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  • 2007
  • 2006
    • December
    • November
      • Hooks from physics for tomorrow
        11/29/06
        Currently teaching supply physics in a very good department where the kids fair whistle through the GCSE type topics and seem ready for extra to stay awake: so am adding hooks to future physics and other topics.
        Like, in
        *light, how the ray model and the diagram are powerful tools in us

      • Learning vouchers
        11/28/06
        The veggie vouchers scheme gets my vote. Well done the thinkers uppers.
        A next step is reading vouchers – stories for Mum and Tod on the back giving access to the next book.
        Then lesson vouchers, for club or skill or music tu.
        Also toy vouchers, for those precursor to fraction plastic

      • Astrophysics, a very brief primer
        11/28/06
        Earth in space topics for GCSE


        Solar system

        1. interpret planetary data like mass and orbits
        2. know differences of orbits of the planets, moons and comets, plus at least four different types of Earth satellites
        3. know how gravitational forces control

      • Network school started last night
        11/28/06
        We downloaded do lists from Manchester’s undergrad and Southampton’s MSc course, chose one and vowed to meet to share knowledge.

        Ten minutes on wikipedia filled some of the gaps, and suggested other topics like
         taking hardware apart
         building a model se

      • Towards a path ahead
        11/28/06
        The combined flurry of slavery apologies and national huzzah (Spooks, Starkey on Great Britain, State of the Nation and the Telegraph’s despair about having to be positive) produces the ironic reflection that enslaving is one thing the species does well. And we do it best to our own: the feckless si

      • Physics is dead!. Long live physics!
        11/25/06
        So pure physics at Reading University is no more. Not for the press reasons I suspect, but because it failed to attract the right calibre personnel. Ucas and hr will rehearse the reasons. But in fact the university, run by people of good sense, will know that reading physics is a non starter. There

      • From FAB to real education
        11/20/06
        BBC news education feature:
        Unity is strength How school victims turned the tables on the bullies
        This working fight against bullies FAB group is a good first stage.

        Others are when pupils:
        Build each others confidence
        Teach each other
        Explore social issues, iden

      • The one to watch out for
        11/20/06
        Is the carefully packaged program that tells about a social need.
        Like the add-ons to the living planet series, flagging up why we war, and why the planet needs us to be nice to it. And Midsomer and Spooks and State, carrying issues central government can’t talk about but needs us to.

      • PPE+ in astrophysics at 16
        11/19/06
        UK school astronomy summarises as earth-moon-sun, solar system, life cycle of the Sun and origin of universe.

        Some useful additions might be:
        Philosophy: explore why do space?
        Politics: Mars in one hop. Why not? Reason being not enough political credit for a small, economical, r

      • "THE INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST THREAT TO THE UK"
        11/14/06

        On 9/12 I asked a class of 15 year olds if they knew where the bombers were coming from. Half the hands went straight up, another half after a moment’s thought. Long before we heard of Al Qaida.

        Young people are mostly radical. Some decades later, we conserve our gains. In between w

      • Dies irae, dies illa
        11/14/06
        Mozart’s Requiem triggers the old lament for the loss of all we hold dear. The ten thousand deserted cities around the med evoke the same. But without change we can’t improve. Our pendulum is about to morph as well. Not with the transience of a moderate election in the states, but like the massive c

      • The law of thirds
        11/13/06
        Modern school theory is that only one third of pupils in a lesson are learning, the other two are unstimulated or lost.. The solution is to have three lessons running at once. Not easy for monofocussing male teachers. Death by worksheet follows.

        One solution is the personal project: chose

      • Lovelock joins terrorists!
        11/13/06
        A natural theme is that pollution, terrorism and Lovelock’s Gaia are holy allies.
        If the figure of half a billion of us is all that our ravaged planet can endure, should we not welcome these population reducers?

        The argument that ‘my genes must survive’ is spurious: they will, in the

      • Keeping learning fresh
        11/07/06
        Each school is a very different environment.
        Dynamic in that each day’s changes affect tomorrow’s learning.
        Good vibrations, daily, from the top are essential to each inhabitant.
        Placemen and worse cannot succeed: the kids innately and the teachers analytically pick up and amplify the

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