Group items tagged

What do you think of this website which is to help with speed reading? Is it relevant for second language learners? You can adjust the speed and the chunking but the chunking is random, not natural chunks that might occur. When I tried it I could really see how if I didn't use my 'inner voice' I could read so much faster. Of course our students tend to be vocalizing, not only using their inner voice and maybe this is necessary for word recognition?

I think your right about not using the inner voice helping with speed. What about the odd chunking though? It caused me one or two problems and one thing I like about speed reading is that it helps students to see more natural chunks like noun phrases, verbs and infinitives and things like that. It might be a good resource we can recommend for SDL.

integrating citizenship and 'global education' into a school.

This is a good reminder of why we teach. This is exactly what I wrote my Master's thesis on because education has lost it's inherent citizenship component. It seems as though politicians and policy makers think education only exists as a means of market value, or the market feeds off the exchange of knowledge for capital, thereby generating cultural capital, which can be commodified and further traded. I think people forget that the citizen arrived in the nation state only after the French Revolution and the restructuring of Merchantilism, which could be called proto-neoliberalism. The people revolted to create a center in which the citizen held certain entitlements to life and community built on education that challenged the state through reason, or what Immanuel Kant called, "Sapere Aude", that is, the courage to use your own reason. However, this center has been manipulated by education systems to systemize reason without courage, reason with exchange value, and reason for irrational privilege based on ethnocentrism (the creators of the world system) and technocracy (the maintainers of the world system). Finally, to answer your question, I do think this is an appropriate role for our college. I think education must question the possibility of education, and where it fits in the world we choose to live in. We must support our students and ourselves in the continuous investigation of our citizenship; therefore, our education.

I just read a quote from H.G Wells- "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." (The Outline of History, 1920). The quote is at the top of a paper dealing with the role of education in 'mending broken Britain' and how education can contribute to a more cohesive society. The paper was a summary of a national conference held in response to the anarchic riots of 2011 in England. The conference concluded that educational contributory factors leading to the riots were a lack of moral education, deficiency in the creative curriculum and an insufficient priority given to citizenship education. A sense of alienation and disenfranchisement amongst the youth of disadvantaged communities and a more general feeling that their voice is not being heard were also cited as major factors. The overarching conclusion of 'Mending Broken Britain- Educations' response' is clear- that schools play a central role in shaping our youth and in creating moral, constructive, rational, responsible and active citizens who feel included in our diverse and interdependent society- and that if education fails in this fundamental role, we can expect more (and worse) riots and social breakdown in the future.Prof. Gus John gves an interesting analysis of how our youth have reached this stage and cites 'the grotesque influence of the culture of the street' which has displaced the respect for self and for others and he asks the question: 'How? How have we failed to guide and assist our children in standing for something and in letting that something reflect the basic human values of respect, fairness, justice, interdependence, compassion and integrity?'The conference recognised that schools are not merely the means of transferring knowledge and content, to be absorbed and regurgitated for assessment purposes, but are the key vehicles for the development of values, skills and attitudes.

An interesting paper summarising a conference held in England in response to the 2011 riots. It emphasises the role of education, specifically citizenship education in creating a more cohesive society.

I just read a quote from H.G Wells- "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." (The Outline of History, 1920). The quote is at the top of a paper dealing with the role of education in 'mending broken Britain' and how education can contribute to a more cohesive society. The paper was a summary of a national conference held in response to the anarchic riots of 2011 in England. The conference concluded that educational contributory factors leading to the riots were a lack of moral education, deficiency in the creative curriculum and an insufficient priority given to citizenship education. A sense of alienation and disenfranchisement amongst the youth of disadvantaged communities and a more general feeling that their voice is not being heard were also cited as major factors. The overarching conclusion of 'Mending Broken Britain- Educations' response' is clear- that schools play a central role in shaping our youth and in creating moral, constructive, rational, responsible and active citizens who feel included in our diverse and interdependent society- and that if education fails in this fundamental role, we can expect more (and worse) riots and social breakdown in the future. Prof. Gus John gves an interesting analysis of how our youth have reached this stage and cites 'the grotesque influence of the culture of the street' which has displaced the respect for self and for others and he asks the question: 'How? How have we failed to guide and assist our children in standing for something and in letting that something reflect the basic human values of respect, fairness, justice, interdependence, compassion and integrity?' The conference recognised that schools are not merely the means of transferring knowledge and content, to be absorbed and regurgitated for assessment purposes, but are the key vehicles for the development of values, skills and attitudes.

I saw May had this on her laptop and everything typed would be read out. What uses could this have for our students?