Iford Manor Festival Season

Iford Manor has been described as one of the most stunning concert venues in the
West ​ ​Country. Throughout high summer, Iford Arts stages an internationally
renowned festival in a ​ ​breathtakingly beautiful pastoral setting. Operatic
performances are staged in-the-round in the ​ ​intimate surroundings of the Italianate
Cloister, which could not be more perfect in terms of scale ​ a ​ nd style. While the
classical backdrop could hardly be more fitting, the real delight for our ​ a​ udiences
is that, as the sky turns purple overhead, the first stars appear and the first heady
notes ​ ​resound across the countryside, no-one is seated less than twenty feet from
the performers. The ​ ​opportunity for a relaxing pre-show picnic in our tranquil
gardens overlooking the meandering River ​ Frome will complete an already
magical experience.
Iford Arts, a registered charity promoting the appreciation of performing arts in the
west of England, ​ ​aims to benefit the local community by engaging young
professional artists and stimulating young ​ ​people’s enjoyment of being involved in
live performances. We hope to support young musicians in ​ ​their career
development by encouraging them to develop repertoire and perform to a
supportive ​ ​audience and providing the exquisite environment in which to do so.
Iford Arts does not receive any ​ ​public subsidies, relying on vital private
contributions. We offer various levels of private patronage ​ and corporate
sponsorship, each providing a range of privileges such as priority booking.
 Music increases verbal aptitude in Children
The relationship between musical education and increased abilities in non-musical
domains such as ​ ​mathematics, linguistics and spatial organisation has been
studied extensively. Now, a study by ​ ​Jospeh Prio and Camelo Ortiz from Long
Island University claims to clarify the role of music in ​ ​mental aptitude. Their test
examined the hypothesis that children receiving keyboard tuition would ​ ​show a
markedly superior performance on measures of vocabulary and verbal sequencing
than ​ ​students who received no instruction.Children were selected from two schools
in the same area with ​ ​similar demographic characteristics. The children who
received musical education (n=46) at one ​ ​school received formal piano tuition for
three years. Children attending the control school (n=57) ​ ​received no formal
musical training on any musical instrument. Both schools followed balanced ​ literacy
programmes.
Results showed significantly better vocabulary and verbal sequencing scores in
the musically ​ ​trained group than the control group, from which the authors
conclude that a variety of approaches, ​ including music, can improve reading
achievement in children.
However, close examination of the results revealed some inconsistency within this
premise. The ​ ​authors observed that at the start of the study, the music-learning
group had already received two ​ ​years of piano tuition, but showed no superior
linguistic skills over the control group at that time. In ​ ​explaining these findings, Prio
and Ortiz propose: that the ​absence of music instruction during the ​ s​ ummer recess
preceding the start of the study may have reversed any temporary cognitive
benefits; that the duration of music study required to improve such skills is longer
than the initial two ​ ​years, and that significant brain development may occur during
the time-period in which the study ​ ​took place.​ The experiment leads to authors to
believe that decisions on ‘when’ to teach are equally ​ important as ‘what’ to teach.
 Spiders

There are more than 37,000 species of spiders in the world. In general, spiders pose very
little risk to humans. Only about 25 species are believed to have venom that can harm
people. Their venom is used mostly to paralyze prey. Each spider eats an average of 2,000
insects per year. They use their ability to jump to hunt down prey, and then pounce on it.
Some spiders can jump as much as 50 times their body length. If a human had similar
ability, he could jump 90 meters. Not only can spiders jump far, but they can also walk
upside down on smooth surfaces. Their feet are covered with tiny hairs that enable them to
hold 170 times their body weight before coming unstuck. That is equivalent to a children’s
superhero carrying 170 people from danger while clinging to the side of a building with his
fingers and toes. Spiders can also spin as many as seven different kinds of silk. Some of
the silk is so strong that it rivals the strength of steel. Spiders use the silk for many different
purposes, such as catching insects in webs and then wrapping them up so that they cannot
escape. They also use silk to travel from place to place and to form egg sacs. Spiders
come in a wide variety of sizes. The largest known spider is the Goliath bird eater tarantula.
This South American spider can be as big as a dinner plate. The smallest known spider is
the mygalomorph spider from Borneo. Its body is the size of a pinhead.
 Unfair Education 
In a country where government and families alike are tightening their belts and 
trying to make do with less, you could be pardoned for thinking that private 
education would be in a bit of a jam right now. And yet, although fees at 
independent schools in Britain have approximately doubled over the last two and a 
half decades, pupil numbers are the highest since records started in 1974. 
Although there are numerous reasons why parents might choose to fork out an 
average of £12,500 per year on their child’s education, there is one which stands 
out more than any other: their reputation for getting their students into elite 
universities, such as the American Ivy League colleges and Britain’s most 
prestigious universities: Oxford and Cambridge. 
Private schools with experience in these admissions processes run like well-oiled 
machines. Their informed careers advisers have in-depth tactical knowledge of 
which colleges would best suit each candidate, and help them to edit their 
personal statements to reflect the qualities that elite universities are looking for. 
Interview training sessions guide young applicants through an interview system 
which has been described as being ‘more reminiscent of an old-boy network than 
justice for society’. Those with family members and teachers who have 
successfully gone through the admissions process are at a considerable 
advantage to those who are the first to apply among their social group. 
Consequently, the social mix of students at the top universities remains sadly 
biased towards the rich and privately educated – although thanks to increasing 
numbers of bursaries providing free private school education to academically 
gifted youngsters, it is possible to be one without the other. Even so, the fact is 
that 7% of British children go to private schools, while more than 40% of the 
intake at Oxford and Cambridge is privately educated, and this statistic depicts a 
worryingly skewed trend. 
The proportion matters because, although there are obviously plenty of other 
universities offering excellent study programmes, an Oxbridge or Ivy-League 
degree undoubtedly enhances employability in the ruling professions. According to 
recent studies by the UK educational charity The Sutton Trust, over 30% of 
leading professionals in the United Kingdom, including almost 80% of lawyers, 
47% of highflyers in financial services and 41% of top journalists attended Oxford 
or Cambridge. Every university-educated Prime Minister since 1937 except one, 
Gordon Brown, is an alumnus of one or the other, as are approximately two-thirds 
of the current government cabinet. 
This bias is bad news not only for the clever but underprivileged students who 
have to settle for a less renowned university; it is bad news for Britain, as 
decisions that affect the whole nation are made by a select group with a narrow 
pool of experience, rather than one that is representative of society as a whole. 
This disproportion was brought to public attention in 2000, when politician Gordon 
Brown launched an attack on the selection processes at Oxford University. 
He publicised the story of Laura Spence, a gifted students who had the “best 
A-level qualifications you can have”, but nevertheless was turned down by 
Magdalen College, Oxford. Later, Member of Parliament David Lammy used the 
freedom of information act to examine admissions data at Oxford and Cambridge 
Universities, and found that almost 90% of the student body at both universities 
was drawn from the upper and middle classes, that in 2009 Oxford accepted only 
one British black Caribbean undergraduate, and it focused its attentions on 
admissions events at private schools such as Kate Middleton’s school, 
Marlborough College, and Prince William’s alma mater, Eton. 
Since then, universities have been forced to up their game welcoming the less 
privileged among their students. Quotas have been put into place to ensure that 
the colleges admit a larger proportion of less privileged students. These targets 
are not often met, however, and they have brought about a new practice in which 
parents privately educate their children up to the age of 16, giving them a sound 
academic background, then put them in state education for their two final years, to 
better improve their chances of being accepted at a top university as part of their 
‘less privileged’ quota. 
Even so, Oxford now spends $4 million a year on student outreach, a $1.6 million 
increase since 2006–07. Much of this is spent on school visits and teacher-training 
programmes aimed at supporting poor and minority students who wish to apply to 
the university. The university has also launched a summer school, which allows 
around 500 academically talented, state-school students a chance to experience 
studying at Oxford for a week. 
And yet these strategies depend on state schools being able to educate students 
to the same level as private schools; where stringent selection processes, 
partnered with high budgets, parental support and top-class facilities allow 
schools to spew out students of an impressively high academic calibre. State 
schools have much less opportunity to do this. 
Or have they? One commentator argues that the success of private schools is not 
in their money, but in their organisation. State schools fail their pupils because, 
under government control, they lack options. But if head teachers at state schools 
were given the same freedom as those at private schools, namely to sack poor 
teachers and pay more to good ones, parents would not need to send their 
children to private schools any more. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Writing and Righting Rights 
A ​ ‘Morality is a private and costly luxury’, wrote the author Henry James, in a 
statement that seems to condemn all the poor and mistreated to the rubbish heap. 
Indeed, while morality has been defined in the United Nations; ‘human rights’ 
declarations, upholding such values is neither cheap nor straightforward. 
B ​The declaration, formed and ratified after the Second World War, and in 
particular the dreadful treatment of those affected by the Holocaust, focused 
mainly on civil and political rights. Despite international support and the 
compelling nature of the statements it sought to uphold, the document proved too 
vague for use in court. Consequently, in the 1960s, two more covenants, the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant 
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, were added so as to make the 
declaration more legally binding.  
C ​During the years that followed, support for the two covenants split. Capitalist 
countries put more emphasis on upholding the political and civil rights enshrined 
in the former covenant. Communist countries favoured the social and economic 
rights of the latter. And while the West accused the Soviet Union of neglecting 
citizens’ civil rights, the Soviet government’s response was that it considered 
social and economic rights more important. Current communist governments 
make the same argument today. 
D ​Activist groups, at least those that were founded in the west such as Amnesty 
International and Human Rights Watch, have unsurprisingly focused on civil rights. 
By exposing the plight of torture victims and political prisoners, they have 
managed to put pressure on unjust regimes, and, with their not inconsiderable 
clout, have occasionally managed to shame leaders into improving conditions. 
Much less emphasis has been placed on the second covenant, meaning that 
socio-economic rights, such as housing, food, health care and fair wages, have 
gone unchecked. This is set to change, however, as human-rights groups seek to 
persuade governments to give equal importance to the right to vote as to the right 
to a home and regular meals. 
E ​Considering the size of the population who are not currently benefitting from 
such provisions, this may seem like a fool’s errand. But human rights veterans 
have achieved the seemingly impossible before. Twenty five years ago, nobody 
believed that Amnesty International’s letter-writing and lobbying tactics could 
bring down torturers and censors, yet they have succeeded on multiple occasions. 
F ​However, social and economic rights are new territory for these groups, and the 
goal that bit harder to achieve. Campaigners within these organizations are 
understandably apprehensive. Even so, Amnesty International spent several years 
drawing up provisional changes to its policy in order to explicitly incorporate 
economic and social rights into their mandate. These were discussed and adopted 
at a meeting of hundreds of delegates in Senegal in 2001. 
G ​ Amnesty’s new mission has enabled it to work on a much wider range of 
issues. In the Palestine territories, it campaigns against curfews and rights to work. 
In Kenya, it highlighted how lack of secure tenure leads to people living in slum 
conditions that lacked basic sanitation and policing. 
H ​ Amnesty’s workload has been alleviated by the fact that Economic, social and 
cultural rights are now widely recognized as enforceable in both national and 
international courts of law. Mechanisms have been developed at the UN and in 
African, American and European regional systems that enable victims of violations 
to enforce their economic, social and cultural rights. Policies have been put into 
place to ensure that aspects such as health, education, housing, food, poverty, 
cultural rights, sanitation and water are monitored. 
I ​ Despite the advances, great challenges remain. Under the Obama government 
of the US, such ideals are still considered ‘goals’ and ‘aspirations’ rather than 
rights, and a number of influential states continue to be skeptical about the validity 
of individual claims to economic, social and cultural human rights. Meanwhile, 
those countries that accept the new rights do not always safeguard them in their 
national constitutions, or provide effective remedies for the victims of such 
violations. 
J ​ And while some governments make excuses for failing to take action, claiming 
they lack the necessary resources, Amnesty International sees it as a lack of 
political will or purposeful discrimination. ‘Now that economic cultural and social 
rights are based on and are enforceable by international law,’ they say, ‘they 
demand immediate respect and cannot be deferred to the future’. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A Revolution in Knowledge Sharing 
 
The pressure to transform our institutions of learning continues. Virtually every 
enterprise and institution is grappling with the disruptions and opportunities 
caused by Web-enabled infrastructures and practices. New best practices, 
business models, innovations, and strategies are emerging, including new ways to 
acquire, assimilate, and share knowledge. Using technologies that are already 
developed or that will be deployed over the next five years, best practices in 
knowledge sharing not only are diffusing rapidly but will be substantially reinvented 
in all settings: educational institutions, corporations, government organizations, 
associations, and nonprofits. But institutions of learning are in a unique position to 
benefit from an added opportunity: providing leadership in e-knowledge. 
 
E-knowledge finds expression in many shapes and forms in a profoundly 
networked world. It is not just a digitised collection of knowledge. E-knowledge 
consists of knowledge objects and knowledge flows that combine content, 
context, and insights on application. E-knowledge also emerges from interactivity 
within and among communities of practice and from the troves of tacit knowledge 
and tradecraft that can be understood only through conversations with 
knowledgeable practitioners. 
 
E-knowing is the act of achieving understanding by interacting with individuals, 
communities of practice, and knowledge in a networked world. E-knowledge 
commerce consists of the transactions based on the sharing of knowledge. These 
transactions can involve the exchange of digital content/context and/or tacit 
knowledge through interactivity. 
 
Transactable e-knowledge can be exchanged for free or for fee. E-knowledge is 
enabling not only the emergence of new best practices but also the reinvention of 
the fundamental business models and strategies that exist for e-learning and 
knowledge management. E-knowledge is technologically realized by the fusion of 
e-learning and knowledge management and through the networking of knowledge 
workers. 
 
Transactable e-knowledge and knowledge net-working will become the lifeblood 
of knowledge sharing. They will create a vibrant market for e-knowledge 
commerce and will stimulate dramatic changes in the knowledge ecologies of 
enterprises of all kinds. They will support a “Knowledge Economy” based on 
creating, distributing, and adding value to knowledge, the very activities in which 
colleges and universities are engaged. Yet few colleges and universities have 
taken sufficient account of the need to use their knowledge assets to achieve 
strategic differentiation. 
 
In “​It Doesn’t Matter​,” a recent article in Harvard Business Review, Nicholas G. 
Carr endorsed corporate leaders’ growing view that information technology offers 
only limited potential for strategic differentiation. Similar points are starting to be 
made about e-learning, and knowledge management has been under fire as 
ineffectual for some time. 
 
The truth is that e-learning and knowledge management can provide strategic 
differentiation only if they drive genuine innovation and business practice changes 
that yield greater value for learners. Carr’s article provoked a host of contrary 
responses, including a letter from John Seely Brown and John Hagel III. Brown is 
well-known for his insights into the ways in which knowledge sharing can provide 
organizations with a solid basis for strategic differentiation.