2pointfive_age_of_man



Moon on Rhodes

 Is this moonshine? 

This picture was taken in Rhodes on the 29th August 2007.  At the time the moon was at it's closest to earth, only 30,000 miles away.

The sun was just rising, the moon was in the west.  The direction of the photograph was exactly an East-West axis.  To explain the light on the sea you have to take my word for it that the sun was behind me. 

In other words without being there at the time you might believe the moon was producing its own light.


Does the moon shine is one of the fundamental science questions that most children struggle with.  They can see the light from the silvery moon but they cannot see the sun.  They are told that the light from the sun is reflected from the moon to us. They often have difficulty remembering this.  Why? Their senses and experiences tell them different.  This is first age  "man"  experiencing the "everybody says so it must be true".  Even though it is.

I have entered the second age of man.  Probably half way through, the 2.5 age of man.   I also am entering the why age again.  I probably never left it, but now I am asking again why.


I started this blog as I have some time on my hands.  I have now experienced 3 recessions.  I am of the age where I could be a child of Thatcher.  I have a prime-minster only marginally younger than me ( not only police officers suffer from this phenomena it seems).  The second age of man is upon me.  How is Big Society going to lead to my third age of man?

This is why this Blog has been called the 2pointfive_age_of_man.  

One of the mantras of Education leaders schools is the notion that the jobs we train our children for now will not exist in 20 years time.  The question now is do we  train people for jobs or is it careers? Often we appear to train people for lifelong learning. I have experienced the explosion of the university sector  first hand as an undergraduate and postgraduate.  Returning to education periodically in the last 25 years has left me with a sense of participating in  something that could be really good, but have a slight feeling of having participated in either a pyramid selling or ponzi scheme.

The idea 25 years ago was that people would have more leisure and would probably retire earlier.   Some have, although it would appear to be those people that have reached that advertisers pollsters category of 44-54 or later.

So how do I claim back my 2pointfive-age-of man?  I have a few ideas that I will share in this blog, but anybody else more than welcome to share their ideas or experiences.  After all we are in the society of lifelong learning (we always were but it now has a strap line).