This week an IB spokeswoman said: "On reflection, Mr Beard thinks that he could have been more explicit about the sources and authors that inspired him for the content of this speech."She said he had drawn from "a number of sources", including Sir Ken Robinson, but "it was never Mr Beard's intent to imply that the ideas were his alone"."If this had not been a speech, but a scholarly or academic paper, he would have made a complete list of all references available," she said.The Chautauqua Institution was not impressed and has withdrawn the speech from its website and bookshop. Its statement ends: "Mr Beard's behavior in this matter is not characteristic of the work done here at Chautauqua and violates the expectations you should have for that work. We acknowledge to you our genuine disappointment in this event."
Katie Day on 01 May 11Article re how the color and shape of rooms affects the thinking that goes on inside the rooms... "They tested 600 subjects when surrounded by red, blue or neutral colors-in both real and virtual environments. The differences were striking. Test-takers in the red environments, were much better at skills that required accuracy and attention to detail, such as catching spelling mistakes or keeping random numbers in short-term memory. Though people in the blue group performed worse on short-term memory tasks, they did far better on tasks requiring some imagination, such as coming up with creative uses for a brick or designing a children's toy. In fact, subjects in the blue environment generated twice as many "creative outputs" as subjects in the red one. Why? According to the scientists, the color blue automatically triggers associations with openness and sky, while red makes us think of danger and stop signs. (Such associations are culturally mediated, of course; Chinese, for instance, tend to associate red with prosperity and good luck.) It's not just color. A similar effect seems to hold for any light, airy space."
