Jan 2
So this is where I started making this site. I had to start over towards the end of February, as the layout was inconsistent and I have been learning more about how to use the builder software [restarted again in Aug!]
I welcome feedback and suggestions! {thanks to RLK for some early observations and feedback}
January 7
The Pursuit of Emptiness: Why Americans Have Never Been A Happy Bunch by John Perry Barlow (2001)
January 13
Teaching as a Subversive Activity: HuffPost piece that links my reading from the Curriculum Issues and Theories class I took last year and the course I’m currently taking: History, Theories, and Practices of Alternative Education. For the latter, a really great resource with readings from the main thinkers in the field can be found here
Establishing identity is a vital, risky and changing business: Lots of food for thought in this piece from The Economist
Jan 24
A CBC The Nature of Things episode on The Power of Play. It discusses the importance of risky play in childhood for the development of resilience; while not exactly a new idea, there are some interesting ideas here to review.
- I was struck by the idea of being “play-deprived” and how this can create mental health issues for individuals and lead to broader societal problems.
Sugata Mitra: Can kids teach themselves? (2007) TED Talk: 20 mins
- Curious: Mitra repeatedly used the phrase, “according to me”. While this sounds “wrong” to the ear of a native speaker, from my experience, this usage seems quite common in Indian English. Who am I to judge whether this is “wrong”; it would certainly sound unnatural in certain contexts (countries) but who is to say that Indian English is less valid than Australian English as a variety. here
Jan 30, 2019
A really great radio interview (20 mins) with Jon Ronson, author of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed(2015), discussing examples of people who have had their lives destroyed by the reaction to their “innocent” social media posts. One quote, in particular, stood out, discussing violent criminals: “All violence is an attempt to replace shame with self-esteem.” ― James Gilligan
Jan 31, 2019
Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden (YouTube: 1hr 6mins) (IMDB link)
Our professor recommended this in our History, Theories, and Practices of Alternative Education class; I highly recommend it if you have an hour to spare.
Some thoughts:
- The opening sequence caught me as I knew where the place was; I was actually in Leh for a couple of weeks in April 2009 (pics below)
- The way the students were praying, reciting the Our Father in English [08:05], while likely not really understanding the words they were saying reminded me quite a bit of my time at school: I was well able to say the Lord’s Prayer in Irish, but I certainly couldn’t write it! I knew what I was saying only because I knew the prayer in English, but what I was producing were sounds which I had learned over the years to approximate what the Our Father would sound like in Irish if I could actually speak it well. A good example would be when people say “To all intensive purposes” rather than the correct form; some other funny examples of Phrases that people get wrong here.
- [17:50] “We moved from wisdom to knowledge and now we are moving from knowledge to information.”
A counterpoint to one of the tropes around this issue: The Invented History of ‘The Factory Model of Education’: hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model