may be, but most will not be. They are dependent on government largesse or the corporations that modern western universities are turning into for their salaries and pensions. They are generally not entrepreneurs. Indeed, when academics teach about entrepreneurial activity or business it can be done with disdain or an aloofness that the Ancient Greeks would have commended.
What about the evidence? Is there anything in history that supports the growth of education as being a necessary condition for economic stability or growth?
In Britain's development, much of the development occurred in a society with only a rudimentary education; religious feelings were strong and intolerance of foreigners and Catholics ran high despite the humanism taught by intellectuals - and in many cases religion encouraged reinvestment rather than profligate expenditure. Schools only taught the modicum of reading, writing, and arithmetic: enough to get the peasants and their children work of a higher standard. Only a very small elite went to university, yet arguably much of Britain's industrial development grew from its supposedly uncouth backwaters of Birmingham, Manchester and the great northern cities. London, as always, grew on trade and banking, but the nuts and bolts came from the densely populated, barely educated peoples who turned their new found freedoms into tinkering and innovation. The elite immersed themselves generally in war, politics, and country pursuits. The nonconformists - Quaker families such as the Lloyds, Cadburys and Barclays - created long lasting companies that employed thousands and served millions (and still do today). Very few of the highly educated were actually responsible for Britain's astounding economic growth. The same is true in America: it was not its educated elite that were responsible for its prodigious growth in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Indeed, one thesis in British history is that as the mercantile classes became richer, they sought to send their children to the elitist schools that the aristocracy and landed gentry patronised - and that was the end of Britain's economy miracle. It is a thesis worth considering. The schools diverted attention from the grubbiness of money making and industrialism to enjoying the races, fine art, clever conversation, and society.
Academics, Prof Iqbal, needs to understand, do not a rich nation make. Their role is to enlighten and to espouse the greatness of humanism, toleration, and the love of learning - on that I think we would both agree - and also to understand that they need to get out of the way of entrepreneurs and wealth creators, something, as Minister of Planning, I think he might not comprehend.
Education alone does not create wealth - rather the curriculum grows with the market place. As economies develop, companies (or churches or local charities) have an incentive to secure a modicum of relevant education for their workers. A company that does not invest in its colleagues and workers will lose its edge in the market place to those that do.
This is what the Quakers did. They provided schools and learning to their workers. And because it came from the needs of the marketplace, the education had to be relevant. When it is imposed from high above by intellectuals in charge of ministries, we can guarantee it will be barely relevant, mainly out of date, and when supplied by the government, it will cost a fortune (to the tax payer), and the kids will become disaffected and turned off the great learning that Prof Iqbal and myself would love all to enjoy.
Where we differ, I assume, is that I prefer pupils to come to the learning they would like to follow rather than be told this will be good for you because this is my vision of the future. Economists, educationalist and academics are often at fault at creating a rosy picture of the future that includes their own particular likes. But the business world and the febrile world of innovation does not work like that - the open society, as Popper called it, is open to change and what change occurs is unpredictable. The future needs of the marketplace cannot be predicted. Who could have predicted the ubiquity of smart phones, personal computers, video-conferencing, email, and digital photography?
Economic growth comes from the mavericks, the innovators, the people who quietly tinker away with machines and software - but fundamentally, it comes from freedom: the freedom to try, the freedom to be yourself and to follow your dream. As intellectuals - and I love fine art, good conversation, classical music and literature - this is what we need to explain to the world and to our friends and influential folk. Freedom first, then education will come of its own accord.
That is our duty, not to place the rest of humanity in our favourite mental chains.
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