MyData: Personalising the Curriculum

Recently I presented DNA: Personalising the Curriculum at the WHAT IF? Embracing complexity through curriculum conference which has reinvigorated my belief that we need to make some profoundly important changes to our approach to educating young people about their “personal data”. I asked the question: what if school empowered students to understand & use personal data? Students should be well-educated about […]

#TheirBrilliantCareers #review and my #reading in September

“Actually, most of my previous publications listed in ‘Their Brilliant Careers’ are made up! It’s all part of the joke. The only real one is ‘The Weight of a Human Heart.’” “…as much as I love Australian literature and hope my fondness…comes thru in the book, it does tend to take itself a bit seriously […]

‘The Cult of Hattie’: ‘wilful blindness’?

“There is a science to learning and we are finding out more and more about what works best to support the learning processes that make a difference for your learners.“ Advertising for a Visible Learning symposium at the Australian Council for Educational Leadership (ACEL) website “Assisting practising teachers to maximise their impact on student learning […]

Reflections: Occasional Papers #AI #education #21stcenturyskills #NSWDoE

“As part of the Education for a Changing World project, the NSW Department of Education has established the Education: Future Frontiers Occasional Paper Series. The series will bring together essays commissioned by the department from distinguished Australian and international authors to stimulate debate and discussion about Artificial Intelligence (AI), education and 21st century skill needs.” […]

Digging even deeper

The following article was originally published in the May 2017 edition of Family Tree Magazine.  Henry Carroll (1812-74) was largely a mystery when I wrote the original Digging Deeper article exploring his wife’s life published by this venerable magazine in September 2015. I knew Henry was married to Jane Guillod (1804-79) but did not have a marriage or birth certificate […]

#UtopiaforRealists #review and my #reading in May

Consider this: The word utopia means both “good place” and “no place.” What we need are alternative horizons that spark the imagination. And I do mean horizons in the plural; conflicting utopias are the lifeblood of democracy, after all. …in the revolutionary year of 1968, when young demonstrators the world over were taking to the […]

Asia Education Foundation: Australia-India #BRIDGEprogram2017

Cultural exchange is a very important value for the school I serve. “A Wider World View” is encouraged through hosting guests, especially from our region of Asia, as well as travelling overseas. This year we have students and educators from Indonesia, Korea and India involved in exchange projects. This week the Australia–India BRIDGE School Partnerships Project flowered […]

The Handmaid’s Tale #review and my #reading in April

“Our big mistake was teaching them to read. We won’t do that again.” The Handmaid’s Tale p. 307 I suspected re-reading The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood prior to viewing the Tribeca film festival premiere of the new tv series was potentially risky. It is such a great book that this latest adaption – and there have been many – could […]

#Bookstores in New York City #NYC #bookshops

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”  Neil Gaiman “You’re the only person I’ve ever met who can stand a bookstore as long as I can. A smarty-pants, the kind you […]

The Green Bell #review and my #reading in March

This is my madness, and I can’t tell it as it is. Madness is anti-story, anti-chronology, anti-plot, anti-character. It breaks language. It throws mud in the face. It makes story impossible. The minds within the mind won’t let me be. I know Michael in my soul while at the same time I don’t know him […]

HSC English: Letter to NESA

Recently I received a letter from English educators concerned about the changes to the Higher School Certificate. Many readers of this blog are passionate English teachers and I publish the concerns expressed by Associate Professor Jackie Manuel, Dr Don Carter and Janet Dutton below for your consideration. Dear colleagues and friends, We’re writing because we need […]

The End of Eddy #review and my #reading in February

…the village, far from the city with its movement and activity, was also sheltered from the passage of time… From my childhood I have no happy memories. I don’t mean to say that I never, in all of those years, felt any happiness or joy. But suffering is all-consuming: it somehow gets rid of anything […]

Drawing #mindset #grit #resilience #flow #learning

I cannot draw. This has been my mindset since about 8 years of age. Aged 48, I now understand how it came to be that “I cannot draw” and how this mindset (and inability) developed. So, why can’t I draw? More importantly, how can I do something about it? In second class my friend was […]

#India #photography #streetphotography

“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough” Robert Capa I travelled to India three times in the 1990s spending about 8 months on the sub-continent without taking a photo. My philosophy: that life was for living not recording and about the moment largely revolved around a romantic notion that one did not need […]

Asia Education Foundation: Australia-India #BridgeProject

Sonia Chhabra, Headmistress at Bal Bharati Public School in New Delhi, is my exchange partner and made her home an open, warm and friendly place for me to live happily these last two weeks. Her husband Rohit and two sons, Siddant and Shaurya, are intelligent, creative men who shared their knowledge and ideas about life […]

My #reading December 2016

Why shouldn’t we separate children as young as seven or eight into two groups: those few children who are “gifted and talented” and the many, many more who aren’t? What harm is there, really, in a talent show being named a “talent show”? In my view, the biggest reason a preoccupation with talent can be […]

Mindfulness and Grit

In all those very different contexts, one characteristic emerged as the best predictor of success.  And it wasn’t social intelligence, it wasn’t good looks, physical health, it wasn’t IQ.  It was grit.  Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals.  Grit is having stamina.  Grit is sticking with your future day in day out, […]

A Baker’s Dozen: Most Enjoyable Reads of 2016

Reviewing the books read or re-read in 2016, I chose the thirteen most satisfying. In other words, I reflected on how much stimulation and pleasure was felt sitting with the book – and why. If you have the patience, the following slideshow will countdown for this year. The rest of the post details why I […]

My #reading November 2016

When the Europeans arrived in the Sydney region, writes Aboriginal activist and elder Burnum Burnum, ‘they landed in the middle of a huge art gallery’. On the shorelines today, in the national parks and reserves, and even silently underlying suburbia, are more than 10 000 artworks, carved or painted on stone. Sydney is the world’s […]

1 3 4 5 27