Leading Questions – The Guardian’s Society supplement profiles me
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Reinventing the three Rs
ByJohn MayThe last few weeks have been interesting ones for Scouting. Broadsheets and tabloids alike have attacked us for dropping the Promise (we haven’t); the Sun has run a particularly insidious campaign suggesting that we don’t vet prospective leaders carefully enough before accepting their offers of help (we do); and our census figures suggest that interest…
Equipping young people for life and work
ByJohn MayWherever I travel around the world, I find myself having the same conversation with business leaders. “There’s something wrong with the education system,” they tell me. “Young people are leaving school with great academic qualifications, but they’re just not ready for the workplace. They don’t understand how to work in teams, the importance of…
An end to “soft skills”?
ByJohn May“Soft skills” are in the news at the moment. A quick Google search for media articles on the subject comes up with about 164,000 results. LinkedIn defines them as the skills that are “less tangible and harder to quantify, such as etiquette, getting along with others, listening and engaging in small talk.” Soft skills are…
A really remarkable High School Graduation ceremony
ByJohn MayYesterday afternoon I had the privilege of speaking at a high school graduation ceremony. At this time of year, these are happening all over North America, as hundreds of thousands of young people mark this important milestone in their life journeys. But I wasn’t in Canada or the USA. I was in…
Northumberland, the cradle of Scouting
ByJohn MayEveryone thinks that the first Scout camp was held on Brownsea Island. (Well, those that think about Scouting at all, I guess, think that.) But the first uniformed Scout Camp was actually held in Humshaugh in Northumberland a year later – and the Scout County is understandably very proud of the fact. It was a…
Thirty years on…
ByJohn MayNever go back. That’s what they say; whoever ‘they’ may be. I’ve taken that advice for thirty years, but a few weeks ago I decided to go and visit the school where I spent my adolescence. I hadn’t visited since I left there a month before I turned eighteen and have never…
