Tuition madness: are schools useless?
I got a spam phone call from a tuition seller, but it is a worrying symptom of the rise of tuition in the UK. He asked whether I had children at school, to which I truthfully, albeit misleadingly, answered “no” because I do not choose to send my daughter to school. (more…)
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Teaching kids about money vs maths
People often say maths is useless in real life. it is boring, we do not use it, etc. We should teach useful skills to kids. I am writing this in response to a social media comment that kids should be taught about finance instead of things like Pythagoras’s theorem. (more…)
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Does web design matter?
I recently visited the website of a amateur theatre company, and any web designer would say it is awful. Anyone with the slightest aesthetic sense will say it is ugly. As a user of the site, it is perfectly good and better than most sites a designer would like. (more…)
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No progress in two and a half millennia?
This passage from (Pseudo-)Xenophon’s Constitution of the Athenians, the last sentence in particular, could have been written today, and it seems we cannot run things better now than then. (more…)
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Racism is not one thing: experiences of different cultures
I have lived in two countries, and worked in another, on different continents, and been obviously ethnic minority in all three. I will start with my own birth certificate. It states my race. It states my parents races. This was regarded as normal and necessary until just three years ago. (more…)
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Schools are failing, and flexible education is the answer
Schools have been deteriorating for many years, and lockdown hastened the crisis this caused – but the deterioration dates back many years, and the underlying cause is the stubborn focus on a Victorian model of education and the addiction to metrics. The solution lies in empowering pupils and parents. (more…)
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Why CO₂ emissions will keep rising.
We have had many climate change agreements that have not changed anything. The greenwashing was inevitable and to be expected. This graph from Our World in Data says it all: there has been no change in trajectory.
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Homeschooling tips from a home educator
My daughters were both home educated for many years (the younger one still is) and I want to share some things I have learned along the way with parents who find themselves temporarily home schooling because of lockdown.
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There is no such thing as Home Education
The public view (shared by media and politicians) of home education often seems to be that it simultaneously means parents assiduously coaching children to get firsts in maths when they are 14 while simultaneously neglecting their education so they never get any qualifications. The problem is that they expect home education to exist in a way it simply does not. (more…)
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You should not home educate because of covid
I am an advocate of home education, but I doubt one group of people currently switching are making the right decision. Not all, by any means: it depends on why and what you want. (more…)
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