IMPORTANT STUFF: Museum visitors ‘less likely to develop dementia’, claim researchers

It's interesting to know that regularly visiting museums is associated with a lower likelihood of developing dementia, according to new research from University College London (UCL).

the researchers analysed a decade’s worth of data from 4,000 people aged over 52 and found that in a given year up to ten out of every thousand who never visited museums developed dementia. This compares with up to three in a thousand of those who visited museums every few months or more.
The findings were presented by Dr. Daisy Fancourt, a research fellow at UCL, at a recent conference held by the charity 'Arts 4 Dementia'. Dr. Fancourt said her findings held true even when accounting for other factors such as the education or the wealth of participants.

Importantly, while loneliness has been identified as a risk factor for dementia, Dr. Fancourt stressed that her research found that the engagement with culture provided by museum visits was having this impact in itself, and not simply because it was likely to increase social interactions.

WHAT A SURPRISE: Music lessons improve children’s cognitive skills and academic performance

Music and the arts matter and I found this research which is now driving curriculum reform in the Netherlands.... The first large-scale, longitudinal study of its type in the Netherlands has found that structured music lessons significantly enhance children’s cognitive abilities – particularly around inhibition, planning and verbal intelligence and therefore their academic achievement. The study involved 147 in primary schools over two-and-a-half years.

RSA EDUCATION FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

“In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”

Martin Luther King

I have been reading the RSA's wonderful publication "Education for Enlightenment" which everyone interested in the curriculum. learning and education should read...

"To create enlightened students, we need an education designed for more than exams and earnings.

For most people, the word ‘enlightenment’ probably sounds a bit rarefied, elitist even; something which might consume the thoughts of a philosopher in an ivory tower, but which has precious little to do with the rest of us down in the square. Which is more than a little paradoxical, considering the central idea of the 18th century enlightenment was that the people in the square need no longer defer to elites or submit to their claims to authority; that all of us, armed with evidence and guided by reason, can build a better world without recourse to superstition, revelation or dogma.

This enduring humanistic belief – that “we the people” are capable of discovering what is true, deciding what is right, and shaping society accordingly – amounts to a declaration of intellectual, moral and political sovereignty. But claiming that sovereignty, and exercising it, are quite different things. If we are to create a 21st century enlightenment, we need to educate our children for that task.

That means inducting them into the great conversation of mankind – the unending dialogue between the living, the dead and the yet-to-be-born. It means introducing them to the best that has been thought, said and done, and equipping them to appreciate it, interrogate it, apply it and build on it. It means providing them with a more complete and generous education – an education in academics, aesthetics and ethics, or, as we refer to it at the RSA, an education of the ‘head, hand and heart’.

Yet too many children and young people today receive the opposite – a narrow, hollowed-out, instrumentalist education that is specifically designed and tightly calibrated for the task of getting them through exams, but which doesn’t prepare them fully for life."

10 PROBLEMS CAUSED BY 'EDUCATION BY NUMBERS'

• Goal displacement: what's being measured, not what's important.
• Teaching to the test
• Gaming: putting the school's interest before the child's
• Schools in the most deprived areas struggle to retain teachers
• Encouraging short-term approaches
• Pupil disengagement
• Stifling experimentation and innovation
• Increase in teacher workload
• Demoralising teachers
• Inability to attract and retain enough teachers

4 PRINCIPLES FOR ENLIGHTENED EDUCATION

• Inquisitive Students
• Reflective Educators
• Mission-oriented schools
• Supportive communities

A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARDS YOUNG PEOPLE, AND TOWARDS SCHOOL

"The final ingredient in an enlightenment education is perhaps the most fundamental. It is to challenge widely held views about both young people’s characters and schooling’s purpose.

In a recent RSA-commissioned poll, adults were asked to choose from a list of six adjectives – three positive, three negative – to describe teenagers. The most popular answers were ‘selfish’, ‘lazy’ and ‘anti-social’. Yet a parallel survey of 14 to 18-year olds found that 84 percent want to help others, and that 68 percent have done so through volunteering and social action. This gap between perception and reality is shocking and cannot help but damage young people’s sense of worth. If we give up on our children, we should not be surprised if they give up on themselves.

The other prevailing attitude that needs to be challenged is that school is a necessarily joyless experience but that it will be ‘worth it in the end’ – that sacrifice today will be rewarded tomorrow. The problem, of course, is that tomorrow never comes. Which is why we need to tell students that today matters – that they don’t have to wait to create, contribute and make a difference."

Julian Astle Director, RSA Creative Learning and Development

Laura Partridge Senior Researcher, RSA Creative Learning and Development

WE NEED TO RETHINK AND REIMAGINE!

We need to rethink and reimagine the purpose of education! Currently, our education system is focused on preparing people for jobs... despite the fact that the jobs of tomorrow don’t exist yet and are difficult to predict! We simply don’t need to train young people for anything a robot controlled by a computer can do faster, better and more safely! As we move into the future, teachers and schools will need to create the conditions where children can grow and develop the skillset and mindset to be the designers, coaches, inventors, teachers, storytellers, carers, artisans, artists, dancers, musicians and performers of the future!

WE NEED TO RETHINK THE OFFER!

We need to work with teachers and schools to create a powerful curriculum offer where every child and young person experiences storytelling, art and design, dance, drama and music! We need teachers and schools that help grow, develop and nurture the designers, coaches, inventors, teachers, storytellers, carers, artisans, artists, dancers, musicians and performers of the future! Strange how in this learning landscape where creativity, imagination and ideas matter, we are still more interested in literacy and numeracy than the arts, which have at their heart the skills and attributes required to thrive and succeed at school, at work and in life. Surely the two should go hand in hand! We need to start by making a series of promises to every child and every young person... a series of promises that ensure they all have access to a rich diet of culture and the arts... whatever it takes!

A WHOLE NEW MIND!

“In the past bright young people were encouraged to become lawyers, doctors, accountants and to work in the city moving money around but the age of left-brain dominance is coming to an end. The future belongs to a different kind of young person; someone with a different kind of mind. The future will belong to designers, inventors, teachers, storytellers... creative and emphatic right-brain thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between those who get ahead and those who don't.”

ST. GEORGE’S CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL

I visited a wonderful little school yesterday! St George’s Catholic Primary School in York is doing amazing things and it was great to talk to Dee Patton-Statham, the school’s inspirational headteacher and hear and see her passion and commitment to culture and the arts. I also really enjoyed the walk around this magical little school and the chance to meet some of the team. It was also a real pleasure seeing Norman Fowler, a previous headteacher, who I haven’t seen for nearly 18 years! The children attending St George’s clearly experience a rich, rounded, caring and wonderful curriculum offer which I would argue should be the entitlement for every child in York!! Surely every child should go to school and be happy, healthy, safe and successful and the arts and sport are just as important in that offer as literacy and numeracy!

THE BLOEMFONTEIN CHILDREN'S CHOIR ARE SINGING IN YORK ON FRIDAY 5TH JULY!

Over the last thirty years, the Bloemfontein Children's Choir has touched the lives of its members and all whom they come into contact with. This amateur children's choir consists of boys and girls from Bloemfontein, South Africa, and surrounding areas, who are between the ages of 8 and 16. Singing is at the heart of what the choir does but it also offers its members a rich and diverse education; enriching their lives, and often their families as well, by means of cultural experiences and the development of essential life skills. The choir perform in South Africa and extensively on tours overseas. They have performed with many famous artists and choirs, have won local and international awards, have performed on radio and television locally and internationally and have been honoured to perform before three of South Africa's Presidents.

In early July 2019, the choir are taking part in the Stirling Bridge International Arts Festival and will be stopping off in York after visits to London and Oxford. The choir will arrive in York on Wednesday 3rd July and leave for Scotland on Saturday 6th July. They are visiting Haxby and Wigginton Methodist Church, Millthorpe School, Scarcroft Primary School, the National Railway Museum and York Minster and singing with Cantar Community Choir at 7.30 on Friday 5th July at Temple Hall at York St. John University. Let me know if you want to come or buy tickets for what will be a very special event!

THE BLOEMFONTEIN CHILDREN'S CHOIR ARE COMING TO YORK!

RELATIONSHIPS ARE KEY!

Relationships and having a common sense of purpose matter in organisations. They help people perform better. I learnt at Education Leeds that having a sense of purpose and belonging makes us feel our efforts are worthwhile. Scientists tell us that changes your brain chemistry and that changes everything!!

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

When leaders give their teams a sense of purpose, respect and create a positive culture engagement improves and magic happens. Research also suggests that colleagues are happier, aren’t ill as much, live longer and feel more fulfilled by having meaning and purpose!

LEADERSHIP IS ALL ABOUT PASSION!

To be really successful as a leader you need passion... passion motivates people to act. It’s contagious! Successful organisations, successful schools, successful groups link that passion to a cause, a mission and create some goals and magic happens!

TRUE GRIT!

Interestingly, people who work hard, persevere and have passion are more likely to be successful than those with high IQ or those who are simply conscientious. These qualities lie at the heart of the arts and sport... 

SKILLS MUST BE AT THE HEART OF WHAT WE DO!

High-performing countries like China, Finland, South Korea, and Singapore and those like Canada and Australia, who see a future where automation, globalisation and collaboration are changing the landscape, realise the global economic landscape has changed. In response, they are re-imagining their education systems by focusing on developing skills. We need to persuade the powers that be here that the future is only going to be secured if we develop a World Class Learning Framework to drive our learning landscape. A framework built on skills as well as subjects.

WORK HARD, STAY CONNECTED, VOLUNTEER, PRACTICE, BE PERSISTENT, BE DISCIPLINED AND GIVE TO OTHERS... PASS IT ON!

Amazing how fast this year is going and it's important to remember that research suggests that we can change and become happier and healthier just by taking small steps which can change our lives for the better.

ACTION FOR HAPPINESS' JOYFUL JUNE ACTION CALENDAR

ACTION FOR HAPPINESS 10 KEYS!