John Simkin
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Posts posted by John Simkin
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I thought it might be a good idea to have a thread just for English websites we find useful.
I have compiled a list of annotated websites for English teachers on my site. However, I have never taught the subject. They really need to be divided up into sub-sections. Any ideas?
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One of the candidates seeking nomination for the General Secretary of the NUT is Martin Powell-Davies of Lewisham.
Maybe Martin Powell-Davies should join the Education Forum. He could then post his views that are important to union members. That would give the opportunity for those teachers who also hold strong views on these subjects to debate the issues with him.
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I am currently doing some research on Dorothy Kilgallen. She was a journalist who was investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Kilgallen managed to obtain the Dallas Police Department radio logs for the day of the assassination. This revealed that as soon as the shots were fired in the Dealey Plaza, the Chief of Police, Jesse Curry, issued an order to search the Grassy Knoll. However, up until that time, Curry had insisted that as soon as he heard the sound of the shots he told his men to search the Texas School Book Depository.
In September 1964 Kilgallen reported in the New York Journal American that Jack Ruby, J. D. Tippet and Bernard Weismann had a two hour meeting at the Carousel Club on 14th November, 1963. Later, Kilgallen managed to obtain a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends that she had information that would "break the case wide open". Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe (two reporters who had both been killed after making such a claim), Kilgallen handed her interview notes to her friend Margaret Smith. She told friends that she had obtained information that Ruby and Tippet were friends and that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
On 8th November, 1965, Kilgallen, was found dead in her New York apartment. She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes of her interview with Ruby and the article she was writing on the case had disappeared. Her friend, Margaret Smith, who had been given the notes on the case, died two days later. The notes were never found.
I carried out a search on Kilgallen on the web. The first batch of pages contained information that I already knew about Kilgallen and were just recycled details that have appeared in various books about the assassination of Kennedy. However, I eventually came across an anti-Castro website. It included newspaper accounts revealing details of what Castro had been up to over the last fifty years. One account was a newspaper article written by Kilgallen for New York Journal American on 15th July, 1959. Like the other articles on the site it was highly critical of Castro. It also contained something else that surprised me a great deal. Kilgallen claimed that the CIA and the Mafia were involved in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. We now know this was true but it only became public knowledge during the Frank Church’s Select Committee on Intelligence Activities in 1975. This article was written in July, 1959. Kilgallen was obviously well-informed about what was going on in the CIA at that time.
I continued my search and I eventually came across something that was even more interesting. It was the notes of a CIA report on Marilyn Monroe. Dated 3rd August, 1962, the actual report had been withheld but the notes themselves were very revealing. The report was based on the wire-tap of certain people’s telephone calls. This included those of Kilgallen, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Kennedy and Howard Rothberg, a lawyer working for Monroe. The CIA document claims that Monroe was threatening to tell secrets that she had obtained from her relationship with John F. Kennedy. This included the claim that Monroe "knew of the President's plan to kill Castro". It appears Rothberg was passing on information from Monroe to Kilgallen. The notes of course do not say what the CIA planned to do about this. That would have been in the report that is still being withheld. What we do know is that Marilyn Monroe was found dead two days after this report was written.
This raises a new question about the death of Kilgallen (she died in similar circumstances to Monroe). Was she killed because of what she knew about the Kennedy assassination or was it more to do with what she knew about the death of Marilyn Monroe?
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I am working closely with Andy to develop this site. Does anyone know of any other good PE web sites?
There is in fact very few good educational websites for PE. However, here is a short list of annotated websites that I have compiled over the years.
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Newsletter 2
Membership
Good progress has been made over the last week. We now have 218 members. So far 112 members have made postings (a total of 886 at the time of writing). We have also been able to increase the number of different languages that people can use on the forum: French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Swedish, Greek and Italian. Any volunteers to establish sections in other languages? If so email me (details below).
Reading the biographies section it seems we have members from Britain (53), France (8), Spain (5), Netherlands (4), Sweden (4) Australia (3), Canada (3), USA (2), Belgium (1), Germany (1) and Greece (1). If you have not done so, please post your biography on the forum. This enables us to find out where our members are coming from.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=189
Signatures
If you have a website I highly recommend you add the URL to your signature. Go to My Controls (top, right of the screen). On the left-hand side click ‘Edit Signature’ (under Personal Profile). Make sure you include the full URL (it does not work if you leave out http://). Your URL will then appear every time you post and will help your ranking in second-generation search-engines like Google.
International Student Debate
It is planned to start our International Student Debate at the beginning of February. Please post details if you want your school to take part in this venture.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=116
Debates
At the moment, the following issues provide opportunities for good debate. I would welcome your contributions to these and other debates taking place on the forum.
What makes a good teacher?
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=205
Higher Education Reforms
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=123
Natural Learning
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=156
Maths and Teaching Assistants
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=220
Bullying in Schools
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=174
In bed with Microsoft
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=90
Nationalism and History Teaching
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=44
Science Coursework
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I argued yesterday that history teaching in schools plays an important role in developing nationalistic attitudes. If that is the case, then it is possible to change the way we teach history in order to promote internationalist values.
This would involve both changing what we teach and how we teach it. One obvious example of how we develop nationalistic views is the way we teach about wars. In Britain, the study of the First and Second World Wars plays a prominent role in convincing people they are superior to other nations. The military battles that enabled the growth of the British Empire also play an important role in this.
A few years ago the British government decided to impose a national curriculum on schools. Much of the debate that took place at this time concerned the teaching of history. Politicians accused history teachers of not spending enough time teaching about our “great achievements” of the past. Last year a national conference was held on teaching history in schools and Prince Charles got the headlines about his comments that we should spend more time teaching about the British Empire. This pressure mainly comes from right wing politicians. Liberal and left-wing politicians rarely get involved in this debate. This is partly because they agree with those on the right. If they don’t, they realise there is not many votes won by arguing against this approach to history teaching.
Personally, I am not against teaching about the wars of the British Empire. My concern is about how we study them. I think it is important that we concentrate on why we fought them and why we won them. That the students discover that these military victories was not the result of being inherently superior to other nations. That victory depended on economic, geographical, scientific and political factors.
If we take the example of the Second World War. There is no doubt that the teaching of this subject creates problems for the way most British people see the world. It is a subject that is always referred to in any outburst of British nationalism. It also shapes our current political attitudes. This is true of our views on Europe and the United States. It is no surprise that Winston Churchill was recently voted Britain’s greatest figure in history. (There is a theory that the main reason why Tony Blair was in favour of the Iraq War was that it offered the best hope of him being seen by the historians in the future as a great leader).
The way Winston Churchill is seen today is the result of nationalistic history teaching. He is seen as the man who led us to a courageous victory. That without him, the British people would have defeated and occupied by the German army. This is of course a complete distortion of the past. The people who hold this view tend to forget that Churchill was heavily defeated in the 1945 General Election. In fact, Clement Attlee, won a landslide victory and went on to introduce important reforms that are now still popular with the British people. However, Attlee never featured in the poll of greatest Britons. The reason for this has a lot to do with the way we teach history. It is not pointed out that the major reason why Churchill was defeated in 1945 was that he was seen as a war monger (one of the reasons why he was so unpopular in the 1930s) and that if he had won the election Britain might well have been led into a war with the Soviet Union. He would also have probably also got us involved in wars attempting to maintain the British Empire. (It is often forgotten that Churchill was wrong about almost every major political issue of the 20th century).
Ulrike rightly pointed out that students want to feel good about their own country and want to study the nation’s heroes and heroines. I have no problem with that. However, I do think we have to think very seriously about who we portray as our heroes and heroines. I do not think we should portray our war leaders in this way. There is a large number of people from our past that make ideal role models for our young people. Unfortunately, they rarely appear in our school textbooks.
One of the attractions of producing a website for use in schools, is that you can help influence the people we study in the classroom. If one types in “Winston Churchill” into the Google search-engine my page on him comes out 4th out of 614,000 pages. The first three provide the traditional view of Winston Churchill. However, my page provides a very different interpretation that in the past would never have found its way into the British classroom. It is an example of how the web opens up the possibility of challenging the way history is taught in schools.
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There are 120,000 teaching assistants in English schools. The government claim that teaching assistants are at the heart of its strategy for improving standards in schools.
Professor David Reynolds of Exeter University has just published research into the effectiveness of using teaching assistants in the classroom. Reynolds studied teaching assistants helping primary children with maths.
The assistants supported weaker groups in the class while the teacher continued with the lesson. Despite the extra help, their results did not improve.
"Overall, then, this study does not provide much support for the use of assistants as a way of improving the achievement of low-achieving students, or as a means of increasing child-adult contact without employing more teachers," says the study.
"We think that what happens is that in the short term the arrival of classroom assistants makes the classroom complex for the existing teachers," explained Prof Reynolds. He said that schools need additional training in how best to use the assistants.
"The implications of this research are that it would be a mistake to only train the classroom assistants and not also include a large-scale national programme of national training for all the teachers who will be getting assistants in their classrooms."
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The difference 'Nationalism' Patriotism' in the history of the twentieth century could be easy.
If we have a look at the beginnig of the first world war. The vast majority of the population was patriotic. Soldiers and the others had a duty and they did it even if they didn't agree with the war. They just wanted to defend their country.
Nationalists were just a minority. They wanted the war and they were enthousiastics about it. In France it is obvious that Nationalist such as Peguy or Barres were happy with that. The first died in 1914 in one of the first battle of the Great War.
For today or in the nineteenth century it is more difficult in my opinion to have a perfect definition of both words because they are closely linked together. What happened in ex-yougoslavia in the 90's and today is a perfect example of that problem.
You make the point that there was a distinct difference between patriotism and nationalism in France in 1914. However, you admit that separating patriotism and nationalism is more difficult when you consider recent conflicts in Europe.
My dictionary defines a patriot as someone “who loves and zealously supports his/her country.” Whereas a nationalist is someone who shows “loyalty and devotion to a nation”. When it comes down to it I am not sure there is much difference between these two concepts.
I am an internationalist who believes that nationalism and patriotism poses a threat to world peace. For example, people in Britain tend to believe they are superior to French people. Politicians are aware of this feeling and if they are keen to get support from the general public they go in for some French bashing. Tony Blair and his government resorted to this tactic during the build up to the Iraq War. It was a successful strategy and helped to sway public opinion towards war.
Individual people will often quote events from history in order to show that the British are superior to the French. A common reference is to the French surrendering in the summer of 1940. This is compared to the unwillingness of the British people to give in to Hitler. In reality, the situation was far more complex. There is considerable evidence that the British people also wanted to surrender in 1940. The fact that this did not happen was more to do with geography than some sort of national moral character. Where, for example, was this superior moral character in 1938?
It is of course a ridiculous idea that one country is anyway superior to any other. It is true that at different times individuals have made a significant impact on the economic, social or cultural development of the world. Britain has played its role in this. However, I would be a fool to believe that I have any right to take a nationalist pride in the achievements of Tom Paine, Robert Owen, Charles Dickens or George Stephenson.
What about using history teaching as a powerful weapon to fight against nationalism?As history teachers we know that nationalism has been, is, and, sadly, will be the main source of violence and misery in Europe and all over the world.
I try and try with my students to dismantle all the nationalistic clichés and stereotypes and I intend to show them how nationalist history is set up to deceive people into false images of themselves.
Please, let teach our students that states and nations are contingent products of history, nothing more. And that they have to be proud of what they have achieved in their life with their effort and wit. Nobody can be proud of being born in some place. A pure accident.
I agree with Juan Carlos that as history teachers with have a responsibility to try and tackle this problem of nationalism. It is a difficult task as people have a deep desire to feel patriotic. This feeling will at different times in history be exploited by politicians. History teachers will always come under pressure from these politicians to teach a nationalistic history. We should resist this pressure and teach instead, internationalism. According to my dictionary, this is “an attitude that favours cooperation among nations”. This forum is in its small way trying to do this.
I think it will be interesting for us to consider what an internationalist history curriculum would look like.
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Hot Potatoes arose initially out of our own needs. By 1997, the use of Web pages in support of educational courses was already widespread, and we found ourselves with the need to create a wide range of interactive exercises for the Web, in support of various language programs.
This is another example of how the best websites have emerged from educator’s own teaching. This is a very different approach from commercial companies that attempt to exploit a perceived market. As a result of the willingness of educators to provide free materials on the web, for several years it was virtually impossible for commercial companies to make a profit from educational websites. In Britain the government has decided to interfere in the free market by providing e-learning credits to schools (for a debate on this see below). The problem about this strategy is that it encourages people to stop free access to their website and begin imposing subscription charges.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=115
It has been argued that Tom Paine is the "moral father of the Internet". This dates back to the publication of The Rights of Man in 1791. The British government was outraged by Paine's book and it was immediately banned. Paine was charged with seditious libel but he escaped to France before he could be arrested. Paine announced that he did not wish to make a profit from The Rights of Man and anyone had the right to reprint his book. The Rights of Man was printed in cheap editions so that it could achieve a working class readership. Although the book was banned, during the next two years over 200,000 people in Britain managed to buy a copy. Only the Bible had enjoyed sales like this.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.05/paine.html
I think Hot Potatoes follows in this fine tradition. As a result this has encouraged other educators to provide free educational materials. I have been at several workshop sessions where Hot Potatoes has been demonstrated to classroom teachers. Every time it encourages people to try their hand at producing web materials for their students.
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As a Black Briton, I was always a little wary of explicit demonstrations of nationalism whilst growing up. As mentioned by some of the contributors earlier, nationalism can and does breed violence against the perceived 'other'....
I would like to comment on the type of 'History' that Black people are taught in Britain. Slavery and perhaps civil rights USA seem to be the only History Black people have. Of course these topics are perhaps the most relevant for Black people in the' West' but I do not think it allows a sense of pride to be felt. All people should be taught some aspects of History that help them to have pride in who they are and where they have come from. Hence some focus should be given to Pre-European African history. Not only would a focus on the ancient empires of Africa create a greater sense of self-worth for young Blacks, it would also allow European children to have a more balanced view of Black people. The current social and economic status of Africa in the media only creates sympathy and unfortunately, ridicule of the role Black people have played in world history.
On this note I would like to ask the European contributors whether their countries consider the role of Black people in their History curriculum?? For example, in Spain particularly, are the Moorish invasions of the middle Ages considered?
On another thread I have raised the issue of cultural imperialism as it impacts on the working class. This is a far greater issue when looking at black history. As in English literature, the white middle/upper class have been given far too prominent role.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=204
How then we can integrate black history into the curriculum? Teachers have several opportunities to look at the role black people played in events that appear on the traditional history curriculum.
For example, when looking at the struggle for equal rights you can study William Davidson and the Cato Street Conspiracy. He was also one of the first black man in Britain to be fitted up for a crime he probably did not commit and died a terrible death.
When studying the struggle for the vote it is also important to look at the case of the Chartist William Cuffay. Like Davidson he was fitted up by the government and was deported to Tasmania for 21 years. When he was released he became involved in radical politics and trade union issues and played an important role in persuading the authorities to amend the Master and Servant Law in the colony.
The First World War provides another opportunity to study black heroes. Walter Tull, joined Tottenham Hotspur in 1908 and therefore became only the second black man to play professional football in Britain. The first was Arthur Walton, the Preston goalkeeper.
On the outbreak of the First World War Tull immediately abandoned his career and offered his services to the British Army. The Army soon recognised Tull's leadership qualities and he was quickly promoted to the rank of sergeant. In 1917 he became first ever black officer in the British Army. 2nd Lieutenant Tull was killed while leading an attack across No Mans Land in 1918.
It is also worth looking at the careers of Britain’s first black MPs: Dadabhait Naorji (Finsbury, 1892-1895) and Mancherjee Bhownaggree (Bethnal Green, 1895-1906).
I believe it is important that we should challenge the way that history has been represented in the past. For example, when studying Florence Nightingale we should also look at Mary Seacole. Nightingale is often used as a way of showing how women could make their mark in a male dominated society. However, her story also tells us a great deal about race and class.
Mary Seacole, an expert on disease, travelled from Jamaica to England in 1853 when she heard about the cholera epidemic that had emerged during the Crimean War. Her offer of help was rejected by the British Army. Soon afterwards, Florence Nightingale, who had little practical experience of cholera, was chosen to take a team of thirty-nine nurses to treat the sick soldiers. Mary Seacole now applied to join Nightingale's team but was once again rejected.
Unwilling to accept defeat, Mary paid for her own trip to the Crimea and started up a business called the British Hotel, a few miles from the battlefront. Here she sold food and drink to the British soldiers. With the money she earned from her business Mary was able to finance the medical treatment she gave to the soldiers.
It is very important that when studying black history they are not portrayed as victims. A classic example of this is the topic of slavery. Nearly all school textbooks feature the role played by William Wilberforce in this struggle. Very few of these authors point out that until just before he died Wilberforce was in favour of slavery (he was a campaigner against the slave-trade which is not the same thing although most textbook authors think it is). As Wilberforce pointed out in a pamphlet that he wrote in 1807: "It would be wrong to emancipate (the slaves). To grant freedom to them immediately, would be to insure not only their masters' ruin, but their own. They must (first) be trained and educated for freedom."
Textbook authors also give the impression that Wilberforce was motivated by a sense of religious morality. In fact, Wilberforce had been converted to the campaign by Adam Smith who argued that capitalists could obtain higher profits from free workers than slaves (Smith provided plenty of examples from the costs of production of sugar, etc. throughout the British Empire).
Although it is important to study Wilberforce when dealing with the slave trade it is also important to look at the role of others like Elizabeth Heyrick (Wilberforce refused to allow women hold senior positions in the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade), Olaudah Equiano, Ottabah Cugoano and Zamba Zembola. It is also worth looking at those freed slaves from the United States who travelled to England to campaign against slavery. For example, people like Frederick Douglass, a great role model for young blacks.
I have produced a list of annotated websites on Black History. These can be found at
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REVhistoryRR3.htm
Other web links you might find useful include:
William Davidson
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRdavidson.htm
William Cuffay
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/CHcuffay.htm
Walter Tull
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWtull.htm
Dadabhai Naoroji
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRnaoroji.htm
Mancherjee Bhownaggree
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRbhown.htm
Mary Seacole
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REseacole.htm
Olaudah Equiano
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Sequiano.htm
Ottabah Cugoano
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAScugoano.htm
Zamba Zembola
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASzamba.htm
Frederick Douglass
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In around 1997 several classroom teachers began experimenting with the idea of producing online resources. In terms of gaining an audience for their materials they were very successful and eventually they joined together to form the Association of Teacher Websites.
Over the last few years we have seen the emergence of large companies becoming involved in producing educational content. Government ministers were obviously pleased by this development as they thought they would not have to pay for this content. Initially these companies hoped that these materials would be paid for by advertising and sponsorship deals. The revenue obtained from these sources never reached the stage of paying for day to day running costs let alone the considerable start-up costs that were involved in this operation. Some companies opted for the subscription model. This was also a failure as teachers were unwilling to pay for material that was in most cases inferior to that being produced for free by classroom teachers.
Eventually the government decided to help this companies by introducing Curriculum Online. The provision of e-credits helped to persuade teachers to pay for online content.
However, in the long-term, there will be a considerable price to pay for this commercially produced material. For a start it will persuade teachers that it cannot compete with large commercial companies. Not that they doubt the quality of their content but in the knowledge that large companies can pay programmers to produce visually appealing activities.
The second problem is that these companies are being motivated by the desire to make money. There primary concern is to produce as much curriculum relevant content as possible. The people producing this material have little or no experience of the classroom. As a result they are making the terrible mistake of taking existing teaching materials and placing it online. This illustrates why it is necessary for educationalists to play the prominent role in producing online material. Teachers creating material for their own website come at this from a different position. They don’t start with the question: “How can I make a profit from this venture?” They are much more likely to say: “How can I use these technology to improve the education of my students?” These two questions have two very different answers. Unfortunately, commercial companies are unlikely to ask the second question but educationalists have to increasingly to ask the first one.
Some suggestions on ways that the government could help the development of high quality, teacher produced online educational materials:
(i) To provide funds that would enable teachers to meet and share ideas on producing online educational materials.
(ii) To provide funding for specific educational online projects that are designed and produced by teachers.
(iii) To provide funding that will pay for full-time teachers to devote more time to producing free online educational material.
(iv) To provide financial support for the creation of a Virtual School run by teachers.
(v) To provide technical support for teachers producing online materials.
(vi) To help publicize the existence of good websites produced by teachers.
(vi) To help fund INSET provided by teachers with experience of producing online teaching materials.
(vii) To have regular meetings between the relevant government ministers, officials from Becta and teachers producing online materials.
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You have challenged me to find that book. South Australian students have a range of choices with the novels and plays they study. In fact a percentage of the final year English Studies assessment is given to an individual projest. Yes, literatue of the working class is available through biographies or similar. Angela's ashes, "Tis ect. Sally Morgan's My Place follows the early life of an aboriginal girl who has been denied her heritage. Several Bryce Courtney novels follow a recent similar theme. Even "My left foot" reflects working class families.
I'm not sure of the content of ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist’
I agree that all schools will study modern working class novels. My point was that I believe there is a reluctance to study the cultural past of the working class. That schools are mainly about transmitting an approved culture. This mainly involves a middle class view of the working class rather than a working class view of themselves. Teachers rarely see this as a problem as they are by definition members of the middle class and are unaware of what some people would claim was cultural imperialism.
It was interesting that the Robert Tressell archive is still held by the family. The work of other famous authors of that period, usually reside in universities. I suspect that the Tressell archive will end up in a trade union museum rather than in a university.
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As a Black Briton, I was always a little wary of explicit demonstrations of nationalism whilst growing up. As mentioned by some of the contributors earlier, nationalism can and does breed violence against the perceived 'other'.
You are right to stress that nationalism does unify a country. This is especially true when you are in conflict with another country. I have spent a lot of time interviewing senior citizens about their experiences of the Second World War. I always ask them if there was anything good about the war. They always give a similar answer. This involves the belief that the war united the country. That they felt that most people were working together for the good of the country. There is that marvellous David Low cartoon that reflects this sentiment.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWtaxation.htm
This emotional need for unity is illustrated by international sporting events. While England is in with a chance of winning the competition (which is not very often) we experience a great sense of unity. At the same time, it also leads to conflict within, especially when it becomes clear that friends and colleagues who were born in Scotland, Wales and Ireland are supporting whichever team plays England.
Competition in sport is usually fairly harmless. However, nationalism that leads to war is a serious matter. One political commentator once pointed out that the only way we will get international unity is if the world was attacked by creatures from another planet. As we cannot afford to wait until then, we have to find a way of creating a system which reduces nationalism. I suspect this also involves creating a system that reduces the inequality within and between nations.
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I did not encounter any good teachers while I was at school. Luckily I did meet one soon after while working in a factory. One of the things he taught me was that you did not have to work in an educational institution to be a good teacher. I did however have a couple of good teachers at university. More importantly, I also found a couple more while training to become a teacher.
I agree with Nils Clausson that a good teacher needs to be caring, supportive, humorous, patient, fair, creative, sociable and well-organized. As well as being passionate about teaching, they should also be passionate about the subject they are teaching. As a result of the dominant ideology existing in schools, students are in danger of believing that teaching is mainly about delivering good exam grades. That education is a means to an end. Being passionate about your subject helps to show your students that it is a means in itself. In this way you help to communicate to the student that the subject you are teaching is vitally important in the process of turning that student into an active citizen.
I also agree with Andy Walker that a good teacher should be a subversive. This is the only trait mentioned so far where there is likely to some disagreement about. However, I feel Andy is quite right to stress this character trait. All schools are more about training than educating. A good teacher has to constantly question this process. Being a good teacher is not about providing right answers. It is about getting the students to ask the right questions.
A good teacher also has to be energetic. Without a lot of energy the system will grind you down and you will end up being pessimistic about what you can achieve. Surely the worst teacher of all is the one who entered the profession as an idealist and ends up as a negative pragmatist.
The good teacher also has to be courageous. The need to take risks is vitally important in order to become a good teacher. The mediocre teacher finds an approach to teaching that makes them feel safe. The good teacher rejects the idea of safety and constantly seeks new ways of making education relevant to their students. Being brave is a vital part of being a good teacher. Being passionate about your subject is going to be a painful experience. Many students will reject your subject as being boring and irrelevant. That hurts. You have to be fairly brave to keep coming back for more. A music teacher once told me that he was retraining to become a maths teacher. When I asked him why he replied: “because I love music and I find the rejection too painful”.
Finally, and most importantly, the good teacher has to be generous. I remember a young art teacher telling me he was leaving the profession. I was surprised because he had the reputation of being a good teacher. I asked him why he made that decision. He replied that he was leaving teaching because he realised that he cared more about his own work, than that of his students. He added that he was not generous enough to be a good teacher.
I expect most of the regular contributors to this forum are good teachers. By finding time to contribute their views on education and by their willingness to share resources with their colleagues, they show their generosity. As I said at the beginning, good teachers are not only found in the classroom.
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It is great to see you have joined the International Education Forum. I have for a long time been a great admirer of your work. Could you give us some background details of how you came to create Hot Potatoes? It is such a pioneering piece of software and has had a major influence on the development of teaching materials on the web. It was great to see you made it available free of charge to schools. It is this generosity of spirit that has become a welcome feature of the web.
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Reading the biographies section it seems we have members from Britain (53), France (8), Spain (5), Netherlands (4), Sweden (4) Australia (3), Canada (3), USA (2), Denmark (1), Belgium (1), Germany (1), Russia (1), Sudan (1) and Greece (1).
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=189
It is another reason to post your biography. We can then work out where our members are coming from.
Updated 19th January, 2004
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Nils Clausson teaches in the Department of English at the University of Regina in Canada. In this article he examines the characteristics of a good teacher. He argues that a good teacher is:
Sociable
Personalized to student needs
Makes it comfortable, fun, etc.
Caring, kind, supportive, positive, funny
Involved
Passionate about teaching
Patient
Fair, equal
Organized
Respect
Creative
Do you all agree? Is there anything he has missed?
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I recently wrote on the forum about my contacts with the last surviving relative of Robert Tressell.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=203
It got me thinking about the novels students study at school. Is ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist’ studied in schools? I would not argue that it was a great work of literature but it is a work of great social importance. It is claimed that it is the first truly working class novel. Although there were a great number of popular books about the lives of the working class published in the 19th century, this was the first book that came from the working class.
Robert Tressell’s book is important for other reasons. It has been claimed that Tressell had more impact on people’s political opinions in Britain than the work of writers such as Karl Marx and William Morris. Alan Sillitoe has pointed out that the book was very popular with members of the armed forces during the Second World War and claims that it was “the book that won the 1945 election for Labour.”
Is it still true that schools are guilty of ignoring working class culture? I would also be interested in reading the views of people from other countries. Do educational institutions study the literature of all its citizens? Or are we really only interested in the writings of an intellectual elite?
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I receive regular complaints about the content of my website. I make every effort to be objective in my narrative and most complaints concern the use of sources to illustrate the topic I am writing about. I recently upset racists in America by my page on Nathan Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Their main complaint concerned my decision to include a passage from Harper’s Weekly (30th April, 1864) on Nathan Forrest’s role in the Fort Pillow massacre (the killing of a large number of African American soldiers who had surrendered to Forrest’s Confederate Army). Forrest is a hero of the Deep South and would never be criticised in textbooks used in their schools (the internet is now a problem for those educational institutions unwilling to look too closely at their country’s past).
I also get complaints about the factual content on my website. A few days ago I got a very angry email from the last surviving relative of one of my heroes, Robert Tressell. The reason why he was so angry was that in a recently published reference work on English Literature, it made a mistake about Tressell’s life. When he complained to the publisher, they pointed out that they had got the information from my website.
After failing to get his novel, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, published, Tressell moved to Liverpool with his daughter with plans to emigrate to Canada. The mistake I made was to state that because he did not have enough money for two tickets, he sent his daughter on ahead (with the manuscript). Although this story appears in most accounts of Tressell’s life, it apparently never happened. One can see why writers have included this story. As Tressell dies before he can save up enough money to buy his own ticket, it emphasised the tragedy of the situation. The image of the daughter returning with the manuscript, determined to get her father’s book published (something she achieved in 1914) also adds to the power of the story.
When informed of this mistake I immediately corrected my page on Robert Tressell (something the reference books are unlikely to do even if they are reprinted – correcting mistakes is an expensive business in book publishing). I also sent a polite reply to Tressell’s last surviving relative. This is a strategy I adopt to all hostile email writers. This embarrasses them and they usually reply in the same style. This worked and I had a delightful reply inviting me to his home to look at the Robert Tressell family archive. I readily accepted and will soon be making a trip to Felbridge.
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Hope you all like the new banner on the forum designed by the very talented Mr Field of schoolhistory.co.uk
Very good. Once again Andrew Field has shown he has a good eye for design. Much better than my initial efforts.
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Please help
in English:Help
Posted
This might be online. See the following:
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/literacy/