Hugh Mackay, in a recent article about the 2014 federal budget, asks Australians to consider: is this the Australia we really want to be? To answer this question we all need to reflect on the important role of ideology in the formulation of policy and what we personally believe, as citizens, is important. Joe Hockey, when […]
I have written many posts about social reading but this one is focused on the the decline in Amazon’s (previously excellent) customer service. It is really difficult to understand how the loop I am currently in with Amazon is not dealt with more positively by the people employed to maintain the standard the company has set since […]
Our exchange to Seowon High School, our sister school in The Republic of Korea, has been an absolutely superb, exciting and positive experience for the students, staff and parents who made the journey during the school holidays. For the last five years our school’s Wider World View @DHS program has encouraged students and staff to […]
A comment – as I negotiated customs at Sydney Airport with a large party of students on their way to visit our sister school in Korea – keeps swirling round in my mind. The official scanning bags engaged me in small-talk asking where we were headed. When I explained our excursion was to Korea to […]
Does your school hold authentically democratic elections? The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is conducting our school elections for the first time in 2014 as our ‘Nurturing Democracy’ program continues into its third year. Students from Year 7-11 will experience the same voting protocols that their parents recently followed at the 2013 federal election. Students will […]
I am hoping to teach Big History as a NSW Board of Studies Endorsed Course to Year 10 and Year 11 in 2015 at our school. My plans, at this stage, are to find ways of funding the use of Geno 2.0 kits for students and ensuring parents are on board for a genuinely personalised learning […]
The School Library Association of NSW invited me to speak about advocacy at their recent conference at the State Library of NSW. I was asked to talk about a range of topics including: the transition our school library is currently undergoing with the assistance of Kevin Hennah; the partnership with our local municipal library; the need for teacher-librarians […]
“The greatest history book ever written is the one hidden in our DNA.” Dr. Spencer Wells The analysis of my DNA, as a participant in National Geographic’s Genographic Project, was published today and, as you would imagine, makes for fascinating reading – well, it does for me. […]
“The teacher’s job is not to transmit knowledge, nor to facilitate learning. It is to engineer effective learning environments for the students. The key features of effective learning environments are that they create student engagement and allow teachers, learners, and their peers to ensure that the learning is proceeding in the intended direction. The only […]
What ought one to do? Socrates I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it. Albert Einstein A quiet conscience makes one strong! Anne Frank Do you believe Australia has great need of […]