- Written by: Kamran Mofid
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Nota bene
‘We become teachers for the reasons of the heart.
But many of us lose heart as time goes by.
How can we take heart, alone and together,
So we can give heart to our students and our world,
Which is what good teachers do?'-THE HEART OF A TEACHER
Whilst the forces of fakery, arrogance, loneliness, violence, indifference, rejection, physical and mental disabilities, injustice, and inhumanity are real and cannot be denied, so are the powers of human authenticity, generosity, kindness, empathy, humility, dignity, understanding, courage, and community that are rising up to meet them, challenging them, providing better paths to this journey we call life.
Seeds of Hope: We are … the Syllabus- The Poets, Sages, and Philosophers of Love, on a Mission to Transform Education, Teaching and Learning Journeys
‘Teach your children poetry. It opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.’- Sir Walter Scott
‘It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.’- ALBERT EINSTEIN
'When we bring forth the spirituality of teaching and learning, we help students honor life’s most meaningful questions.’- Parker J. Palmer, founder, the Center for Courage & Renewal
“Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others' faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.”― Rumi
Now is the Time for Poetic Education for Heart and Mind to Bring Meaning and Purpose to Teaching
Beyond the Technocratic Education System: Education to Make Us Human
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
- Hits: 115
Poet for the Common Good Who Spoke Truth to Power
N.B. Not long ago, I posted a Blog, In Search of Meaning and Purpose: The Poets' Guide to Economics, shedding light on how to humanise economics and the economists in order to build a better world.
Today, I have tasked myself to shed light on political poetry, on ‘The Poets’ Guide to Politics’, if you will, to explore the political power of poetry and its capacity to inspire social change. To achieve this goal, I have allowed myself to be inspired and guided by the political poetry and poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who remains ‘one of the most celebrated and influential figures of the Romantic era in English literature. He is recognised for his passionate, lyrical poetry, often infused with intense emotion and radical political ideals. Shelley's work explores themes of love, beauty, nature, and the pursuit of freedom and justice’, all amongst the missing values in this chaotic world of our creation.
Shelley: An Icon of Liberation
Shelley, the poet of moral and political corruption, speaking prophetically to our age
Poet As Prophet: Shelley, People’s Poet
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
- Hits: 163
The Poets’ Guide to Economics could not have been more tailored to capture the eye and the imagination of an economist like me, with a different perspective, idea and vision on economics.
“Economics matter. Bad policies, based on mistaken theories, led to an economic collapse at the end of the 1920s. This set the scene for world-wide conflict in the 1930s. Will today’s economists make a better fist of the 2020s? The years of Keynesian plenty are long gone. Economics seems to be in trouble- too entrenched to be stormed from outside, too narrow to cope on its own. A spate of recent books suggest that prominent economists are worried.In Good Economics for Hard Times (2019), the Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee call for a change of course and conclude:
Economics is too important to be left to economists.
Or, as Robert Skidelsky puts it In What’s Wrong with Economics (2020):
The task is no less than to reclaim economics for humanities.
If Coleridge, Shelley, Scott and the others are looking down from Parnassus they would surely agree, and beg us to pay attention”.- John Ramsden in his introduction to The Poets’ Guide to Economics
Without humanity, economics is a house of cards built on shifting sands.
- Neoliberal Economics: A house of ill repute, Built on a shifting sand.
- These are what I have learned from 45 years of teaching economics
- Make Economics ‘Kind’ and Build a Better World
- Make Economics 'People's Economics' and Build a Better World
- Make Economics ‘A Thing of Beauty’ and Build a Better World