Prime Minister David Cameron makes the front page of The Times in the UK today with a headline that throws down the gauntlet in the battle to conquer disadvantage and inequality, beginning with social mobility – specifically, children’s potential in life, as determined by the start they get. Setting out his ‘bucket list’ of what …
Category: Tiger Mother
Oct 25
Lessons from the Dalai Lama: we should honour our teachers
Yesterday we celebrated World Teachers’ Day in school, and it reminded me of something I have been meaning to write about for some time. When the Dalai Lama visited Sydney recently, I was fortunate to be present at his public talk in the Sydney Entertainment Centre, and – as one would expect from a talk …
Feb 18
Schools: places of amazing professional learning
Schools are at their essence about students – the student sits (or should sit) at the heart of all endeavour in the school; schools are there in order to educate students and to assist in guiding their personal development and growth. Schools were invented to ensure that young people were well-prepared to play a role …
Nov 07
Why teaching is like being on a log flume: new teachers take note!
Earlier today I had the privilege of addressing a group of NQTs (Newly Qualified Teachers) at a post-qualification training day. All of them are in post and all of them are working towards their final accreditation as teachers; support and training days like this one are designed to invigorate their thinking, give them time to …
Oct 05
Why teacher-pupil relationships are never right
In the aftermath of the Jeremy Forrest affair – not that there can ever really be an end point, given the huge fractures which have cut across the lives not just of the girl involved and her teachers, but of their respective families and communities – it has been instructive to watch and read how …
Mar 23
Let teachers be teachers
I offer my thanks to a former Headmistress of Ascham School in Sydney who pointed me in the direction of The New York Review of Books and a recent review by Diane Ravitch of a book by Pasi Sahlberg, ‘Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?’. Finland, of course, which …