Month: December 2008
Odd Social Markers
We’re looking for a nice chef’s knife as a wedding present for Sue’s sister.We’re staying in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne, and when I looked it up there are 8 King of Knives shops east of the city centre and 0 west. Weird…
Further Awesomeness
All about the Antikythera Device: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/2000-year-old-a.html?npu=1&mbid=yhp Just one more reminder that ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’. PS Make sure you watch the video.
Awesomeness
As a friend said ‘Given how many people use the “I just feel safer in one” excuse to buy an SUV, I found this story rather amusing’: http://jalopnik.com/5096933/chevy-tahoe-messes-with-texas-mini-cooper-pays-price
Recruiting, Training, Retaining and Rewarding the Best and Brightest
So, in no particular order, a bunch of suggestions for developing a teaching force to transform education in Queensland. As with the broader suggestions outlined yesterday, these are a suite and should be considered together. Many of those points from yesterday are also very relevant to the issue of attracting and retaining teachers, particularly the…
(and dealing with the others)
I actually don’t think there’s a huge problem with really bad teachers in the Queensland school system. Like any profession there’ll be a few, and education is a field where it’s possible to be badly unsuited to the profession due to personality and attitude. I think the perception that the main problem with the system…
Three Clarifications
In relation to yesterday’s post, three quick points: I’m definitely talking about a massive re-investment in education with massively more money spent. You can’t get to class sizes of 15 and all the support services I was talking about by carving up the same size pie differently. If Queensland is serious about education it needs…
A Few Modest Proposals1 On Education
So, if there exist problems in school education in Queensland2, what are some solutions? Here’s my short list, just off the top of my head, and without a lot of detail – I’m happy to explain any of the features in more detail if anyone asks. Rationalise the phases of schooling and lock them in,…
Blame the teachers?
The response from our state Education Minister, Rod Welford, to Queensland’s relatively poor performance on the TIMSS international tests of school students’ ability to do international tests was to blame the teachers. The article is worth a read, but the 188 comments, if you have the stomach and time, provide a fascinating over-view of the…
My bash at a(n over)simplified Christian theology
The Seventh-day Adventist Christians I know spend so much time debating ‘faith and works’, and it annoys me because it seems to me that most often they are saying the same thing with a slightly different emphasis and pretending they are diametrically opposed. So as part of a discussion in a forum I tried to…
Small Ironies
Yesterday afternoon I raced a thunderstorm1 to the mall near where Suzie works. It meant I had half an hour to wait before she finished work. I had planned to buy a music or motorbike magazine to read to pass the time, but that would have cost $8-12 and I’m trying to keep some cash…
I’m a highly organised professional … honest!
Presented at a conference this morning. Put my PowerPoint on a USB stick, and checked a million times it was in my pocket. Then, just as I was about to walk out the door, got the bright idea to download a flash application to show – gotta use colour and movement with those academics. Site…