Links I liked…

• “Creating a More Equal and Productive Britain” – A lecture by Professor James Heckman. ‘There is hard evidence on soft skills’. Based on a big research project titled “Personality, Psychology and Economics“
• Rethinking School – a Harvard Business Review article about American K-12 education. Explains the importance of good teachers and how Americans should use new technologies and teaching methods in their classrooms. Still wondering about the links with SA and whether technology can be used to leapfrog educational development steps in South Africa – if only…
• Why is research higher status than teaching? An interesting article by a Canadian economist. The one quip I really liked was the following on peer review:

 “Some might say this is the best way to measure research productivity. After all, how can we, as outsiders, judge the rigor and relevance of research outside our own specialized discipline? Peer review is the sine qua non, the best and only test of research excellence. I have some sympathy for this view – although it must be confessed that, sometimes, peers are idiots. “