While you are in school, you are likely bombarded with information from all sources. However, once you have graduated and moved on, you might switch to survival mode, where you only focus on the things you need to get done to get by. However, if you don’t exercise your brain, you will not continue to […] … learn more→
Monthly Archives: February 2022
How to continually educate yourself
Black youth yearn for Black teachers to disrupt the daily silencing of their experiences
The annual Black History month school assemblies is fading away with February. The 2022 theme picked by the Canadian government for Black History Month, “February and Forever: Celebrating Black History today and every day,” itself is an admission that Black history month is currently a performative annual ritual. Yet the realities raised in Black History month assemblies […] … learn more→
The love of animals as a basis for teaching empathy at school
Empathy is a simple word of only seven letters that holds the key to social life. Clarifying an affirmation of such caliber is the fundamental objective of this article, detailing along the way the reason for its importance and why it is essential to include it as a transversal competence throughout the educational cycle. According to Eisenberg , […] … learn more→
Music can help lift our kids out of the literacy rut, but schools in some states are still missing out
The 2005 National Review of School Music Education found many Australian students missed out on music education, with massive disparities between states. In 2020, our research for the Tony Foundation found the same issues, despite the fact that the Australian Curriculum for Music should guarantee some level of consistency. We now have evidence that we should be concerned about music education […] … learn more→
Book writing – on introductions and some-we-prepared-before
I’m writing. As I guess are many of you. I’m writing another book. You may be writing a paper, a chapter, a magazine article., a graphic novel. But my writing right now is – book. It seems no time at all since I finished the last manuscript. And at the same time also a long […] … learn more→
Higher education funding shake-up: what it means for students and universities
The UK government has announced changes to university funding and student finance in England. It may not be welcomed either by future students or by universities. While the limit for fees is set to remain frozen at a top rate of £9,250 a year, changes to the system of loan repayments are coming in. Graduates will now […] … learn more→
Language, a collective creation
Although we don’t usually think about it, we have around us one of the fundamental wonders of which our species is capable, and whose invention should guide our idea of what it is to create. Its existence confirms that a collective creation is possible, and a common and shared intelligence. That wonder is human language. Our global […] … learn more→
How to spend your last days at a job you’ll soon be departing
There are many reasons for which people depart from jobs. Sometimes, a certain job or workplace no longer aligns with a person’s values. In other cases, the departure is purely income-based. However, regardless of why you’ve chosen to leave your current job, it behooves you to conduct yourself in a courteous, professional manner when getting […] … learn more→
Afghanistan’s libraries go into blackout: ‘It is painful to see the distance between people and books grow’
“The lights are off, shelves are in disarray and dust has coated every single book,” says Zabihullah Ehsas, my longtime friend and mentor, describing the current state of Khushal Baba Ketabtun, a library we established together in 2012. Our efforts represented an attempt to address the shortage of Pashto books in Mazar-i-Sharif, the cultural and economic hub […] … learn more→
Higher education must reinvent itself to meet the needs of the world today. Enter the Richard F. Heller
Universities face many threats to their future. The traditional universities have become over-managed business enterprises, which may not reflect societal, national or global educational needs. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many of these issues into focus. In a new book, I propose a model that responds to the broad range of challenges universities face. I call this […] … learn more→