“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 […]
I want to show you our world as it is now: the door, the floor, the water tap and the sink, the garden chair close to the wall beneath the kitchen window, the sun, the water, the trees. You will come to see it in your own way, you will experience things for yourself and […]
“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 […]
“I think we’ve ended up being incredibly faithful to the book.” Duncan MacMillan George Orwell’s last novel, published in 1949, was not expected to have much of a shelf life post-1984 but the book has assumed an unexpected importance in contemporary times as citizens struggle to understand the machinations of politics, especially mass surveillance, ceaseless […]
“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.” […]
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 […]
“The Struggle to see things as they are is perhaps the fundamental driver of Western civilisation. There is a long direct line from Aristotle and Archimedes to Locke, Hume, Mill, and Darwin, and there through Orwell and Churchill…It is the agreement that objective reality exists, that people of goodwill can perceive it, and other people […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]