Over the last couple of weeks, I have been very busy! It’s been the Festival of Ideas which is an amazing array of talks, lectures and workshops, the majority of which are free and accessible. It’s my idea of heaven and came with a book stall… What more could you want?!?!
There were many interesting topics and I thought an intriguing way to share my experience would be to share titbits from each lecture.
The Magic of Numbers
Children learn number words before they learn the concept and they learn the concept of numbers before the digital representations. The step after that is comparing numbers but you can see that even just the initial process is quite complicated and I find it amazing that such young children are able to acquire the knowledge as quickly as they do.
Disposing of mass murderers
What happens when mass murderers die? Should they be entitled to a funeral like everyone else? Should their wishes be respected even if they violate the wishes of the victims families? Are the remains of mass murderers toxic, and if so why, and who is toxic and who is not?
Whilst this talk did look at some specifics, the wider questions it raised were very interesting.
The Science of Sin
Why do we do the things we know we shouldn’t? An interesting kick off example was that we don’t touch ovens because we get instantly burnt, we how many of us go without suncream and later pay the price?
On a smaller scale, each of the 7 sins aren’t that bad and can even be helpful, but anything taken to the extreme seems to turn out awfully… Take pride, it can be a healthy dose of self confidence, or it can be narcassism. Envy can motivate you to raise yourself up, but can also lead you to tear someone else down.
Write what you wonder
Tackling the idea that you should write what you know, this workshop asked us to look at the world through a lens of wonder, of curiosity and of childlikeness. Look at what is under the surface. Be an explorer. Be open. Be uncertain.
Love Factually: The science of who, how and why we love
Laura Mucha turned to science in a quest to understand love it all it’s many forms, be it lust, romantic love or companionate love. She unpicked the idea of love as an object – “the one” – and turned it into a skill that requires us to work at it.
The Gendered Brain?
The myth that there is a female brain was tossed out in this talk, in fact all brains are different and because they are plastic, they are always changing. Our environment shapes our brains and our brains shape our environment.
Whilst there is no female brain, there are brains that have been moulded by society’s ideas of gender and what women are and aren’t good at. If you give a girl a test and tell her that it’s ok if she doesn’t do well because girls are bad at the topic, then she will perform worse than if you hadn’t said anything.
This is important because society has scripts for gender and children seek to understand and perform these (on the whole). They become aware of gender from birth to 2 years old, they detect gender and align themselves with their gender between 2 and 5 and from 5 to 15 they start to or continue to comply with this gender script. With this in mind, it is so important that we start to unpick and break down the scripts and stereotypes and roles that permeate our society.
Nine Pints: The mysterious, miraculous world of blood
Blood is fascinating. It is priceless. And yet it is also disgusting. Especially if it’s menstrual blood… If it’s blood being donated then it’s the gift of life. If it comes from a vagina, then at best it tends to be considered dirty, at worst, toxic and contaminated.
Unseen, blood keeps you alive. Seen, it signals a problem.
The Wonder of Trees
Trees teach us that everything is connected. They teach us respect and cooperation. They give and give and we take and take. Not just the wood that makes their trunks, but the oxygen they give out, the food they provide, the medicines that they create. And we take and we take.
We plant rows of trees, uniform, in plantations. But these are not wild trees. They will not talk to each other, care for each other and nurture each other like a wild forest.
In a naturally grown wood, the trees communicate, they share resources and they share warnings. They give each other space to grow, they cross species boundaries and they sacrifice themselves for others.
Trees literally make us healthier. The air around a tree is cleaner, as the tree absorbs pollutants. Studies have shown that time around trees improves our attention span, our memory and makes us heal more quickly.
When you can, take the time to say hello to a tree, get to know it, and thank it.
