Mr Tim Boswell MP and The College of Teachers host the fourth Professorial Inaugural Lecture by Professor Rosemary Sage

“Does education tap only half of our brain power?” Unravelling concerns about standards

"The media have joked about members of parliament with ‘two jags’ and ‘two brains’. Now the joke is on us as we all have two brains - a verbal and non-verbal one - with two ways of thinking. However, we exist on less than half our brain power and this important issue is unpacked, unravelled and better understood to raise standards of performance."

Professor Rosemary Sage is a qualified speech and language therapist, psychologist and teacher with experience in health and education fields.

For the past 20 years she has worked in higher education both in London and Leicester and was made Professor of Communication in Education at Liverpool Hope University in 2007. She is also long-standing Visiting Professor at the Women’s University, Nara, Japan and has been Visiting Professor at the University of Havana. She is also the UK lead on the EU Comenius Project on Transversal Skills in School Children.

"Japan has seen the benefits in being able to handle issues of globalisation more effectively than other nations when measured by international indicators. The Japanese concentrate on helping students to understand through talk, making them aware of the role of non-verbal aspects, such as voice, gesture and facial expression, as markers for meaning. Education for humanity and understanding is at the core of their philosophy."

With the Association of Graduate Recruiters reporting employee problems in spoken and written communication recently, Rosemary will discuss whether education matches current needs. Reasons for this are uncovered with remedies that can help us review, reflect and refine current practices in what promises to be an interesting and informative lecture.

Professor Peter Chatterton who gave the response to this lecture, is a physicist and has been working with technology-based learning since 1983. Peter has developed and managed the design and production of interactive video training programmes for a wide variety of private and public sector organisations.

Peter now works with the University of Hertfordshire, initially with the School of Aerospace, Automotive and Design Engineering in conjunction with the Ford Motor Company as an external advisor within the Blended Learning unit. His particular interests lie in change management and culture change within the academic community.

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The lecture was the last in a series of four throughout 2009 presented by The College of Teachers and its Professors of Education.