Our lives and our world have been well and truly disrupted by coronavirus and all that it entails.
We have each been living our own ‘temporary normal’ in order to survive and cope.
Many are already talking about what our ‘new normal’ will look like afterwards.
All we do know, for sure, is that no-one is unaffected and that we can’t go back – we can only go forward. Continue reading “Disrupted lives – what next?”
I was fascinated this week when I saw a report on BBC Breakfast about a ‘back to basics’ experiment in a UK nursery which, it’s reported, has stimulated creativity and improved communication amongst the children involved (especially the boys, apparently) – and decluttering the rooms in the process. I also found an article about it in the Mail Online (published back in March of this year).
Matt Caldwell, the Head of the nursery was, apparently, inspired by similar schemes in Germany which replaced plastic toys with everyday items and real size objects – so, for example, instead of a miniature/child-size/toy version of a musical instrument, they would have an adult-sized, real one to explore.
Other items were day-to-day objects such as kettles, bottle tops, egg boxes, corks, pine cones, conkers, lavender and pots.
The backs were taken off electrical items so the children could see how they were constructed. Continue reading “What is a Toy?”
Back in June I posted this on Instagram:
I really like what Hayley Williams said here.
Despite the substantial progress we’ve made in recent years, I think many of us still struggle with talking about mental illness – which is why we talk about ‘mental health’ instead?
And, like Williams, I think we do tend to polarise the issue – categorising ourselves and others as either completely healthy or sick – but surely there’s a whole lot of space in between these?
Orchids are beautiful but sensitive flowers.
They require protection and nurturing to blossom.
On the other hand, Dandelions can thrive virtually anywhere.
I came across this way of explaining how some of us develop differently from others when I was catching up on old episodes of Channel 4’s ‘The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds’.
It’s based on a Swedish metaphor: ‘amaskrosbarn’, a “dandelion child” and ‘orkidebarn’, an “orchid child.” Continue reading “Are You an Orchid or a Dandelion?”
I was at a CIPD Sussex Branch Conference on the Future of Work yesterday which was excellent.
One of the speakers, Leatham Green (whose session I really enjoyed) showed a couple of short, very funny and thought-provoking YouTube clips about how we copy other people’s behaviour even if we don’t know why or it doesn’t make any sense. I’ve written about this phenomenon before in my post: ‘The Psychology of Unwritten Rules’.
I thought I’d share these clips with you now because I really like them and hope that you will, too – the first is just under 4 minutes and the second just 2½ minutes – and I think both are well worth taking the time to watch for the entertainment value alone.
The first one is a social experiment:
I was inspired this week by a meeting I went to on e-learning to share the following (short but effective) videos with you.
Here’s the first one (just under 5 minutes). As you’ll see, some of the statistics are already out of date (it’s from 2014) and you might disagree with some of the predictions, but I think it illustrates really well just how fast things are moving…
And, aimed more at the world of business, and only 2½ minutes long, I rather like this one, too:
How is 2017 going for you?
I’m writing this on ‘Blue Monday’, the third Monday in January.
According to Caroline Webb’s article in The Telegraph, those of us who are in the UK today are “experiencing the bleakest day of the year … so named for its potent combination of cold nights and post-Christmas melancholy.” Continue reading “Blue Monday … ?”
Synecdochically… what a great sounding word!
You might not know what it means – and before watching lexicographer Erin McKean’s highly entertaining TED talk I’d never even heard of it.
McKean discusses the future of dictionaries in the age of the internet – which might sound dry but her presentation certainly isn’t – it’s full of life and humour and easy to understand. Continue reading “Synecdochically Speaking … and Word of the Year 2016”
‘Five ways to wellbeing’ was developed by NEF and is currently being promoted by Mind, the UK mental health charity. Simply put, it’s a framework to help us look after our mental and emotional health:
Whole People 