This below, in my opinion, is exactly the kind of thinking we need to see enacted in the schools of Manchester over the coming years…

…. The only one transferrable outcome I can see is that more people doing physical play (recognisable sports, unrecognisable sports, and just moving your body in work or dance) means a more resilient population as food becomes scarce and challenges increase.  There will come a year when we will have to consider reducing the Olympics. There will also come a year when we will have to consider cancelling the Olympics. We’ll look back on the 20th as the century of Oil and Olympics. The 21st will be a century of chaos. We may love to watch sport ever more as it creates a utopian world of certainty. But also it will become less relevant. The games children are forced to play in compulsory school sport will seem less and less relevant.

So if we do love our children enough to prepare them for a difficult/different future, what training do they need now? What would a new Resilience Olympics look like? What activities would be included? Here’s one suggestion. Aikido isn’t an Olympic sport maybe because it’s key principle is concern for the wellbeing of your attacker, and its second principle is chaos, or coping with the uncertainty of unknown attacks from any direction.

The whole post, from “The Learning Planet” draws a fascinating analogy with events of 100 years ago.  Most definitely worth reading!

PS Tomorrow on Steady State Manchester – a survey about low-carbon transport and how to make more of it happen in Manchester…