One little mugging can ruin your whole week!

I have been on leave for a few days, during which I attended a non-work-related conference. In the back of my mind, there was a nice little post bubbling relating to non-work related formal learning. Then, last night, just as I arrived in Oxford for lectures, my elder son called me to tell me that my younger son had been mugged.

I can't for the life of me tell you what I had been planning to say about non-work related formal learning.

I can tell you how traumatised a 14 year old boy gets when someone approaches him to ask the time and for directions to the city centre, only to relieve him of his phone when he is kind enough to give his help.

I can also tell you how frustrating it is when the police don't keep their 9:30 appointment (they've rescheduled for 6pm tonight).

I can tell you how heartbreaking it is watching a boy trying to keep a brave face on things and pretending to be asleep when you stop by his room on your way to bed at midnight.

On the plus side, I can also tell you about the sense of relief one feels to realise that, had we still been in South Africa, my son might have been killed. By the time we left the country, a human life had become worth less than a mobile phone. Many is the person who has been killed for theirs, including the 25 year old son of a colleague - just 10 days before he was due to be married.

So apologies if I don't share the insights I gained into learning from a different angle. My mind is elsewhere, right now.