It was with great expectation that I sat down to read Paul Theroux’s latest novel, Burma Sahib, the story of Eric Blair’s experience as a colonial policeman during the 1920s. A much experienced and admired master of the art of travel writing, who better to breathe life into the historical setting, landscape and people of the period? […]
Orwell & Empire Douglas Kerr Oxford University Press, 2022, pp 240 ISBN: 978 0 192 86409 3 Once there was a British writer, an Englishman who was born in India. He was privately educated in England, did not go to university, returned to the East after leaving school, and lived and worked there for a […]
This review originally appeared in George Orwell Studies Volume 3 Number 2. George Orwell continues to have an extraordinary influence on how the English view England, writes Darcy Moore in his review of an important contemporary work of history. The English and Their History: The First Thirteen Centuries (2014) by Robert Tombs has deservingly been described as […]
“…flipping the system is about changing education from the ground up by allowing teachers to take the lead as a trusted and meaningful part of global education conversations.” Flip The System Australia: What Matters in Education edited by Deborah M. Netolicky, Jon Andrews and Cameron Paterson situates Australian education policy, research and practice within the context of […]
Visiting the Stedelijk Museum with my family, after three rewarding but long days of getting value for money from our museum discount card, was one highlight of our time in Amsterdam. By this stage we were weary and in danger of becoming jaded with even the most fabulous cultural artefacts, but such was the excellence […]
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 […]
“Along with poetry, travel writing is one of the oldest literary forms in the world.” […]
The promotion of the new X100s FujiFilm camera enticed me to buy for a number of reasons but one wonders why this advertising campaign worked where so many other cleverly designed attempts to empty my pockets left me cold? I have a few reflections about this and briefly review my newest camera in this post. […]
The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future of Educational Change by Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley was published last year and is worth reading, especially for students, emerging leaders and those looking for a survey of the politics of education in the last 4 decades or so. The subtitle, ‘The Inspiring Fututure for Educational Change’ is what […]
“Diane Ravitch is the rarest of scholars—one who reports her findings and conclusions, even when they go against conventional wisdom and even when they counter her earlier, publicly espoused positions.” Howard Gardner The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education is Diane Ravitch‘s new tome. It is […]
A post by James Bradley, at his City of Tongues blog, led me to buy and read Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing, edited by Karen Andrews. I would not usually buy an anthology of ‘online’ writing as it just seems too silly, losing all the hyperlinks and hyperconnectivity, but felt happy to invest in this project when I read: “This […]
“The cycles of other species can be destroyed, and the biosphere corrupted. But for each careless step we take, our species will ultimately pay an unwelcome price – always” I have just finished Anthill, set mostly in Alabama and occasionally underground, by two times Pultizer Prize winner and first time novelist, aged 81, E.O. Wilson. Pre-ordered ages ago, it arrived […]
Now, having finished David Shenk’s, The Genius in All of Us, I’d like to continue my reflection on the importance of this work to educators, students and parents. The notes I made while reading, using that function on my Kindle, highlight that our quintessential thinkers, in Western civilisation, have always suspected that giftedness’ was a […]
‘Intelligence is not an innate aptitude…’ It is difficult to shift paradigms and I have just started a book that may assist us to change perceptions about the potential of all our students – and ourselves. Steven Johnson, one of my favourite authors and thinkers, recommended via twitter last week, The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything […]
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Thriving and Surviving at Work, Home and School by John Medina is an excellent, must-read for book teachers, parents and students. I am listening to the audiobook version, read by the author, at the moment and am finding it both informative and entertaining. I am considering releasing one principle a week to […]