Today, we did a top government school. The sort of Melbourne government school where there is a major premium on housing prices in its catchment area. (So much so, it would be cheaper to buy in a cheaper area and pay to send your kids to Scotch: but you would not get the capital gain--the notion that government schools decrease social inequalities ( Read more... )

Was in the city yesterday (Saturday), walking along Lonsdale St and, stopped for the traffic at a traffic island, heard the young man of East Asian descent with spiky hair holding the hand of a very pale, blonde girlfriend say into his mobile phone "What do you want to do, bro?" So does globalisation makes cosmopolitans of us all (to varying ( Read more... )

There can be a lot of frustration in teaching: but there are also rewards. Friday just gone spent time time an outer suburban school which, as the organising teacher said, is divided between haves and have nots ( Read more... )

Having previously commented on folk not noticing traffic flow, this morning observed a car-carrying truck be particularly stupid about traffic flow. Two lanes were closed due to an accident just before the Bolte Bridge feed in. So, the car-carrying truck decides to move from an unblocked lane to a blocked lane, getting in the way of the flow of ( Read more... )

Thursday and Friday, my ignition switch kept locking, so it was only with great difficulty and jiggling I was able to get it to work each time. Needless to say, this discouraged car use! Since I had schools both days, this led to a late night conversation on Thursday with ND when it look like I would not be able to start the car at all ( Read more... )

Tuesday night went to the opening of the exhibition of ancient coins at the Ian Potter Museum at Melbourne University, a guest of Allan S, one of our presenters ( Read more... )

Last Sunday, we engaged in that well-known business practice Exploit The Children Of Your Staff. Our office manager and our booking person (plus husband) turned up with their kids and a couple of extra kids at N&M's place to model photos for our website. There the kids were dressed up in ancient and medieval costumes, in armour with weapons, they ( Read more... )

Did an Ancient Day at Alkira Secondary today. It was in a new estate that was not in my Melways™. But, when I Google™ Mapped it, Google told me that there was a road where was not ( Read more... )

Had our first three school bookings of actual teaching days and am consequently a brain-dead tired thing this evening. (So no new stitch&bitch for me.)

Not that the days were not fun, they were. Two medieval days at Xavier and an ancient day at Westbourne Grammar.

Wednesday did three periods of Troubadors followed by two of Tournament were I did ( Read more... )

About the effect of the “Anything But Knowledge” doctrine in teacher education on teaching:
For over 80 years, teacher education in America has been in the grip of an immutable dogma, responsible for endless educational nonsense. That dogma may be summed up in the phrase: Anything But Knowledge. Schools are about many things, teacher educators say ( Read more... )