InSEA

So pleased to welcome @Akademi to the Arts and Minds campaign.

@theartcriminal @TW_nextmedia Meeting up with InsEA President @PatseyBodkin in Tapei….:.

I’ll see you on the other side everyone. ✈️ Special moments coming up…..#Taiwan #insea @InSEAOfficial @TW_nextmedia

@LucieH_GHMP Magnificent!

..double rainbow over #Holešovice #Prague.. ..painted sky..🎨 ..from my balcony today..

Reading Ofsted report on sch within an academy chain which is well-known for v strict ethos. Ofsted's section "What it's like to be a pupil at this school" wd leave parents having to read between lines to get sense of this. Text looks formulaic. Wondering re point of inspections.

A government truly committed to addressing weaknesses of the multi-academy trust system would be looking at this.

We’re delighted to welcome Art UK to the Arts and Minds campaign coalition.

@newstart_2024 We already have the two tier system in many countries.

Steve Jobs famously said his kids didn’t use iPads. Brené Brown highlighted this on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO. She’s been in rooms with tech billionaires and platform founders. When they’re asked what kids should study today, the answer is coding and physics. But when the same people reflect on their own success? They credit deep reading of philosophy, the Stoics, history, and the liberal arts. Her concern: a quiet divide is forming — one group protecting deep thinking for their own children while the rest of us are encouraged to just keep scrolling. In the age of AI, experts across the board are saying critical thinking, philosophical reasoning, and liberal arts skills are becoming even more essential — not less. AI can generate answers, but it can’t replace the human ability to ask the right questions, understand context, ethics, and meaning. The people building our digital future seem to understand this deeply for their own families, yet design systems that often pull everyone else in the opposite direction. Do you think we’re creating a two-tier system — deep thinkers at the top and scrollers below?

May the fourth be with you

Love this art work. May was oft overshadowed by her father, yet her own art work and designs are so impactful and important.

New: Ofqual will not be releasing evidence it submitted to the government’s curriculum and assessment review, exams regulator confirms educationuncovered.co.uk/news/ofqual-wi…

Rare great news about the government finally banning phones in schools. Enraging champagne and hand clapping emojis all round. Next step - get rid of screen based learning. It’s crap, it’s stealing the children’s data and it deepens their screen addiction. Here below is me ranting with the great Prof Jonathan Haidt and Sophie Winkleman on this.

A new season. A new way of seeing 🌸. For the @nationaltrust's #FestivalOfBlossom2026, Pinc College students have been invited to respond to the question: what does blossom mean to you? An exhibition of their work opens next week at Castlefield Viaduct from 29 April. See you there! #SpecialistCollege #Neurodiversity @greatermcr @ManCityCouncil @CityLifeManc @ILoveMCR

I rarely have reasons to be proud of France these days, but this is definitely one. France's parliament just voted - unanimously, 170 votes to 0 - a law that institutionalizes the restitution of cultural artifacts looted during the colonial era (the law covers a massive 157-year period). It's going absolutely viral in Chinese social media because of this speech 👇 by MP @JPatrierLeitus who noted in Parliament that it included items stolen to China during the joint British-French sack of the Summer Palace in 1860. Patrier-Leitus cites Victor Hugo's famous 1861 letter to Captain Butler, the British officer who wrote to him seeking his endorsement of the expedition - and got the exact opposite. Hugo wrote (whole letter here: yuanmingyuan.eu/en/the-looting…): "One day two bandits entered the Summer Palace. One plundered, the other burned. Victory can be a thieving woman, or so it seems. The devastation of the Summer Palace was accomplished by the two victors acting jointly. Mixed up in all this is the name of Elgin, which inevitably calls to mind the Parthenon. What was done to the Parthenon was done to the Summer Palace, more thoroughly and better, so that nothing of it should be left. All the treasures of all our cathedrals put together could not equal this formidable and splendid museum of the Orient. It contained not only masterpieces of art, but masses of jewelry. What a great exploit, what a windfall! One of the two victors filled his pockets; when the other saw this he filled his coffers. And back they came to Europe, arm in arm, laughing away. Such is the story of the two bandits. We Europeans are the civilized ones, and for us the Chinese are the barbarians. This is what civilization has done to barbarism. Before history, one of the two bandits will be called France; the other will be called England. But I protest, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity! the crimes of those who lead are not the fault of those who are led; Governments are sometimes bandits, peoples never. The French empire has pocketed half of this victory, and today with a kind of proprietorial naivety it displays the splendid bric-a-brac of the Summer Palace. I hope that a day will come when France, delivered and cleansed, will return this booty to despoiled China. Meanwhile, there is a theft and two thieves. I take note. This, Sir, is how much approval I give to the China expedition." Hugo's letter is so revered in China that a bronze bust of him stands today at the Summer Palace ruins - I believe the only instance of a Westerner honored in China at the site of his own country's crime. A powerful testament of how much a single act of intellectual honesty can redeem, if not a nation, then at least a name. Hugo was also prescient: as Patrier-Leitus notes, that day "when France, delivered and cleansed, will return this booty to despoiled China" has indeed come (even though the "delivered and cleansed" part is, overall, pretty questionable in the current context). This new law doesn't only concern China and the Summer Palace: it concerns ALL stolen artifacts by France during the period ranging between November 1815 and April 1972 - corresponding to the start of the second French colonial empire to the entry into force of the UNESCO convention on cultural property. It's a massive scope: 157 years, thousands of objects and dozens of nations with potential claims. It's France reckoning with its colonial past in an unprecedented way and the fact ALL of France's MPs voted in favor of the law, without a single exception, is also pretty remarkable. Hopefully this will also serve as a signal to other countries, especially the UK - the other "bandit" in Hugo's letter. There is this Chinese saying from the Zuo Zhuan (左传), one of the foundational Confucian classics: "To err and be able to correct it - there is no greater virtue." ("过而能改，善莫大焉", "guò ér néng gǎi, shàn mò dà yān"). France, with this law, proved its virtue.

ISLAA announces its 2026 call for fellowships, offering two distinct opportunities to support research and scholarship in Latin American art. Submission deadline: May 15, 2026 e-flux.com/announcements/…

@warwickmansell It’s not possible. It is just plain absurd. 🤦🏼‍♀️

New: Academy executive now listed near the top of the management structure of three academy chains, operating in different regions of England. How is this possible? educationuncovered.co.uk/news/academy-e…

New: Salary of £250,000, but not required to work during the school holidays? Harris Federation faces questions about position of its super-well-remunerated education leaders educationuncovered.co.uk/news/salary-of…

@TsuiAllen Smart!

I am so (insert vulgar adverb) bourgeois, for the next few weeks, this heavyweight paper carrier bag is the receptacle that has been set for collecting dry recycables in the kitchen for carrying to the wheelie bin... #binfluencing

📢 The 2026 edition of the UNESCO #ICTPrize is now open for nominations. If you have a project that helps learners harness creativity and critical thinking through #AI, apply now. 🗓️ Deadline: 8 May 2026 👉 unes.co/ozkx17

..today's excursion of educators from galerietabor.cz (galerietabor.cz/edukace/) in #EducationalDepartment of #PragueCityGallery (in Educational Centre in Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace &in Eco-studio in Troja Chateau) ..exchange of inspiration&know-how ghmp.cz/lide/edukacni-…

The genius of Leonardo da Vinci In the 1400s he invented a self-supporting bridge that required no nails, dowels, or ropes