Have you played the puzzle game Tangram? I remember, as a child, being fascinated by how just seven simple wooden triangles and other shapes could offer endless entertainment. Unlike LEGO, the Tangram pieces do not snap together, and unlike the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they do not form a painted picture. Instead, Tangram invites […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
The history and mystery of Tangram, the children’s puzzle game that harbours a mathematical paradox or two
Teaching in the Pleistocene: lessons for today’s school
Teaching, in its broadest meaning, is a uniquely human phenomenon and linked to our nature as cultural beings. Natural selection shaped our cognitive structure so that we could take advantage of the knowledge possessed by our fellow humans. Humans are capable of generating a cumulative cultural inheritance system thanks to which we have managed to spread across […] … learn more→
How to set up a kids’ art studio at home (and learn to love the mess)
Many parents want to encourage their children to be creative. This is not just about training the next Archibald Prize winner. Young people develop important emotional and cognitive skills when they make art. But at the same time, it can be tricky to know where to start. Or how to overcome the fear of a big clean […] … learn more→
Should you answer a call to crowdfund our under-resourced teachers?
In an episode of Abbott Elementary, the sitcom about a group of teachers in an under-resourced Philadelphia school, novice teacher Janine takes to TikTok. The joke is that she needs to use TikTok to fundraise to get her classroom much needed school supplies. Although played for laughs in this award-winning show created by Quinta Brunson, one education blogger wrote: “In […] … learn more→
Do we write better if we know more words?
Having a rich vocabulary, or “deep” in linguistic terms (a high knowledge of synonyms and antonyms), is essential for writing a text. We not only have to be able to select the most appropriate terms for the expression of that content, but also know what other meanings they may have depending on the context and how […] … learn more→
It is not the same “if you study, you will feel proud” as “if you do not study, you will fail”
If we asked secondary school teachers about their main concerns when teaching, many would probably agree on one thing: the lack of interest and involvement of the students. Spain is the OECD country (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) with the highest repetition rate: 8.7% compared to 1.9% on average for the rest of the countries . If […] … learn more→
Teacher recruitment target missed in England – why people don’t want to enter or stay in the profession
The Department for Education has managed to recruit less than 60% of the new secondary school teachers expected this year in England, recent figures show. This is unsurprising for those of us working in education. Since 2015, the Department for Education has only been able to meet its secondary teacher recruitment target once, in 2020. These figures are […] … learn more→
Australia has a plan to fix its school teacher shortage. Will it work?
All year, we have heard reports of a “crisis” in Australian schools, thanks to a shortage of teachers around the country. Federal education department modelling shows there will be a high school teacher shortfall of about 4,000 by 2025. In August, Education Minister Jason Clare and his state and territory colleagues met and agreed this was a huge problem. […] … learn more→
The advantages of learning languages as adults
Learning a language is not just about learning a linguistic code. Learning a language is also undergoing a process of acculturation (according to the RAE dictionary, “Action and effect of acculturation or acculturation: incorporating cultural elements from another group into an individual or a human group”) that can occur at any stage. of the life. Many studies have been carried […] … learn more→
Why is it so difficult to learn the grammatical gender in the second language?
When we are young, we learn our first language without much effort and quite quickly: towards the end of early childhood, children have a linguistic competence similar to that of an adult. That is, at 6 years old children can participate in a conversation, ask questions, answer them, etc. One of the things that is learned […] … learn more→
