Reader in Education

I heard today that I have had the title of Reader in Education conferred on me by my University.

This means that I am no longer Principal Lecturer in Education. I'm a Reader in Education. Yay!

For those who don't know what it is, Reader is a Professorial title..one down from a full Prof.

Reading Week

Next week is 'Reading Week' in the Faculty of Education. Some of my students will be busy 'reading up' for essays and presentations which makes up their undergraduate and Post graduate life.

I'm delighted to have been asked to give, what can only be described as, a 'Key Note speech' at the University Greenwich on Writing in March as part of a conference for teachers they are organising.

I'm grateful to Prof. Guy Merchant's Blog for this site http://animoto.com/ He's going to be using it with Primary School teachers for work in the classroom. This is a superb tool for making your own slide shows and video. The site will create an exciting presentation based on the photos or video you upload. So much potential for schools.

I'm off to Bologna in Italy this weekend...not for work just pleasure. Back Monday

The Cambridge Primary Review

Do your colleagues know about the findings of the Cambridge Primary Review?

Professor Robin Alexander (pictured) and his team have at last completed their work.

The final report is out now on this web site: http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/

What about a staff meeting on the report? How about a day with other schools around with some speakers and group discussions about what the findings of this report means for your school and its future?

A piece of research of this size MUST be central to professional discussions in Primary schools up and down the country.

Endgame

Booked to see Endgame by Samuel Beckett in London in November..on my birthday

Charles Spencer writes in the daily Telegraph:

Endgame is the masterpiece that sorts out the men from the boys when it comes to admirers of the bleak dramatic world of Samuel Beckett.

In Endgame (1957), however, Beckett mercilessly excludes every possibility of the positive. The world outside is described as a zero, and while Beckett was doubtless considering the possibility of nuclear annihilation, his evocation of an arid planet now also reminds us of the possibility of a world laid waste by global warming. Inside the grim penumbral room where the play takes place, cruelty prevails.

I like to take in a cheerful show on such an occasion as my birthday. I'm a hard core Beckett fan so I can take it and the actor Mark Rylance who plays Hamm (pictured in the dark glasses) is in my view our greatest living actor.

'Two Posts in One Day'

The main political parties continue to boast about the cuts in public spending they want to make. These cuts will of course impact on the poor.

The raising of the pension age is one that will affect everyone. The argument is that "we are all living longer" and the 'economy' just can't afford it.

It is worth questioning the notion that we are 'all' living longer. In this country alone, thousands of people every year die of heart disease, cancer and strokes. Despite wonderful advances in medicine, the tragedy of an early death in the family is still not at all uncommon. I myself have lost a number of friends and colleagues over the last ten years.

Perhaps news of a medical breakthrough that can prevent and/or cure some of these fatal illnesses would justify discussion of raising the pension age.

If the economy 'can't afford' to provide people with a long retirement, then life may only consist of toil for many. It may be the 'economy' that needs to change to ensure that hard working people have a long and comfortable retirement.

Boys into Reading

We have been working on a new project with the wonderful teachers at Stockwell Park High School in South London. We are exploring the relationship that boys have with reading in the school. In doing so, we are discussing with the teachers essentialist and anti-essentialist positions around the issue of boys and girls and reading. Essentialists view boys and girls as being 'naturally' different in their dispositions and characters - 'boys will be boys' and 'girls will be girls'. Anti-essentialists believe that, if boys and girls are different in these ways, than they are 'made' this way by society. We think it is important to study the ways that those with these conflicting views on boys and girls approach literacy interventions in schools.

We are presently awaiting the views of the students in the school on some of these issues and how they perceive reading both inside and outside of school.