Contrary to what some might think, academics are not just experts without humour and disconnected from the real world. They can also be humorous, and some of them use it to communicate better. In November 2015, the British magazine Times Higher Education has reported thatarchaeologists Zoo Nottingham University hired a stand-up comedian to transmit more easily to the general […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
Education and irony: academics need to have fun
The evolution of the concept of teaching becomes education in Indonesia
Ten years ago, the Corruption Eradication Commission and the Attorney General’s Office created an Honesty Canteen program by establishing 1,000 canteens in public schools to train character building and anti-corruption among students. This trial ends as a failure story. The canteens only last in the first year and then most are threatened with bankruptcy. The canteen sells food, […] … learn more→
Educate about nature on a planet in crisis
Education and the state of health of our planet are changing rapidly. However, while the number of pedagogical proposals grows, sometimes overwhelmingly , the number of species decreases as the habitats that sustain them deteriorate or disappear. Even so, the future of both seems to be related. Classes to future teachers In this context, I start the course of […] … learn more→
School: evaluation, capable of the best, guilty of the worst
The question of evaluation at school comes back to the fore. While the Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, intends to develop a culture of evaluation, new assessments of students are now planned mid-CP, CE1, and second. An “evaluation body”, dedicated to the appreciation of institutions, is being created for 2019, while MPs Marie Tamarelle-Verhaeghe and Régis Juanico […] … learn more→
Questions academics can ask to decolonise their classrooms
The curriculum is not just the “stuff” that students must learn to be knowledgeable and skilled in a particular discipline. It’s about more than just content. Sociologists of education argue that “curriculum” is a highly ideological hybrid discourse. This means that it includes implicit ways of knowing, ways of doing and ways of being – as well […] … learn more→
Why R2D2 could be your child’s teacher sooner than you think
C3PO, R2D2 and Wall-E: three distinctly memorable robots that captured our hearts as they rolled and beeped across the silver screen. But pint-sized and friendly, humanoid robots are now more than just fictional characters. They’re finding their way into new roles as teachers, ready to shape the way students learn in the classroom. And the […] … learn more→
Bilingualism: how to get your child to speak your language – and why it matters
Humans have been migrating since prehistoric times – moving within and beyond geographical borders – in search of food, for survival or for better prospects in life. In the European Union alone, the latest figures show that in 2016 more than 4m people immigrated to an EU country, while at least 3m emigrated and left an EU […] … learn more→
We must take academic plagiarism seriously
“Antonio Vivaldi did not write 600 concerti, but the same concerto 600 times.” This witticism, which has been ascribed – possibly apocryphally – to the 20th-century Italian composer Luigi Dallapicolla, could also be applied, with a few factual tweaks, to Vivaldi’s contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach not only reused his own material through the process […] … learn more→
Pint of Science: Sips of science for everyone
Systematically practiced in the scientific world, communication is a central, complex exercise that responds to codes specific to the academic world, with specificities from one discipline to another. True “caudine forks” of research, symposia, conferences, congresses, national, European or international level require to transmit complex knowledge, sometimes the fruit of long years of research, in just […] … learn more→
Gender studies banned at university – the Hungarian government’s latest attack on equality
After several months of tensions between the government and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungarian academics are once again up in arms, after the academy banned two conference presentations on what many are claiming to be purely political grounds. According to the Hungarian Free Press, one of the talks, which looked at the under-representation of women in the computer […] … learn more→
