This page represents only my own views, and not those of any university or other body.
Posted Monday 18th February 2013 at 12.27pm
Under the radar
The following letter seems to have snuck under the radar of the debate on the proposed new curriculum. There are plenty of arguments for and against Mr Gove's changes, as will always be the case on such an overarching plan. My opinion is that he hasn't got the slightest clue what he's doing and there isn't a shred of evidence in favour of the revolution, whereas there is plenty against it; but why listen to me? Here are some people who even the Government (via Ofsted) says know what they're talking about.
I've taken this straight from the Independent.
Elizabeth Truss defends the history National Curriculum proposals on the grounds that they include diverse groups and encourage critical reflection (Voices, 14 February). We applaud each of these. What neither the minister nor her boss understands, however, is the impact of the new proposals in the classroom.
We’re not sure that parents have yet realised that their six-year-olds may soon be learning about the concept of Parliament and the meaning of “nation”. Meanwhile, their eight-year-old siblings will be tackling the sensitive complexities of the Crusades, all in the hands of teachers without history degrees, teachers without knowledge of history or its scholarship.
Nine-year-olds will wrestle with the differences between Catholics and Protestants and the causes of the English Civil War, never to return to these at secondary school, never to be taught them by specialist history teachers. To label the proposals “age inappropriate” is just the start of it.
Mr Gove wants pupils to have knowledge. We agree: knowledge is central and plenty of it should be British, too. But these proposals will not achieve what Mr Gove wants. At best, children will emerge with superficial, vague and ill-formed notions of a narrative that has taken a tortuous seven years or more to wade through, with scant specialist teaching. Their understanding will be practically nil and their love of history destroyed. What is more, do we really want to be the only leading educational jurisdiction in the world not to have a proper, mandatory world history course?
We represent the history departments of three large comprehensive schools in south London, all rated “outstanding” by Ofsted and all with an excellent track record of engaging and challenging many thousands of young people in history. We would like to know on what experience the Secretary of State and his ministers are basing their decisions, given that this is the first national curriculum written in this country with no transparent authorship. We know it will fail and what is more, we know it will fail to deliver what Mr Gove and Ms Truss want. It is a catastrophe.
Tom Greenwood
Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College
Sean O’Neill
Langley Park School for Boys
David Stevenson
Norbury Manor Business and Enterprise College
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Posted Saturday 16th February 2013 at 10.07am
Don't you know it's wrong?
Don't you know it is wrong?
To cheat the trying man
So you better stop, it is the wrong 'em boyo!
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Posted Friday 18th January 2013 at 10.41pm
The 39 percent
This is a really nice post. But it does make one mistake... the Don wasn't "equally exceptional, equally outlying, equally beyond compare". He wasn't 28% better than the rest. He was more exceptional, more outlying, more beyond compare. He was 39% better than the rest.
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Posted Friday 18th January 2013 at 11.14am
Epiphany
Epijournals? Yes please! See this post by Tim Gowers and this article by Rich Van No. Besides the whole journals-being-free thing, there's another possible fantastic idea waiting to get out. From Gowers:
"One possibility being discussed, which I am very much in favour of, is each accepted article having not just a link to the arXiv but also a web page for (non-anonymous) comments and reviews. For example, the editor who accepts an article might wish to write a paragraph or two about why the article is interesting, a reader who spots a minor error might write explaining the error and how it can be fixed (if it can), and an expert in the area might write a review that could be very useful to hiring committees."
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Posted Sunday 13th January 2013 at 9.59am
Brownies
Awesome brownie recipe!
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Posted Monday 7th January 2013 at 3.31pm
Conditioning
A brilliant xkcd comic! All about the mouseover (again).
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Posted Sunday 23rd December 2012 at 9.17pm
Back?
Well, it seems that this site is still here, and Warwick have some issues with their server refusing to grant write access to my php code, so it's probably easiest if I return to updating my blog here. For now, merry Christmas!
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Posted Saturday 29th September 2012 at 3.17pm
All change
I start at Warwick on Monday. This site will move - Bath are deleting my account tomorrow so there'll be some downtime.
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Posted Monday 24th September 2012 at 10.13pm
Chocolate chip muffins
Last week I made choc chip muffins from a BBC good food recipe. They were awful.
This week I made choc chip muffins from this recipe. They were awesome! So good that they disappeared before I had time to take a photo. Here's my slightly altered version of the recipe:
175g self-raising flour
50g butter (cut into small cubes)
50g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
8 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
140g chocolate chips / chunks
Put everything except the chocolate in a bowl and mix like crazy till it's smooth. Add the chocolate and stir. Bake for 15-20 mins at 190C.
Makes about 8.
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Posted Saturday 22nd September 2012 at 6.37pm
Sorry
I think this speaks for itself...
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