6 pm pyjamas

For my Ed.D, I'm looking at English, culture, books, why we think all these are important, how we teach them and ultimately, do we need our children and young people to have prior knowledge of well, just about everything or a certain set of things in order to get the most out of their reading experiences?  Thirty odd years ago, an American academic, E D Hirsch published his Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.  This makes for an interesting read; setting down everything that American children should know which will allow them to get the most out of their education and become successful and useful citizens.  This notion of needing to know things, that we get the most out of learning when it links to something that is already known, is something that many conservative (also labelled, traditional) educationalists over here in the UK, believe to be key in teaching English in our schools. In this case, familiarity does not breed contempt and certainly, in modern children's and YA...

Witch, hearts, fondue, Glitch, Almost, Thimble. I feel guilty a lot of the time.  It is ridiculous and definitely counter productive but I just can't seem to help it.  In a self-help kind of way, I'm going to mention all the great new things that I now have time for in my life, what with working 'part-time' and all...  Dropping the children at school and being there to collect them; more study time where I actually go somewhere scholarly to focus and don't just sit around thinking that I should be doing the hoovering or something equally tedious but necessary; I've started running (again) and it is feeling sustainable right now; cycling to work instead of wasting petrol and wrecking the environment by sitting in traffic, stressing out; time to help out at a friend's stable yard and just enjoy being outside and not having to talk to anyone.  In addition, I have two new jobs and have the prospect of doing some freelance writing, now have a website, and have ...