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WHY WE SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT THE GREECE DEBT CRISIS 


AMERICAN POLITICS: WHO'S RUNNING THE ASYLUM?



THE POWER AND THE PASSION


Worst Baby Names in the World


Celebrity Chefs


DARWIN’S THEORY OF YARD DUTY


THE ART OF THE COMPLAINT LETTER

CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF WORLD BAFFLES BELIEVERS


TEN EMERGENCY JOKES NO COMEDY WRITER SHOULD EVER BE WITHOUT


FROM TROTTER TO TWITTER: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMAN (MIS) COMMUNICATION


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Wednesday
Apr022014

Reimagining the Education System 

The current public school system baffles me. Don’t get me wrong; obviously it is efficient and has proven effective, but every system has room for improvement. Just take a look at your average high school student, for example – odds are they are banging their head against the table and falling asleep in class, dreaming about either the opposite sex or food (or both?).

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Thursday
Mar142013

"Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning" - how have I never heard this??

I just came across a really interesting, important, and rather terrifying-that-I-never-had-any-idea article called "Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning" by Mario Vittone.

The title of the article basically gives you an idea of what it's about, but it's important to read what drowning DOES look like because - here's a surprise - someone could be drowning RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU and you don't even realize it.

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Friday
Feb222013

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo...

I learned something random last night while watching Dr. Who with my friend Stuart. It's not uncommon for weird things to come up with Dr. Who - I will forever have moving mannequins, a plastic-faced Noel Clarke, and a theater of some of the most bizarre aliens I've ever seen (Lady Cassandra, anyone?) gathered to witness the rather surreal death of Earth - and Stuart busting out the most random tidbits of knowledge ever is pretty standard, so while neither of us particularly enjoy show per se, it may turn out to be a useful springboard for my continuing world education in its own strange way. 

This particular...um..."life lesson", if you will, came in the form of some world-saving password being "Buffalo" on last night's episode. When Mickey (Noel Clarke back in non-plastic form) asks the doctor for a password again, the doctor tells him to just repeat it every time. This made Stuart - an English as a Second Language teacher - chime in with, "Did you know that "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence? 

What?

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Saturday
Sep242011

E = MC Squared = Baloney?

 

A 'Law of Physics' is only so if it cannot be disproven. In the 1920's Einstein came up with the Theory of Relativity which has stood its ground for nearly 100 years. Scientists in Switzerland's CERN nuclear laboratory seem to have made particles smaller than atoms travel faster than light... or have they?

Einstein pronounced the apparently unshakeable law that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in the 1920’s. The Theory of Relativity was pronounced a ‘Law of Physics’ and was held as a major law of how the universe works. Science is about proof, and if you can disprove something you lose its certainty.

 The particle accelerators at CERN in Switzerland are basically huge circular tubes round which particles smaller than an atom are fired. Particles called Neutrinos were fired around it and they travelled faster than the speed of light. According to Einstein this would be impossible

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Wednesday
Sep072011

The Power and the Passion

I’ve found over the last five years of being in the teaching game, that teaching has a lot to do with red tape and impossibly high expectations from teachers AND students and very little to do with open communication. Let me explain. There are amazing teachers out there. I’m proud to say I’m friends with several of them. They are passionate, dedicated, knowledgeable, personable and kind. They know their students, they know their subject area and they know their job. Unfortunately, with every new school year comes a new scheme. A new curriculum. A new way to mark work. A new way to write reports. A new way of doing things. Rarely are we given the opportunity to fully develop a unit of work before it is changed or ‘tweaked’ to fit a new expectation or standard of the Department of Education or the school itself.

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Wednesday
Jul062011

Darwin's Theory of Yard Duty

How many of you, on a beautiful Spring day (or any day, for that matter), whilst sitting at your desk doing whatever it is you do, have played this game:

‘I’m not a window cleaner in a lap dance room... I’m not a child labourer in Asia... I’m not a coal miner in 1862... I’m not Naomi Campbell’s Personal Assistant...’

So frequently we find ourselves unhappy with our choice of occupation or, more specifically, unhappy with particular parts of our choice of occupation.

We cheeky humans can never be fully satisfied no matter how good we’ve got it, and even though I’m grateful to be a teacher and I enjoy my job (most of the time), there are still elements that grate and cause me to play a round or two of ‘I’m Not A...’ every now and again.

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Wednesday
Jun152011

The kids today


Oh, what are we to do with the kids today? Their minds' are everywhere. Shifting focus and bored out of their wits in school. Oh, what are we to do with the kids today? The kids of today, the kids of today…

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Thursday
Apr282011

Waxing Lyrical

From the Baby Boomers and their revolutionary mentality, to Gen X and their generalised lack of identity; each generation attempts change but the change is sabotaged by generations passing down society’s problems to the next group of uninformed minds. “Here ya go son, have some racism, homophobia, financial crisis, and a little global warming. Take what I have and make it worse.”

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