Month: Jun 2013

‘Education’ is rarely out of the news these days, with a conveyor belt of reviews and reforms. Some recent social media exchanges have highlighted the distinction, made by the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci amongst others, between ‘education’ and ‘schooling’.

While we should acknowledge and welcome the fact that existing funding for adult andcommunity learning was protected in last week’s Comprehensive Spending Review given the current economic climate, it seems that most of the reported policy discussion about ‘education’ is actually about ‘schooling’. The main focus appears to be on ideology and control in primary and secondary education.

Speaking at the recent Sunday Times Festival of Education, Prof. A C Grayling suggested that, “Teaching to the exam has squeezed out education in favour of schooling” (Earlier this year,Grayling placed a bid to open a free secondary school in Camden.)

In this context, it’s interesting to remember that Education Secretary Michael Gove told the Social Market…

The newly formed Birmingham Women’s Campaign called a protest outside the Katie Road NHS walk-in centre yesterday. Those present talked to service users and knocked on doors in thelocality explaining the issue andgetting the petition filled in.

There have recently been two denials that the walk-in centres are going to be closed. The first was from Kings Norton Councillor Steve Bedser, the city council cabinet member for health and wellbeing. The other was from Dr Andrew Coward, head of the new South Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), who stated categorically at a local NHS Listening Meeting that no NHS Walk-In Centres in South Birmingham will be closed. This was reported at a Patient Participation Group meeting for Granton Surgery (Middleton Hall Road) last week.

These welcome reassurances were heard after the big campaign in Erdington made the closure of its walk-in centre politically unacceptable. The task now…

United Kingdom (Photo credit: stumayhew)

Further to Dr Alf’s reblogging of John Cassidy’s excellent article, entitled “The Mistaken Lessons of History : a UK Misfortune“,  published in the  New Yorker, I should like to make some additional observations.

Austerity and cutting on their own are never going to work because the jobs which are lost as a result will not be replaced unless other measures are taken in parallel.

Secondly, austerity has to be delivered quickly as was the case with Canada and Ireland where it was applied for two short years and where people were told in advance why it was being done and how growth would be engineered.

In the UK, we have had austerity delivered too slowly and without the accompanying additional measures.

A comprehensive list of necessary measures should include (inter alia):

a) Lower taxes to get money hidden offshore brought back onshore and thus…

This is an excellent and MUST READ article from John Cassidy, published in the NYT.

via Austerity and the Mistaken Lessons of History : The New Yorker.

Personally, I think that John Cassidy argues the case against UK economic policy brilliantly. It seems that much of the UK political classes and the UK media is currently being brain-washed.

Any thoughts on why and what to do about it?

Related articles

• The Bernanke Put: Can the Markets and the Economy Live Without It? : John Cassidy – The New Yorker
• Why Is Europe So Messed Up? An Illuminating History : The New Yorker
• Off Topic – Demonizing Edward Snowden: Which Side Are You On? : The New Yorker
• Real issues and light entertainment. John Cassidy: In defense of political journalists
• Cassidy: Austerity is Crushing Europe
• What Everyone Knows About Austerity
• Austerity Economics Doesn’t Work: We’re All Keynesians Now
• Why…

Unfortunately from time to time in the world of teaching you can encounter another member of staff that seems to be making your life difficult. This may include

• talking to other people about you behind your back.
• deliberately putting your ideas down during a meeting.
• criticising you by e-mail and copying other people, often senior people into it. The cc and bcc are rarely used carefully.
• greying matters by telling half truths.
• talking to the students in their classes about you. A false and wholly inappropriate way of them gaining respect.

If you think this is happening to you then the worse thing you can do is to do nothing. You must confront the person directly and take the following steps

1. Ask the person that you would like to talk to them privately – don’t do this by e-mail, keep it all face to face.
2. Tell the person how…

If you are a Head of Department in a school then you will want to do your best to maintain a good team spirit. Here are twelve ways that you can do this  – if you have any more then please comment.

1. Communicate well with honesty – you could have a weekly briefing sheet with all the important events and deadlines on it.
2. Be visible in the department, for instance make sure you around at break times and lunchtimes.
3. Set the standard – make sure that you are seen to be working hard and not going against the school ethos. Lead by example and set high standards
4. Make an effort to point out the good in what people are doing. If someone in your team has spent time putting up a display then go and look at and make them feel appreciated. Celebrate what you see.
5. Make sure that…

(satire?)

Educational experts have expressed reservations over Education Secretary Michael Gove’s announcement that the coalition government intends to phase out teaching in state schools.

According to reports, government ministers have already started talks to phase out the provision of education in primary and secondary schools in order for schools to focus more on their core function of making money – without the need to teach pupils, as required by existing legislation. 

Some experts however have criticised the plans, saying the complete axing of all teaching in schools could possibly lead in some cases to pupils not actually learning anything at all.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education, explained the reasons for the plans:

One of the biggest obstacles to the smooth running of a school is the distraction of constantly having to teach things to children.

It’s clear that unless we allow our schools to be able to…

(It’s not satire – it’s ATOS)

Workers at an ATOS office in the Mann Island area of Liverpool refused to allow a Labour councillor to accompany disabled claimants during their medical assessments.

They also threatened that any disabled claimant who was accompanied by Cllr Joe Walsh during their ‘fit for work’ test could have their benefits ‘affected’.

And when the councillor and a welfare advice expert who was accompanying him asked for the refusal to be put it in writing – amazingly the ATOS staff called the police on them.

Here’s the full story from the Liverpool Daily Post:

Police called after welfare experts offer advice to disabled ahead of Atos sickness benefit assessment

The police – obviously – later confirmed no-one had broken the law.

Apart from the seriousness of attempting to prevent a democratically elected representative from helping his constituents – and the equally serious issue of wasting…