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Kenny Pieper

Some thoughts on silent reading

2012-07-01T16:21:23+01:00July 1st, 2012|English, literacy, reading|

Is silence is golden? "And Johnny, what makes you think that is suitable for silent reading?"  "Because Sir, you really would not want me to read it out loud" Jim Smith, The Lazy Teacher's Handbook Apparently silent reading hasn't been around as long as you might think. The 4th Century church leader Saint Ambrose's reading habits were unusual enough for Saint Augustine to note in Book 6, chapter 3 of his Confessions that: When [Ambrose] read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still. Anyone [...]

Why do I need a teacher if I’ve got Google and a granny?

2016-09-04T22:03:59+01:00December 4th, 2011|learning|

NB - Having reviewed the evidence, I am now thoroughly convinced I was wrong about all this. Instead, try reading Is it just me or is Sugata Mitra an irresponsible charlatan?  Over the summer I watched Sugata Mitra's jaw-dropping Ted Talk on Child Driven Education and was bowled over. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6wPHOorAkM This, I said to myself, could change everything. Mitra outlines the results of a series of remarkable experiments which began with embedding computers into the walls of Indian slums at child height  and then watching to see what children did with them. Unsurprisingly these computers were magnets to the street kids [...]

Why do I need a teacher if I've got Google and a granny?

2011-12-04T01:12:19+00:00December 4th, 2011|learning|

NB - Having reviewed the evidence, I am now thoroughly convinced I was wrong about all this. Instead, try reading Is it just me or is Sugata Mitra an irresponsible charlatan?  Over the summer I watched Sugata Mitra's jaw-dropping Ted Talk on Child Driven Education and was bowled over. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6wPHOorAkM This, I said to myself, could change everything. Mitra outlines the results of a series of remarkable experiments which began with embedding computers into the walls of Indian slums at child height  and then watching to see what children did with them. Unsurprisingly these computers were magnets to the street kids [...]

Reasons to be cheerful

2011-09-26T21:31:49+01:00September 26th, 2011|learning|

So, it's now the fourth week back and despite been plum tuckered (I've a vague notion that this means tired) I'm still smiling. I've just read Kenny Pieper's latest post on how he's feeling after (in his case) six weeks back and thought it timely to read over my Back To School post written on the first day back after bathing in the rosy glow of creativity that my wonderful faculty had induced in me on hearing about the splendid variety of good things they intended to forge ahead with this year. In order to maintain the mad-eyed positivity needed to [...]

Do It Yourself

2011-09-05T19:29:41+01:00September 5th, 2011|learning|

There is a certain amount of irony in the title of today's post in that I haven't written it myself. Instead it comes from the typing fingers of the marvellous Kenny Pieper. His excellent blog Just Trying to be Better than Yesterday is well worth a read. There are two reasons for this: 1. I'm knackered after the first day back at school - even though it was only an INSET day. 2. Kenny has already written exactly what I would have wanted to write. So without further ado: Over the summer holidays I caught up with a few Ted talks, [...]

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