Category: Uncategorized

Signs of an Anti Racist City

Can’t be there myself but I wish all those involved a successful day and suggest, to anyone in Brighton, to have a look.

StopMfE's avatarStopMfE

SIGNS OF AN ANTI-RACIST CITY
Signs of an Anti-Racist City is an exhibition of the creativity of local people who have made banners, painted placards, drawn signs and held them high on the streets of Brighton to halt the march of racism and fascism.
12-4PM SATURDAY 5TH APRIL 2014
ELM ROOM
THE LEVEL, BRIGHTON
 
Come to the peoples’ park to see the images of the people. Participate in the art of activism.
 
Signs of an Anti-Racist City features of photographs of Simon Dack, Liz Finlayson of The Argus (http://www.theargus.co.uk), Mr Bishie (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbishie), Gail Orenstein (http://www.demotix.com/users/gail-orenstein/profile) and Ken Boddy (http://www.pulse-photography.co.uk)
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Tory council wastes money on an umbrella-wrapping machine but cuts lollipop ladies

Tory councillors seem to be just as hellbent on spending our hard earned taxes on schemes which provide great value – if you’re one of them – as their parliamentary colleagues. Bully for them, boo for the rest of us.

Tom Pride's avatarPride's Purge

(not satire – it’s the Tories!)

Conservative councillors in Tory-controlled Croydon council decided to spend over £140 million on a lavish new HQ for themselves.

No expense has been spared on their cosy new offices – the building comes complete with taps costing £272 each and a £410 umbrella-wrapping machine (I kid you not).

Mind you, at the same time, the council has been telling residents money is so tight that cuts will have to be made to services for the elderly, the disabled, people with mental health problems, youth programmes and children’s care programmes including the axing of school crossing patrols:

Croydon Council’s proposed cuts to hit borough’s most vulnerable

Glad to see Tories getting their priorities right again.

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Please feel free to comment.

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Croydon Council spends £272 on one tap in £140m new HQ

Croydon Council spends £272 on one tap in £140m new HQ

Croydon Council spends £410 on umbrella-wrapping machine for new HQ

http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/Croydon-Council-spends-410-umbrella-wrapping/story-20743895-detail/story.html

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Take Part In Boycott Workfare Week Of Action This Week

Foolishness is a charitable word for this harsh, counterproductive waste of taxpayers’ money on flawed and unfit schemes – something the coalition, preaching a message of austerity, should be avoiding like the plague rather than throwing money at.
If they wish to use that money to stimulate job creation, that’s fine but this scam looks like nothing more than the taxpayer subsidising the payrolls of a select group of organisations.

Birmingham Against The Cuts's avatarBirmingham Against The Cuts

Boycott Workfare 3rd March 03Next week sees a week of action against workfare, as the government introduces the harshest forced labour scheme yet seen – “community work placements”. These placements are full time, lasting for 6 months and build upon the failure of the “Community Action Programme” pilot scheme which had no effect on the chances of someone finding work.

Workfare is the system whereby unemployed and disabled people are forced to work for charities, community organisations and companies under threat of having their benefits stopped entirely for up to three years for unemployed people and losing 70% of their benefits indefinitely for disabled people.

The schemes vary from the theoretically voluntary “Work Experience Programme” to the definitely mandatory “Mandatory Work Activity”. The schemes vary in length from 2 weeks to 2 months, but the government has decided this isn’t enough, since none of the schemes are proving to be any…

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Bedroom Tax Demo – 5th April – One Year On

All the more reason to keep campaigning.
A clear difference in policy between the Coalition and Labour – shame there aren’t a few more. If you’re in the vicinity and free on 5 April please consider joining in.

Birmingham Against The Cuts's avatarBirmingham Against The Cuts

bbj bedroom tax logoHated, unjust and unworkable. One year on the Bedroom Tax is still there – but only just. Campaigning locally and nationally has had an effect.

* In Scotland the Tax has been defeated.

* Pressure has meant the Labour Party has promised they will abolish the tax.

* Birmingham City Council has admitted 3000 people in long term tenancies had benefits taken away in error and they will be given a rebate.

*Court cases have ruled in favour of disabled couples having separate rooms if they wish, and in favour of separated parents needing a room for visiting children, and that a room must be in use as a bedroom to count as a bedroom. These cases could see hundreds of thousands given rebates due to unlawfully having their benefit cut

Protest for benefit justice

Saturday 5th April

1:00pm, Waterstones, High St, City Centre

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Health, wellbeing and adult learning

Commendable. Those of us who have experienced WEA courses, as adult learners or as tutors are well aware of the benefits of continuing education.
All the more reason why it is essential that adult, returner and all strands of continuing education form part of a national life long education strategy.

Ann Walker's avatarLifelong Learning Matters

Improved health and wellbeing can be a driver, a vehicle and an outcome of adult and community learning. This summarised part of an online discussion today with colleagues from other organisations. We agreed to think of some examples from our organisations. Here are some from the Workers’ Educational Association.

Health and wellbeing as a driver for adult learning 

Many people get involved in adult learning to improve their physical and mental health.

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The WEA carried out an impact survey in 2013 of 522 students who had taken part in a range of our adult learning courses in the autumn of 2012. 45 per cent of the people who responded said that their main motivation was ‘to improve wellbeing or keep mind and body healthy and active’. 31 per cent said that they had wanted ‘to improve self-confidence’. The full results of the survey are available here.

Health and wellbeing as a…

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In the ‘Medieval Mud’: When you’re a Male Renaissance Genius, it doesn’t matter if your Facts are Wrong.

I watched a different BBC history glossy the other evening about The Plantagenets. This version of the Middle Ages had powerful women forging alliances and dynasties in the bedchamber and with the sword, or by cunning, or any combination of the aforementioned strategies. It had armies criss-crossing the Channel – no ferries or tunnel – and kings and princes murdering, kidnapping, ransoming each other in a transcontinental bloodbath.
My word, their soldiery, camp-followers, diplomats, envoys and spies were a well-travelled lot!
We are living in an age of revision – one only has to look at what is being offered in the UK school curriculum to see this. Approved canonical texts or lists of ‘facts’ are replacing the development of understanding and insight into processes which drive the subject matter; replacing the examination of contexts in which the knowledge itemised in the canon came to be significant.
And we live, perpetually, in an age of misogyny.

So which version of the Middle Ages is the more correct?

Jeanne de Montbaston's avatarJeanne de Montbaston

I’ve just finished watching a BBC programme with the title ‘A Very British Renaissance‘. Now, I admit I was expecting to have some strong reactions to this, since I came to it from the brilliant scholar David Rundle’s blog, where he’s just written a learned and funny take-down of some of the annoying assumptions therein. As he points out, this programme was dead keen to push an image of a ‘distinctively English’ period of history, during which we Brits left our insular isolation behind and began to beat the Continent at its own game. The emerging British (= English) Renaissance was a time of genius and beauty, so narrator Dr James Fox argues, an amazing advance on the benighted, crude and murky culture of the Middle Ages. It was also, I began to realize, yet another Age Without Women.

The focus of my irritation in this post is…

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Spring Hill Library Victory

A gentle reminder that public servants are just that.
For those who feel there is no point in protest, be aware that such thinking is self-fulfilling:
– You say nothing can be done;
– You do nothing;
– Nothing is done.
And the next time, you say nothing can be done…et cetera.
Here is an example of local people doing something – campaigning – and saying “No, enough!” and tasting victory.

Birmingham Against The Cuts's avatarBirmingham Against The Cuts

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Councillors at the Ladywood District Committee announced they had dropped plans to close Spring Hill Library due to the strength of opposition shown by the local community.
This is a stunning victory for campaigners who have been collecting names for their petition, organising public meetings, and lobbying councillors over the last two months. The petition against closure of Spring Hill obtained 2500 signatories, most collected next to the checkouts in Tesco.

The District Committee said that savings would be found elsewhere, and this raises the danger of moving other facilities into the Library building and reducing the library services, as well as further cuts to play centres or neighbourhood officers.
We say the District Committee should defy the council cabinet and set a district budget that protects all existing services under their control. this is the least which Ladywood deserves.
All power to the campaigners and the community for achieving…

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Teaching for Understanding

Your opening quotation distils what is at the heart of learning. Experience of specific instances build into a generic understanding of a class of instances which can be used to predict other specific instances that may not, hitherto, have been encountered. Hence the presentation of ‘facts’ can support learning but is not enough, in itself.
Your second quotation summarises my concerns about teaching ‘to the test’ without exercising the ability to transfer skills, or apply them in unfamiliar contexts.
The ‘Teaching for Understanding Framework’ you describe understands and gives emphasis to these considerations.
Thank you for posting this.

Ann Walker's avatarLifelong Learning Matters

Learning facts can be a crucial backdrop to learning for understanding, but learning facts is not learning for understanding.

From ‘What is Understanding’ 

Teaching for knowledge or teaching for understanding? This is a hot topic for some educators who use social media. It can become a rather abstract and artificial debate at times but it’s important to think about how ideas of ‘knowledge’ and ‘understanding’ influence curriculum design and day-to-day practice in teaching, learning and assessment.

Is the curriculum relevant to the students?

Can students use the knowledge being taught?

Do students understand the knowledge being learnt?

‘If you can’t actually take an idea outside the classroom and use it, you don’t really get it. But once you use it on your own, its yours forever.’

Robert H Frank, economist

Teachers and researchers at Harvard Graduate School of Education, including Howard Gardner*, David Perkins, Vito Perrone, Rebecca Simmons and Martha Stone Wiske, have put some…

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Funding!

Good luck and best wishes.

freedomsperception's avatarSaoirse's Blog

Hooray! I am preparing to start an MSc in music cognition! However, with academia and research comes the need for funding! I have started my own funding campaign on GoFundMe, this is one of many avenues I’m taking to help fund my forthcoming degree. Take some time to check out my page, any little helps! Thank you 🙂

http://www.gofundme.com/Saoirses-Fund

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Adult educators – an ageing profession?

The article does raise concerns. In an ideal world there would be no need for ‘second chance learning’ because ‘life long learning’ would be central to an education system designed to fit the demands of a flexible population updating existing skills to keep abreast of rapid change in their areas of competence and reskilling completely to acquire the means to switch competencies.
We need a Victorian style Royal Commission to determine what an education system fit for purpose in the twenty-first and into the twenty-second century should look like; and how it should then be brought into existence.

Ann Walker's avatarLifelong Learning Matters

Is there a problem brewing as many of our most skilled and experienced adult educators are growing older and a significant cohort is nearing retirement? Is our profession becoming a grey area? If so, we need to act now to make sure we have continuity by developing younger colleagues to pick up the baton. We need to make sure that much-needed enthusiasm, passion, understanding and know-how is not lost from this important area of teaching, learning, educational outreach and management.

(This blog is based on observation within the wider sector and awareness of the age profile in meetings and events. It is not focusing specifically on the WEA although we have to be aware of succession planning for our future sustainability.)

Adult and community educators have worked with determination and professionalism in a too-often overlooked field of education for decades. They act as teachers, advocates, advisers, mentors and managers who know…

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