1. More easily promised than delivered, a values-based education? John Gibbs of Teachers Talk Radio asked Bridget Knight, the author of ‘On the Subject of Values … and the Value of Subjects: New thinking to guide schools through the curriculum’ and the CEO of the Values Based Education organisation: What is values-based education? https://www.ttradio.org/post/what-is-values-based-education

Here’s Values-Based Education’s own website https://www.valuesbasededucation.com/home Their aim is to give “learners access to an ethical vocabulary based on human values, such as respect, justice, integrity, harmony, trust and honesty”.

2. The Edinburgh International Book Festival website has recordings of all last summer’s talks and readings (and many from previous years) – well worth a browse! https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/look-and-listen/player?type=media-video&year=2022&query=

Here’s a varied half-dozen from last summer to start with:

Tsitsi Dangarembga, Dipo Faloyin & Howard W French: Africa’s Rich Diversity https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/media-gallery/item/tsitsi-dangarembga-dipo-faloyin-howard-w-french-africa-s-rich-diversity

Liz Lochhead: 50 Years of a Pioneering Poet https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/media-gallery/item/liz-lochhead-50-years-of-a-pioneering-poet

Noam Chomsky: Dissent Across the Decades https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/media-gallery/item/noam-chomsky-dissent-across-the-decades

Gulbahar Haitiwaji: To Make Us Slowly Disappear https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/media-gallery/item/gulbahar-haitiwaji-to-make-us-slowly-disappear

Devi Sridhar: How to Prevent (Another) Pandemic https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/media-gallery/item/devi-sridhar-how-to-prevent-another-pandemic

 Mohsin Hamid: What Does it Mean to Be White? https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/media-gallery/item/mohsin-hamid-what-does-it-mean-to-be-white

3. Days 5 and 6 of The New York Times Happiness Challenge:

The Importance of Work Friends https://tinyurl.com/44upkkee

Don’t Cancel Those Plans https://tinyurl.com/z45mr9rz

I just have one ‘gift article’ left for Day 7!

4. And, finally, a piece by Sally Rooney, the hugely successful author of ‘Normal People’ and ‘Conversations with Friends’, on a book by an equally famous Irish writer from an earlier era, James Joyce. Here’s the transcript of her T S Eliot Memorial Lecture last autumn on Misreading Ulysses https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2022/12/07/misreading-ulysses/

I can’t find a video – let me know if you can, please!