I generally teach mathematics. While this subject is usually considered brutally objective, in a real sense it’s an ideology: the ultimate goal of my class is, indeed, to get all my students to chant the same thing at the same time, like a pack of local news journalists (and I use that word with maximum […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
Student in Christianity class says there are 2 genders, gets tossed
Online education- read this if you are skeptical about it
The importance of higher education in our lives is undoubtedly high. To gain a respectable job, one must possess certain qualification certificates. Only if a person has well recognized certificates to back its higher educational skills, he can get a good job. This so called not only strengthens you with monetary support but also elevates […] … learn more→
The time it takes to learn a new language depends on what you want to do with it
If you go by the ads for some language learning apps, you can “have a conversation in a new language in three weeks”. But the experience of most Australians when trying to learn a new language is more likely to resemble that of our prime minister who, a few years ago, wrote: Learning any language at school is…difficult […] … learn more→
The tale of 23 overdue books
My complicated relationship with libraries dates to my childhood. I love books, but sometimes returned them late feeling a naughty child under the librarian’s stern gaze. Last December, when I tried to borrow books, I realised a freeze was placed on my library card. Internally I groaned. At the library desk, the librarian suggested checking […] … learn more→
Confessions of a fairy hunter
I first came to fairies after a brush with mortality in my mid-thirties. I’d been trained as a medievalist, but under the strain of my treatment, the Monumenta Germaniae Historica lost their charms: the memory of their leather covers, their weight in my hand, their smell, still make me nauseous almost a decade later. I’d […] … learn more→
Culture of trust is key for school safety
When we first visited the school that is the focus of our forthcoming book, “Navigating Conflict: How Youth Handle Trouble in a High-Poverty School,” back in 1995, students were free to move about campus during lunch and other free periods and a culture of trust prevailed. All that changed during the 1999-2000 school year. That’s […] … learn more→
Sins against the comma
While fiction writers have a special dispensation to scatter sentence fragments and comma splices throughout their ripping yarns, writers of academic prose are held to higher standards. Examiners of theses and reviewers of journal articles expect to see punctuation in the ‘right’ places; that is, correctly deployed according to the current conventions of formal writing. […] … learn more→
Private tutors need to ask parents these questions before their first tutoring session
First private tutoring session lined up. Check. Lesson plan created. Check. What else should you do to set the tone for a good relationship between you, the pupil, and the parents? Here are some questions to ask the parents that will get everyone on the same page. Are there any safety issues I should be […] … learn more→
We’re still playing catch up with academia’s longstanding #MeToo sexual harassment problem
The #MeToo campaign has focused attention on workplace bullying, sexual harassment and assault. Are such revelations a surprise to an astronomer, like myself, who studies distant galaxies? No. I, along with the science and academic communities, have been directly confronted by these issues in recent years. Bullying, sexual harassment and assault is prevalent at universities and […] … learn more→
“Radical gun” incident highlights education’s failure
I try to focus on higher education, but the interconnectedness of the modern world (more accurately, government involvement in everything) means that I often have to look beyond the ivory tower to gain a better understanding of what’s going on inside the tower. Our public education system is pretty bonkers about guns now. It’s weird […] … learn more→
