Before I learned to be afraid of Miss Jacob I was terrified by Miss Almond. First week, first form at Headlands. First history class. Miss Almond, in her academic gown presiding. She was one of those teachers who could see round corners and knew what you were up to even though she was busy writing … Read more
The schools we attend and work in help shape the people we become. Seven of my sixty plus years in school were spent here – at Headlands Grammar School, Swindon. It is long gone and the site redeveloped. When people go into education as a career they sometimes seek to replicate the good experiences of … Read more
When a re-wired, pack-rat educator takes a deep dive in the basement there’s no telling what she will find in those decades worth of edutrivia. (This post by the way is Part Three of “My Life with the Spirit People”. Part One is here. You may ask: “Where is Part Two?” Well – I haven’t … Read more
Scooterons-nous vite. It’s Back to School with Angela Brazil Long before Harry Potter – and indeed long before all those school story authors who gave us Malory Towers and St. Clare’s and the Chalet School and the Abbey School and Jennings and Billy Bunter – there was Angela Brazil. Brazil – rhymes with dazzle – … Read more
I love this poem by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. It’s a commentary on the fact that – even in the darkest times – simple acts of unexpected generosity and kindness have the capacity to remind us that not everything is bleak and hopeless even in a nasty, brutish, trumpian world. Optimistic Little Poem Now and then … Read more
When intelligence officer Arthur Marshall was on the beach at Dunkirk in 1940 he turned to the work of Angela Brazil for psychological support. Wounded in the ankle, he encouraged his men to face enemy fire and so reach the awaiting ships with: “Come on, girls, who’s on for the Botany Walk?” In his autobiography … Read more
When I first became a head of school I had this daft idea that I would make personalized cut-and-paste greetings cards for every member the faculty and staff. It was daft on a number of levels including the sheer daunting nature of the task and the time it would take that I didn’t have. But … Read more
Amazing how hard it sometimes can be to find things on the intertubes. There was a poem I remembered from my London teaching days and I tried every which way to find it. It was about fruit piled up in a market so I tried all kinds of variations on a search theme and came … Read more
It’s graduation season and across the land schools are saying goodbye to students and students are moving along and into the next phases of their lives. It’s all very heartwarming and etc. I usually couldn’t wait for them to be over. All that dressing up and ceremony and sitting and waiting in uncomfortable chairs. At … Read more
Just a few pictures of very lovely evening at Trevor Day School. Great appreciation to all who helped make this reunion celebration so successful. It was good to be back among Trevor folk and to catch up with so many people. And congratulations to the ever wonderful Diane Tisman, head of the world languages department, … Read more
I think it must have been Ann Klotz’s quite lovely post that did it. It’s about her office and her work as a head of schooI and I read it yesterday. “Mine is a wonderful, complicated, fascinating job,” she writes in her reflections on her days and on the fourteen years of a headship. You … Read more
Do you remember what you were doing on the 22nd of June at 9.00am? I do – at least for the year 1964 because that was the date of the University of London GCE “O” level exam in Biology. I am seated in a single desk in one of many rows in a packed but … Read more
Lots of chatter about the fresh faces, diversity and new perspectives of the incoming class in the House of Representatives. Here’s a heartwarming story of the new everyday congress folk via Time magazine. It captures snippets of their hopes, dreams and earnest aspirations. Watch it below. My new congressman Antonio Delgado is in the group … Read more
The case against grades and grading has been so clearly made that it is time to turn the tables. Why – in 2019 – with all the evidence available – Why are institutions and individuals still clinging to this pernicious practice? Why do educators persist in wasting time discussing such irrelevancies as grading standards, grading … Read more
It’s been wet this August and last week was topped off by a cracker of a thunderstorm storm that dropped torrential rain and knocked out the power for a few hours. The routine stroll around the lake at Innisfree Garden was more of a squelch. Many paths were waterlogged and you could hear the roar … Read more