Pause for reflection February 16, 2009

While on holiday I tend to read relaxing novels rather than challenging texts. However, last week I ran out of books in a small chalet half way up a French mountain. Quelle Horreur!
In desperation I turned my attention to the highbrow literature brought by my 2 sons. I had resigned myself to their skiing superiority [...]

Learning to read isn’t a skill – it’s the doorway to life February 6, 2009

So says an interesting article by Gail Rebuck .
She writes about the importance of literacy wth an emphasis on the dire effects of adults who do not have the skills to access knowledge and information.
I spent some years working in an FE college. I taught English as an Additional Language to Vietmenese boat people and [...]

There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard February 2, 2009

This is a link I picked up from the latest futurelab publication:
The winter is the time for spooky tales and now there is a site Transmissions From Beyond with which to indulge the mood as well as provide reluctant readers with some compelling content. The site is a recent arrival and the cache of stories [...]

To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul. (Cicero) February 2, 2009

Once I offered a child an old book of fairy tales that my children had outgrown. She declined gracefully saying that she ‘had a book at home already’. It broke my heart: how little this child understood of the beauty of a shelf full of well thumbed books to which she could return again and [...]

Teaching for Understanding January 30, 2009

Understanding is …
Being able to carry out a variety of actions or ‘performances’ that show one’s grasp of a topic and at the same time advance it.
It is being able to take knowledge and use it in different ways. David Perkins
I understand how to teach reading
How do I know? I can:
 describe the processes involved in [...]

Tom Cruise Owes His Dyslexia Cure To Scientology January 7, 2009

Well, well.
Now I can rest easy, stop reading and thinking about dyslexia and send all my pupils to the Scientologists!

Christmas in Envelopes by U.A. Fanthorpe December 20, 2008

Monks are at it again, quaffing, carousing;
And stage-coaches, cantering straight out of Merrie England,
In a flurry of whips and fetlocks, sacks and Santas.
 
Raphael has been roped in, and Botticelli;
Experts predict a vintage year for virgins.
 
From the theologically challenged, Richmond Bridge,
Giverny, a lugger by moonlight, doves.   Ours
 
Costs less than these in money, more in time;
Like [...]

Global Citizenship in action December 15, 2008

I have just waved good bye to 2 young women who have been staying with me for 3 months. They are part of a group of 18 youngsters (aged 18 to 29) sponsored by VSO and the British Council on a programme called Global Xchange:  a six-month exchange programme which gives young people from different countries [...]

Keeping Scotland’s children safe December 5, 2008

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2008/12/04155840

A wide-ranging review of guidance on child protection practices across Scotland – to help ensure stringent safeguards are maintained – was launched today.
The move comes as a cycle of robust inspections into all of Scotland’s multi-agency Child Protection Committees, which have undergone a major three year reform programme, is about to be completed.
Children’s Minister Adam [...]

Are Asian children better at maths? November 26, 2008

   
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell asserts that people living in rice producing countries are more likely than others to have mathematical aptitude because rice production is a very complex process that requires a great deal of spatial awareness and planning ahead. (I may have got this bit a little addled). Added to this is a clear [...]