John Simkin
-
Posts
15,705 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Store
Posts posted by John Simkin
-
-
Fascinating article by Francis Gilbert in today's Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/j...francis-gilbert
David Cameron's proclamation that the Tories will be "brazenly elitist" about the calibre of candidates entering the teaching profession betrays the fact that he doesn't know anything about teaching. As a teacher in various comprehensives for the past 20 years, I have seen many good teachers, and some, it's true, fit the stereotype that Cameron wants to impose: graduates with good degrees from so-called "good universities". But I've also met a great many excellent teachers who wouldn't have passed his test. Some didn't have degrees in their chosen subjects; others didn't have degrees at all.
Cameron's cardinal mistake is to think qualifications make a good teacher. They don't. When you're faced with 30 truculent children after lunch on a Friday afternoon, qualifications don't count for much. Take Lesley, a high-powered business executive who I mentored as she trained to be a teacher. She had everything: a great degree, excellent organisational skills and good communication skills. Yet she crumbled in the classroom because she was so impatient with her pupils: nothing they did was good enough. Whereas her employees had tolerated her endless nit-picking, her pupils became demotivated and disaffected.
David was another illustration of the shortcomings of Cameron's policy: he had a first-class degree from Oxford and a penchant for oatmeal jackets and cravats. As his mentor, I observed him teach what I felt was a relatively well-behaved class of 12-year-olds. A quarter of an hour in, it was clear that none of the children had the slightest idea what he was talking about; the class began talking, then chucking his elaborate worksheets around the class. Ironically, it was his support teacher, who didn't have a degree at all, who rescued the lesson by explaining in clear English what was required.
If you don't have the right personality, you'll suffer in the bearpit of today's classrooms. In my experience, there are four types of teacher who are effective: the despot, the carer, the charmer, and the rebel. And none of them, in my experience, requires an upper-class degree.
I've come across many despotic teachers in my career. They are the Terminator or Lara Croft of teaching; the tough guy or gal who everyone turns to when the going gets really tough. They are nearly always very experienced teachers who know not only all the pupils but their parents, too, having taught many of them. During my first year of teaching, one of my classes rioted, pushed all the furniture out of my room, swore at me and blew cigarette smoke in my face. I called in the cigar-chomping despot of my school, the deputy head, and he blasted them away with a sound telling off.
Most manuals don't advocate this approach to teaching, but I have to admit it can be very effective, even if morally dubious. Despotic teachers often extract fantastic work from their pupils, and rarely have to use their full armory – their reputations are usually enough. They are often highly organised, making their classrooms into small fortresses, and in my experience nearly always achieve above-average results, because they teach the syllabus to the last letter.
The opposite of the despot is the caring teacher. Without wanting to stereotype too much, many carers are women. They become surrogate parents for their pupils. Many don't have degrees, and have been appointed as "mentors" or "support teachers" to help struggling pupils plan out their lives – working out ways in which they can do their work most effectively. Usually, pupils love seeing their mentors, and learn from them the vital skill of "taking responsibility for their own learning" (as it's known in the jargon). I've taught some pupils who were really going off the rails – taking drugs, skipping school, getting into fights – yet when they were taken under the wing of one of these teachers, they transformed and blossomed.
Unlike the despot, the caring teacher works with lots of people: parents, other teachers, social workers. What she or he manages to do is make pupils see they can control and shape their own lives. The teacher might mother her charges to death in the process, but the end result is nearly always a happy pupil who has achieved very much against the odds.
The "charmer", on the other hand, is quite different from both these previous staples of the teaching profession. They can be a disorganised species, living off adrenaline and wits. They are frequently highly academic, and are in teaching to be mates with their pupils, to understand them and play with them. With this sort of teacher, the classroom becomes one great big, bouncing playground of learning. Take Martin, one of the best teachers I've come across, who would prepare his lessons on the hoof after reading the newspaper, and would totally change direction mid-lesson if hit by some new inspiration. He was very disorganised, but did everything with a wink and a smile.
Finally, there's the most controversial but often most effective kind of teacher: the rebel. These teachers see school as a place that should aim to transform society, and are equally loathed by Tories and New Labourites alike. They are also a dying breed.
Using thinkers such as Karl Marx and the Brazilian educational philosopher Paulo Freire, they believe that our children have been brainwashed by our capitalistic society into making certain assumptions about inequality, exploitation, injustice. They see the classroom as the place where these children can be "deprogrammed" – and make amazing teachers because they are so passionate and persuasive. In the staffroom, they frequently rage against the system, pointing out that education isn't about producing good little workers to prop up our iniquitous society. Even if you disagree with their politics, you have to admit they deliver blinding lessons, whatever their subject.
But the crucial point here is that none of these teachers learned their skills by getting a good degree: they learned them on the job. All could improve by watching other good teachers in the classroom and learning from their techniques. However, there are some "generic" traits which should be borne in mind when discussing what's best for our schools.
Research shows that all the best teachers motivate their pupils to work hard, and assess them very regularly. Recently, I feel I've improved my teaching because I've learned more about assessing my pupils frequently; instead of concentrating upon my teaching, I've looked more closely at what my pupils are learning and tailored my lessons accordingly (I've had to be trained to do this).
There is now a great deal of research to suggest it is not your subject knowledge that's the determining factor of how well your pupils achieve, but how you use your assessment of their achievements to plan and shape succeeding lessons. But I'm well aware that I still need further training in this area. At the moment, I am paying for that training myself in the form of a doctorate in education; there isn't any hope of receiving funding from the government (believe me, I've tried). Luckily, my partner works so we can afford it, but most teachers struggling with families and high living costs cannot.
Instead of demoralising teachers with his ill-informed comments about what makes a good teacher, Cameron should commit himself to putting proper money and time into training the existing teachers in the system. Instead of paying for the training of a "brazen elite" of graduates, he should improve the wages of all teachers so that we are all treated like an "elite". His current policy, if implemented, won't improve the standards of teaching, and will instead further dishearten an already deflated profession.
-
It has just been announced that David Gold and David Sullivan have taken control of 50 per cent of West Ham. Sullivan has just given an interview on Sky Sports News where he has stated that he will not sack Zola as manager (one of the rumours being spread via the media over the weekend).
It is good to have two, long-term West Ham fans in charge of the club. However, they clearly do not have the funds to turn us into a top four club. In his interview Sullivan made it clear that he would welcome other wealthy West Ham fans to buy the other 50%. It has been suggested that Tony Fernandes, might be interested in joining Gold and Sullivan in the project. If that happens, we could well be a force to be reckoned with in the future.
-
Nerina Pallot
Introduction
Everybody's Gone to War
Sophia
Real Late Starter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLMJpYrVrKg
Idaho
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJTvnCYitEQ
All Good People
Patience
Greek Love
-
H.P. Albarelli Jr. is an investigative reporter and writer who lives in the Tampa Bay region of Florida. Other articles he has written about Frank Olson's death, as well as about the post-9/11 anthrax investigation, biological warfare, and other subjects, appear on the World Net Daily web site. Other writings by Albarelli may be found in WITNESS, a literary journal, and Tampa's alternative newspaper, The Weekly Planet. A graduate of Antioch Law School, Albarelli has worked as a researcher, scriptwriter, and technical consultant on several television documentaries including A&E's recent Investigative Report on Frank Olson produced by London's Principal Films. In 1977-80, Albarelli worked in the White House under the Carter Administration and then later served on the Senior Policy Staff for the Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C. Albarelli is a former board member of the London-based Transnational Information Centre and has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. Albarelli's book, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder Of Frank Olson And The CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments, will be published in 2009. Albarelli's novel, The Heap, was published in 2005; his biography of George Hunter White will be published in 2011.
Members are talking about your book here:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15223
There is also a thread on Olson here:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15014
-
Does anyone know if Herbert Matthews of the New York Times ever wrote anything about the JFK assassination?
In 1957 Ruby Phillips, the Bureau Chief in Havana, arranged for Matthews to interview Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra. In the interview Castro spoke about his plans to overthrow Batista.
In July 1959 Matthews returned to Cuba. His reporting of events caused a great deal of controversy: "This is not a Communist revolution in any sense of the word, and there are no Communists in positions of control... Even the agrarian reform, Cubans point out with irony, is not at all what the Communists were suggesting, for it is far more radical and drastic than the Reds consider wise as a first step to the collectivization they, but not the Cubans, want." This was in contrast to the views of Ruby Phillips, who also worked for the New York Times: "Since the victory of the Castro revolution last January, the Communists and the 26th of July movement have been in close cooperation."
Matthews was denounced as a communist sympathizer (he had been attacked for the same reason during the Spanish Civil War).
Earl E. T. Smith, the former Ambassador to Cuba, gave evidence to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on 27th August, 1960. He claimed that Matthews had been working closely with pro-Castro elements in the CIA.
The Man Who Invented Fidel; Castro, Cuba and Herbert L Matthews of the New York Times by Anthony DePalma
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Invented-Fid...ader_1586484427
Jonathan Alter reviewed the above book for The New York Times. There are some great links to Matthews' articles on the left side of the page. A quote from the review:
"His career did not crater all at once. In 1961, John F. Kennedy asked him to the Oval Office after the failure of the C.I.A.-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs. A candid president, trying to learn from his mistakes, had earlier told The Times's managing editor, Turner Catledge, that "you would have saved us from a colossal mistake" if the paper had gone ahead and printed what it knew about the operation beforehand — a sharp contrast to President Bush's attitude toward critical reporting. In his private chat with Matthews, unearthed by DePalma, Kennedy told the reporter that if it hadn't been for the failed invasion, "we might be in Laos now — or perhaps unleashing Chiang." In other words, the botched invasion of Cuba may have spared the United States a much more disastrous invasion of mainland China."Thank you for that Mike. I have ordered a copy of the book and will report back when I have read it.
In 1931 Matthews was sent by the New York Times to work at the Paris Bureau. It was from here that he was dispatched to cover the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Matthews later wrote: "If you start from the premise that a lot of rascals are having a fight, it is not unnatural to want to see the victory of the rascal you like, and I liked the Italians during that scrimmage more than I did the British or the Abyssinians." He later admitted: "The right or the wrong of it did not interest me greatly." This attitude resulted in him being labeled a "fascist".
However, after his reporting of the Spanish Civil War he was accused of being a communist. This was reinforced by the way he covered Cuba. It is not out of the question he was being briefed by liberal elements in the CIA. I am very interested in discovering more about his relationship with JFK.
-
Does anyone know if Herbert Matthews of the New York Times ever wrote anything about the JFK assassination?
In 1957 Ruby Phillips, the Bureau Chief in Havana, arranged for Matthews to interview Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra. In the interview Castro spoke about his plans to overthrow Batista.
In July 1959 Matthews returned to Cuba. His reporting of events caused a great deal of controversy: "This is not a Communist revolution in any sense of the word, and there are no Communists in positions of control... Even the agrarian reform, Cubans point out with irony, is not at all what the Communists were suggesting, for it is far more radical and drastic than the Reds consider wise as a first step to the collectivization they, but not the Cubans, want." This was in contrast to the views of Ruby Phillips, who also worked for the New York Times: "Since the victory of the Castro revolution last January, the Communists and the 26th of July movement have been in close cooperation."
Matthews was denounced as a communist sympathizer (he had been attacked for the same reason during the Spanish Civil War).
Earl E. T. Smith, the former Ambassador to Cuba, gave evidence to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on 27th August, 1960. He claimed that Matthews had been working closely with pro-Castro elements in the CIA.
-
Thank you, Raymond. I've mentioned this subject before. To those following long threads, it is especially exasperating to have to scroll past old post after old post to finally see the new post (which is often only a single line).
If everyone would try to remember to do this it would make reading these threads a lot easier.
Message from reader Chris Lightbown:
Amen to Don Jeffries’ post, above. Why anybody ever quotes anything from previous posts has long mystified me.
Anybody contributing to a thread is, by definition, replying to something already written in that thread – so why repeat it?
Since we all read threads from the top downwards, we know what is being discussed by the time we get to any given post, so the point arises again – why repeat it? It makes no sense and it slows down the whole reading process.
The worst offenders are The Serial Squabblers and The Incomprehensibles, who tend to write at inordinate length and to repeat each others posts as they do so.
It gets worse. Some members – step forward The Squabblers – repeat what are frequently massive posts from a thread they are bickering over and then, as Don says, add a one-line reply at the end. Why?
Do they not understand that we have already read what they are replying to and therefore it doesn’t need repeating?
In the rare cases where something genuinely need repeating - often because it’s a fine-tuned point buried inside a mass of text - then all that’s needed is for somebody to say they want to pick up So & So’s point about XYZ and take it from there.
It’s difficult enough making sense of Kennedy’s assassination without the forum being cluttered up by these sorts of pre-adolescent mistake and since we are talking about elementary blunders, how about those of us who have not discovered the paragraph button, finally making an effort to locate it?
It’s a few buttons to the right of your P and L buttons, it doesn’t bite, it is not a CIA mind-control device awaiting activation and it will help make your post easier to understand……..
If I was one of the Langley Zombies monitoring this forum from my room in the bunker, I’d crack up laughing every time I saw mile long posts being incessantly repeated or the forum descending into levels of shrieking that would disgrace a crèche at feeding time.
In the frequent periods when this forum’s monitors appear to be asleep, (where are they when some of these appalling attacks are made on Jack White?), The Squabblers do more damage to their own cause than a regiment of Langley Zombies could do in a year. The latest multi-thread Zapruder bicker-bout being a classic example.
So what’s to be done? Simple. If The Squabblers could stop squabbling, The Incomprehensibles discover the English language and all of us discover the long lost paragraph button, that would just leave us with who killed Kennedy and the associated issues generated by examining the assassination.
A shrewd thinker might say that was more than enough for us to be getting on with…..
-
John, I've skirmished with Von Pein on several different forums, and am almost positive he was a member of this forum for a few days. As I recall, he wouldn't provide a photo, and was given the heave-ho.
If he was, he was registered under a false name.
-
With all due respect, Duncan, why don't these people post themselves if they expect to have a voice in this forum? Otherwise, it just looks as though you are being used by apologists to post their excuses.
David Von Pein is banned from this forum, Pamela, and therefore could not post the information here.
I asked Gary for permission to post his thoughts as relayed to Mr Von Pein. I thought everyone, especially alterationists, would be interested in reading and considering the information furbished by him.
The forum used to enforce a rule that NO BANNED MEMBER can use a surrogate to post
messages. What happened to that rule? Duane Daman was banished by Burton, and I
was admonished for posting something from Duane. Why doe the same not apply to
VonPain?
Jack
Jack, it is my understanding that rule still applies. If von Pain was banned here, I will delete all of his forwarded messages, in line with our fearless leader Burton. I was unaware he was ever here as a member. It was before my joining, perhaps. Just demonstrate it to be so, and anyone's posts of his messages, no matter who posted them, will be deleted....as per Burton.
David Von Pein has never been a member of this Forum. If I remember rightly, members have claimed that he was using a false name on the Forum. That is why we brought in the photograph as avatar rule. At the time, it was a common complaint from our more paranoid members that posters were not who they said they were.
It also should be made clear that members are not banned but put on moderation. Evan never banned Duane Daman. Moderators do not have that power. Nor do they have the power to delete messages. What they can do is to make them invisible so that a decision can be made by Andy or myself.
-
I thought this posting needed its own thread. Please post here your own tips for using the Forum.
I am not a moderator here, and I know next to nothing about computers or software, but I have managed to figure out the simple basics of how the forum software works. I think it would make life so much easier for everyone who reads the forum if members would cease and desist from reposting IN FULL the posts they are responding to.If you want to address a particular point in someone's post All you have to do is
1. Hit the reply button
2. Delete everything except the text you wish to comment on
3. Make sure you do not delete A/ the FIRST LINE which shows the previous posters name etc. and B/ the final "quote" symbol
4. Then hit PREVIEW POST to make sure you haven't screwed up
Then add your own comments.
THere is also an even easier way to highlight something you wish to comment on. See the column of symbols beginning on the left with the b (BOLD) symbol? ON that column, second from the right is a symbol that will say "wrap in quote tags" when you hold the cursor over it.
First left click the mouse and run the cursor over the the relevant text to highlight it, then click the "wrap in quote tags"
-
Would anyone have a photograph of Jock Cunningham?
-
ATTETNTION, KING OF ALL MODERATORS:
Could you please make it common place or a rule, that in this Forum, people not QUOTE the whole thread when posting? If a viewer is reading the thread, there is no need to quoye the WHOLE thread all over again.
I sense that this is done, sometimes, for self promotion. As most of the large quotes, have some kind of website link or 10,000 word essay attached to it.
Negative things about extensive posts with many quotes:
1. Its very annoying to scroll through a whole page of quotes to find the post at the end
2. It takes up space on the site.
3. My roller ball on my mouse is almost work out.
4. It could prevent readers from finishing the thread due to the convoluted post of others posting 20 quotes
5. Nobody needs to read the same thing twice. One cab always go back a page or 2 to get caught up.
Please Help.
Please alert the forum to stop this abuse of quoting everything in the thread. Please.
thank you
I agree but I doubt if the moderators have the time to edit these posts. I would like to think that members would realize it is counter-productive to quote such large chunks of text.
-
Over the weekend Oliver Stone announced that he is putting together for American TV a ten-part series: Secret History of 20th Century America. It will include a fresh look at the assassination of JFK. Stone's collaborator on his Secret History, is Peter Kuznick, professor of history at the Washington-based American University.
-
I have just sent an email with your plea to JS. FWIW, I agree he has a good prime fascia case for an exemption from a photo. Did he ever send an email directly to JS? If he doesn't have a means, pass it on to me and I'll pass it on to JS directly. Peter
I will contact Bill directly about this.
-
Doug Horne speaking on Black Op Radio:
I have decided that it’s an unalterable, irrefutable fact that there was a medical cover-up at the highest levels of [the government in] President Kennedy’s death, of the true facts in his death. I don’t think that is subject to dispute anymore. One can still argue about who killed the president or why and that will probably go on forever, but I don’t think it can be denied anymore that there was a medical coverup and the reason I feel so confident in that assertion is that there are six areas where I found fraud in the evidence. Before we launch into the first one I would say to the listeners imagine that the Kennedy assassination puzzle, it’s like a 500 piece picture puzzle that you buy at the store, and imagine that in 1963 someone took half of the pieces 250 of the pieces and just threw them away and then put in 250 pieces that really didn’t belong in that puzzle just to confuse everyone and to present a false picture. And unfortunately, what I think researchers did for decades was to try to assemble this puzzle where half the pieces were missing and half the pieces they had to deal with were of the wrong picture.
-
In 1936 a small group of young people were politically active in Reading. They were in two different groups. Reg Saxton, William Ball and Thora Silverthorne were in the Young Communist League and Roy Poole, John Boulting, Josh Francis and Rosamund Powell were in the Labour Party Labour League of Youth.
On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War they all decided to volunteer their services in the fight against fascism. Saxton, Silverthorne, Poole, Boulting and Powell joined the British Medical Unit that served behind the front-line helping the forces of the Popular Front Government, whereas Ball and Francis joined the International Brigades.
Although the BMU did suffer casualties, all five survived the war. However, the casualty rate of the International Brigades was much higher and both Ball and Francis were killed.
On their return Roy Poole married Rosamund Powell. Reg Saxton and Thora Silverthorne played an important role in the development of the National Health Service. John Boulting became a significant figure in the history of British cinema, producing and directing films such as Brighton Rock (1947), Fame Is the Spur (1947), Seven Days to Noon (1950), Lucky Jim (1957), Brothers in Law (1957), Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959), I'm All Right Jack (1959), Heavens Above! (1963), The Family Way (1966) and There's a Girl in My Soup (1970). These films helped to make stars of Ian Carmichael, Richard Attenborough, Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPsaxtonR.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wsilverthorne.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPballB.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPboulting.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPfrancisJ.htm
-
There will be a delay in Hank Albarelli contributing to the forum as his father died yesterday.
-
Here is a photograph of Dr. Reg Saxton treating Harry Dobson just before his death:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPsaxtonR.htm
-
Harry Dobson was a coalminer from the Rhondda Valley. Dobson was involved in the campaign against fascism. He was sent to prison after taking part in one demonstration against Oswald Mosley. On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War he joined the British Battalion of the International Brigades.
Dobson took part in the fighting at Brunete, Huesca, Gandesa and Ebro. The author of Wales and the Spanish Civil War (2004) points out: "Many incidents of the bloody and prolonged encounter between the English-speaking battalions and the 6th Bandera of the Spanish Foreign Legion, an elite Nationalist unit which was well dug in to the key pinnacles, have passed into legend. The hill was attacked repeatedly for four or five days, incurring severe losses, and all in vain. At the first onslaught, Dobson was badly wounded in the upper abdomen and fell alongside Morris Davies (Treharris). Both men sustained their injuries whilst attacking enemy positions without thought of their own safety, an action which deserves to be regarded as heroic. It was an advanced and exposed position and only one stretcher party was in the vicinity. The bearers chose to take Davies, whose wound was more immediately life-threatening. Dobson lay helpless and in agony within the fire field for some time before being rescued."
Morris Davies later recalled: "I was given orders to capture a ridge. As I advanced with six other men we were peppered with enemy fire. We would not have achieved our objective had not Harry Dobson of the Rhondda given us cover-fire. Harry and I were caught by shrapnel. He insisted that his wound was not as bad as mine and... that I should be taken back on a stretcher first."
As there was only one available stretcher it was sometime before he was eventually taken back to base camp. Nan Green, Patience Darton and Leah Manning were all involved in nursing Dobson when he was wounded at the Battle of the Ebro. Green later recalled Manning holding his hand until he died. Manning later described what happened: "Patience (Darton) was just coming on duty for the night and as we went into the cave, the stretcher bearers brought in an English comrade from the British Battalion who was gravely wounded in the abdomen. He had had his spleen removed and Reggie Saxton had given him a blood transfusion. As I stood by he opened his eyes and spoke my name. I recognised him as a comrade whom I had met at a by-election in South Wales, a miner from Tonypandy named Harry Dobson. Dr. Jolly told me that it was not possible that he could live in fact they thought only a few hours, so I determined to stay by him until the end. Actually, it was fifteen hours before he passed away but I did not leave him during that time and he seemed very happy to have me there."
Harry Dobson died on 28th July 1938.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUdobsonH.htm
-
-
Anyone interested in using the forum to interview Hank P. Albarelli about this book?
-
Social Networking -
Namebase has failed to note that he worked with Tracy Barnes, E.Howard Hunt, William (Rip) Robertson, David Atlee Phillips, Chi Chi Quintero, David Morales and Ted Shackley in CIA anti-Castro activities.
-
Courtney A. Evans, 95, a top FBI official who served as a liaison among FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, died on 11th December.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0010503663.html
Interestingly, Evans is mentioned in Christine Keeler's autobiography, The Truth at Last (2001):
When the FBI investigated they were able to involve Maria Novotny with a Hungarian madam in New York. What alarmed them further was my association with Eugene Ivanov. You could see how two and two could add up to a very big number indeed with all this information. I believe the Americans were convinced that a worldwide sex-for-information network, an elaborate blackmail operation, was going on. And that the most powerful man in the world, their president, had sampled the pleasures of these female sex spies. Certainly, Bobby Kennedy did not conceal the concerns of himself and his brother.
The Bowtie files talk of Stephen's American connections such as Averell Harriman, the former US ambassador to London, and the billionaire Paul Getty. There is mention of the "Man in the Mask" party. Mariella's story was published on 29 June 1963, and she talked only of Suzy Chang and "a US government official who holds a very high elected post".
At 3.05 p.m. that same afternoon, the President's brother called Courtney Evans, a senior deputy of the FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, to tell him about the story and order an investigation. According to a memo, "the Attorney General stated that the President had expressed concern regarding this matter'. The FBI, which had been concentrating, foolishly, on the air force guys, now went all a flutter. Memos were circulated between Hoover and his deputies about the possibility of "an espionage-prostitution ring operating in England with American ramifications".
Bowtie files show that FBI agents were sent out all over America, where Suzy Chang and Maria Novotny had worked. They identified Chang as Esther Sue Yan Chang, the daughter of two Chinese immigrants who lived in New York, but who had herself been refused a visa to live in America.
-
Peter Spencer, 2nd Viscount Churchill, is one of the most interesting characters in British history. However, his name rarely appears in history books. Even Wikipedia does not have a page on him. To find out why this aristocrat became a Marxist see:
David Cameron's Plans for Education
in Debates in Education
Posted
Report in today's Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/ja...ndards-prestige
David Cameron will today unveil "brazenly elitist" plans to deter graduates with third-class degrees and those from some former polytechnics from entering the teaching profession.
As part of a push to make teaching "the noble profession" attracting the "best brains", a Tory government would deny state funding for training to graduates who achieve a third.
Students who achieve a 2:1 or above in maths or a "rigorous science subject from a good university" could apply to have their student loan written off. This definition would exclude mainly graduates from most former polytechnics, renamed universities in 1992.
At the launch of the education section of the Tories' draft general election manifesto, Cameron will declare that he hopes to emulate Finland, Singapore and South Korea, which have attracted some of the brightest graduates into teaching by making it a "high-prestige profession".
The Tory leader will say: "They are brazenly elitist – making sure only the top graduates can apply. They have turned it into the career path if you've got a good degree … We should be equally bold here. So we will end the current system where people with third-class degrees can get taxpayers' money to enter postgraduate teacher training.
"With our plans, if you want to become a teacher – and get funding for it – you need a 2:2 or higher. And we will also make sure we get some of the best graduates into teaching by offering to pay off their student loan. As long as you've got a first or 2:1 in maths or a rigorous science subject from a good university, you can apply."
Cameron, who took a first in politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford, will set out his thinking at a city academy school in London. Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary who took a 2:1 at Oxford, has long campaigned for the Tories to raise standards in teacher training.