Live webchat with Fiona Millar, Tuesday 3rd March, 1-2pm

[RachelMumsnet]

Fiona Millar will be visiting us at Mumsnet Towers for a live webchat on Tuesday 3rd March between 1 and 2pm. Her book The Secret World of the Working Mother: Juggling Work, Kids and Sanity will be out on Thursday 5th March. Fiona is a well-known journalist, educational campaigner and mother of three. If you can't join us on Tuesday, post your questions in advance on this thread.

[BoffinMum]

That's not what I was saying at all.

We are really seeing a serious situation here, whereby a particularly influential group is becoming increasingly incestuous and limited in their ability to influence social reform for the better, at a time when it is vital they do so.

It resembles the last days of the Tories in power.

There must be others on MN who feel the same way as I do about this cabal-like situation??

[ahundredtimes]

What cabal like situation?

[morningpaper]

I am missing something here

Is it like the Secret Seven?

If we planning some sort of revolution I will need advance notice so that the laundry situation doesn't get out of hand while I am overthrowing the ermmmmmmm leader people

[BoffinMum]

In this case, a very close knit group of a few dozen people people determining national social policy, public investment, media strategy, publishing priorities and the direction of funded intellectual activity. If you map it out in educational terms in particular it looks very scary indeed. Stephen Ball's book "Education PLC" has a great diagram linking all the main characters up. Scary stuff.

[BoffinMum]

I don't think we need a revolution just yet. The General Election will come along just in time.

[ahundredtimes]

There are not SIX people deciding which books will be published. That is just nutty.

Fiona Millar publishes a book on her experience of being a working mother. Some might read this, some might not. Fair enogh. I know when I had ds1 I read Melissa Benn's book on the same with scary and intense interest - I found it helpful to have someone articulate all those concerns and things for me. I wasn't capable of articulating them.

However I didn't think, oh who cares what you think, bloody daughter of an MP, think you own the world, think you know more than me, blah blah blah blah.

I do see Moondogs point about the chat / sell threads on here, but I think it's because they aren't pitched as 'let's discuss working mothers, I'm publishing a book on it too' which makes her seem like she's going to preach to us.

Improve the pitch, the conversation is a valid one to have.

[Threadworm]

I really like ahundredtimes post of Fri 27-Feb-09 23:58:09.

It does seem weird to be so hostile to this woman, or to the livechat. It's quite nice to get in an outsider to talk to a specific set of issues, and as with any chat show on TV or radio, people are likely to agree to come on only if they need our purchasing power or our votes. And it doesn't 'clog up the boards'.

Very odd to object to the woman because she is not an academic researcher. She's not speaking about education, she's speaking about 'juggling'. Anyway, we can have valuable views on education without being academics or teachers. Often academic research is not much more than the documentation of insights available elsewhere. I'd hate for us to rely on it entirely.

And whether or not there is an incestuous cabal, I doubt that MN is a part of it. It's only a little bit of guestchat to liven up the chatboards for a few hours. I really don't understand the hostility.

[EachPeachPearMum]

Well it looks like this thread was the place to be on Friday night, gah-missed it.

We have to remember that mn is just part of the meeja, like this morning, the times etc, and as such guests on a chatshowthread are to be expected to plug their latest book, film, product etc. Surely none of us are so innocent as to believe there is any other reason for someone appearing on Jonathan Ross etc, but that doesn't stop people in their millions tuning in?

What is great about the mn chats though is that we can have this debate, and we can set the agenda ourselves, a little- our questions, wild, rude, or sycophantic they may be- are either gamely answered (Tony Parsons ), mostly ignored (various politicians who 'run out of time' ) or completely scare people off (Shaherezade, obv, though my jury is still out on whether that whole thread was a mn towers fabrication to publicly score points...)

So moondog objects to people who are not trained experts waxing lyrical and being taken more seriously than educated, highly well-trained experts? Well, that is a valid opinion, but we should value the fact that we have the opportunity to raise that with the guest, and discuss it amongst ourselves- which is something there is not the opportunity to do on other 'chatshows'.

[BoffinMum]

It makes me very sad indeed when you dismiss whole industries of people slogging away in the public interest by saying things like:

"Often academic research is not much more than the documentation of insights available elsewhere".

That's a bit like arguing medicine is simply a consolidation of what we know about herbs, and anyone is capable of raiding a hedgegrow and coming up with equivalent healing products, so it has little value.

I honestly am starting to wonder whether intellectual debate in this country is truly dead now. If committed people who have spent years looking at these issues in considerable depth, and published reports, books and peer-reviewed publications on the same topics are ignored, ridiculed and dismissed in favour of someone who knocks off opinion pieces (however good these opinion pieces might be) when it suits them, then we are on a slippery slope indeed.

Those of you who have mentioned Fiona Millar's education work, how many of you are really interested in comprehensive education? I mean interested enough to have read the latest leading work on this? Or are you just happy to have someone like Fiona Millar package up a few observations so you don't have to think too hard about it all?

And how many of you are really interested in things like the relationship between child development and female employment (discussed at length on another thread at the moment), to the point where you will read the psychological research underpinning current policy and practice, so you can come to an informed view, rather than a knee-jerk one simply based on your own experience and that of a few of your mates, combined with a quick read of Steve Biddulph et al?

It seems to me that there is an implicit intellectual laziness in letting other people do your thinking for you, and letting them dictate the framework and tone of your views, however benignly or indirectly. We get the society we deserve, which is why we are now starting to struggle in economic and social terms.

Instead of seizing the public arena and questioning some of the more dubious practices surrounding us, many women were content to confine themselves to their immediate professional and domestic domain, and live relatively unchallenging intellectual lives. I was comforted to see the progress made by the 9/11 widows, to cite one example, in moving beyond this and identifying systematic governmental failures. I am similarly reassured to see Fiona Millar sticking her head over the parapet and making an effort to engage with wider debates about education publicly, albeit in a limited way. Nevertheless this all becomes pointless and even harmful if individuals simply absorb received views without considering the wider picture and challenging key things when necessary.

In short, I think women do themselves a disservice if they privilege transient opinion over a broader engagement with important social and political issues. We are not only capable of more, we have a responsibility to understand more. Which is why the comment dismissing the whole of academe, to cite one example, was so heartbreaking.

[Threadworm]

I'm not dismissing a whole industry. I have the hugest respect for academe, and for the apparently many women on MN who are academics (there are a lot).

But I would make a distinction between purely academic areas like theoretical physics, philosophy etc and 'mixed' academic areas, like educational resaerch. In the latter case, academic resaerch is one tool in the box -- valuable, but not as a lone voice. Education is also an area for universal insight and insight from the practitioners and theorists of social policy. I would no more leave it to the academics than I would leave it to the politicians.

I don't believe that the experience of education a child can be captured just within academic discourse, and I do believe that a large portion of research is about confirming or disconfirming insights available elsewhere, and about establishing a detailed body of evidence in the service of a wider public and political examination of policy. Academe should be a handmaiden to public discussion in these areas, not a lecturer.

[Threadworm]

And who are the "committed people who have spent years looking at these issues in considerable depth, and published reports, books and peer-reviewed publications on the same topics [and] are ignored, ridiculed and dismissed"

Is that who you feel yourself to be?

[morningpaper]

I am baffled by your fury and rage and need to come and insult her.

I am baffled by your implication that she is too thick and lazy to be allowed to be an educational campaigner.

This is a woman whose had a fascinating career, whose written a book about women's roles. That's it.

[Threadworm]

Oh, and you quote my

"Often academic research is not much more than the documentation of insights available elsewhere".

And interprete it as

"That's a bit like arguing medicine is simply a consolidation of what we know about herbs, and anyone is capable of raiding a hedgegrow and coming up with equivalent healing products, so it has little value."

Very distorted interpretation. If you weren't trying to distort, you would have stopped after the word 'herbs'.

[SuperMario]

god this got heated.

i wonder if she does butterfly or is a lady who swims with her head really HIGH so her hair doesn't get wet,then stops to chat at the end.

[ahundredtimes]

That's just pompous BM.

I think you are trying to get a stranglehold in this thread on what we or anyone can consider intellectual engagement. FWIW I consider that stance to be unhelpful, unproductive and dangerous.

I'm stupid and lazy and lacking in intellectual rigour if I think that Fiona Millar is entitled and allowed to write a book on her experiences of working motherhood? My god, I dread to think what I might be if I then actually went on to read her book of her experiences.

None of us has read her book. I think it's dangerous and envious to dismiss her as lightweight, part of a cabal which seeks to dominate a dumbing-down on intellectual thought in this country, and to object to her sharing her opinions in either a book or on this thread.

Actually it's a really rude and elitist position to take.

If I wanted to examine academic theory on this subject, I could. I don't particularly want to, I'm not that interested. I don't mind however if she wants to write a book about it and talk about it. I see no harm in that. I don't think she is a lone voice of authority, I don't think there is such a thing as a lone voice of authority in anything. I am not that unsubtle.

I actually find your position - which you cloak as a call to intellectually engaged arms - nihilistic, snobby, paranoid and profoundly undemocratic.

[ahundredtimes]

And finally - the reason why journalists and writers may be a conduit for ideas, or best placed to share and spread those ideas, to publish pieces in mainstream newspapers or write books?

Because they can communicate effectively.

Not something all academics can do, sad but true. Their ability to communicate clearly does NOT mean that people who read their columns or books are idiots, and it doesn't meant the writers or journalists are idiots or smug either.

It's like sociologists being up in arms about Malcolm Gladwell. The reason he is successful at what he does and they are not? Because he's smart and he can write. Killer double blow.

[beforesunrise]

I think i get it Boffinmum- it upsets you that FM is more famous than you, despite the fact that she a) has fewer academic qualifications b) went to state schools c) has the "wrong" political affiliations and d) writes for the "wrong" newspaper. But that doesn't stop her views being worthy of consideration and debate, just as the fact that I may occasionally disagree with yours doesnt stop you from being a valuable contributor on this forum (and in RL I have no doubt) on both education and whatever else.

I have said before, if you don't want to chat with her, don't! but don't ruin it for those of us who do. Or even better, start a debate somewhere else which we can all join in, without hijacking this one!

Also, unless I am missing the plot entirely, I don't understand where FM's privilege comes from. I mean, yes she is well know, well off, but as a result of many, many years of hard work- unless she's hiding something I don't see any evidence of a trust fund anywhere??

and finally, i am frankly disappointed at the attitude "oh she doesnt work shifts in a mine, she lives in North London, therefore I don't care what she says about being a working mother blah di blah because it doesn't mirror my own experience exactly". but then the whole point of fora like MN disappears, because surely on here we are all different and have differnt lives and opinions but actually, that's quite enriching and mind-broadening because we get enough of same-same in RL?

Ok now- a question for FM. IF you have read this far- and I have no doubt you have, because you're not only smart enough but thick-skinned enough to weather this kind of personal attacks. Does it depress you to see that articulated, educated, smart women so often end up bickering and arguing and resorting to personal attacks against each other, rather than debating intelligently and learning from one another's experience and, perhaps, collectively advancing in society as a result?

oh and one more- were there ever times where you felt your stance on state education had the potential to go against the best interest of your own children?

[beforesunrise]

BM- surely you do not seriously expect academic work to be read and perused extensively by all and sundry, just as you don't expect the wider public to go and pour over the unedited Commons transcripts to get their political views? because that's not my understanding of academia at all. Or, if that's the public academics are aiming to reach, they'd have to change their outputs entirely. I think journalists have a huge role to play, and a huge responsibility in helping the public understand the policy debate.

i also find your sweeping generalisation of women being too lazy to read 'proper' stuff and get the 'real' facts and relying instead on newspapers ridiculous, and it says tons on the opinion you hold of other women.

[Saltire]

I've never even heard of her. I had to google to see who she is and what she does

[morningpaper]

I think what most horrifies me about your posts BM is your wish to stifle the voices of people you don't approve of, wrapped up in intellectual elitist flummery.

Do you really think that campaigners should STFU unless they meet your academic criteria? Do you really think that academics have the epistemological advantage over all matters of opinion? More important than parents, teachers, children and people with influence who wish to use that influence in a positive way?

I assume that Rosa Parks should have sat the fuck down until she'd had a few years of priviliged education to properly assess the argument from all angles?

As 100x says, people who are listened to are people who are good communicators. You would be wise to court those good communicators and encourage them, rather than piss on them from the great heights of your ivory tower.

[ahundredtimes]

[morningpaper]

dohhhh

[Threadworm]

[ruty]

er, is Fiona still coming then?

[reikizen]

I used to work with Fiona Millar when she was Chair of Governors at Gospel Oak Primary School and she was a real professional. Many school governors are self serving bores but she always worked really hard, and was never patronising or rude. And she sent her kids to the local schools which makes a refreshing change, choosing to change standards from the inside.