Geography Teacher.......

Love this bloke....very funny. He looks like geography teacher to me......

Geographer - Lover's Game

Geographer - Verona (Acoustic) - AllSaints Basement Sessions

Pet Policy.........

Ace Ventura - Yes Satan?

Geography Dancing Fun

Long Man of Wilmington gets a 'Boyzilian'......

On the way home from Sussex yesterday we stopped off at the Long Man of Wilmington in the Cuckmere valley and passed a couple heading towards it as we left. Now I'll admit....it did occur to me to walk up to the figure and position myself strategically upon his person....but I thought better of it, only to see the other guy do exactly what I had intended. Blokes eh....? Well I am sure that many people think I'm a dick, but I just wanted to prove that I am a big one......

Art Attack.......

Roosting wrens....how many?!!

I have been away for a few days and last night, as I went out of the kitchen door to sort out some recycling, I happened to glance up at the wren nest wedged tightly against the wall behind the creeper. In the receding light I could count at least three beaks sticking out but it was clear from the shape of the nest that more birds were roosting within. My maximum count was twelve and this footage of wrens coming to roost communally is a fascinating insight into how small birds survive extremely cold temperatures at night. I love the quiet twittering they make as they greet eachother, although this isn't audible in this clip.

Where the land meets the sea........

Lies, damned lies and exam grades..........

I am very proud of what Team GB achieved in the hugely successful London 2012 Olympics - my personal highlight was being present at Wembley to cheer on our women against Brazil in the football, along with a crowd of 70,000....and what a haul of medals....all those fabulous Golds, Silvers and Bronzes....FAR better than our previous Olympians of recent history managed to achieve. Based on Mr Gove’s logic, rather than the joyous outcome of a huge investment of time, money and expertise combined with immense dedication, effort and courage on the part of our athletes, is it just that the whole thing has just got a lot easier? I mean, was it 1996 when we only achieved one gold?  How many in 2012? Surely a brilliant example of gold, rather than grade, inflation?

As a  teacher I have endured the annual farce where the achievements of hard-working students are belittled by politicians and other commentators who seem to feel entitled to comment, not because they have any experience of teaching and what it entails, but simply because they once went to school, which is a bit like saying that you are expertly qualified to comment on the reasons for our swimming team’s underachievement because as a child you splashed up and down a pool with more than a passing resemblance to a sheep dip wearing inflatable arm bands and a slab of polystyrene.  ‘I managed to get from one end of the pool to the other as a kid without drowning so I fail to see why these athletes can’t do it, and a lot faster. What’s wrong with them?’

Data is very much part of our current life in education....minimum target grades, tracking, predicting, intervening, analysing....and it does indeed have an important role to play in ensuring students achieve ‘their full potential’... but behind every grade and statistic is an individual young person for whom we should be opening doors, not closing them.....exploring opportunities and identifying strengths and talents to be encouraged and weaknesses to be addressed. Playing with grade boundaries in order to massage statistics for politically convenient goals completely betrays the individual students behind those grades, and to a lesser extent their teachers, who have had no option other than to work within the educational system successive politicians have created for them.

And of course there is the subjective argument that the exams are somehow easier. Well my experience of constant essay-writing for my geography A Level was certainly different to what our present cohort have to deal with, involving investigative research and analysis of collected data. Different, not harder. A different set of skills for a completely different time.... when ‘google’ was what you did when you actually couldn’t make it from one end of the swimming pool to the other and the only use for your thumb was to split the peel of an orange.

Bring back O Levels? Didn’t the ‘O’ stand for ‘Ordinary’? Is that really an appropriate title for a qualification for the future? As exams are all so ‘easy’, how about ‘E Levels’?  We could have an advanced exam, only for Clever students, called ‘C  Levels’.....as a geography teacher I could then explain to my students that my expectations of them for the forthcoming exam on coasts and climate change would be below ‘C level’.......

We need an education system where examinations are a rigorous and consistent benchmark of achievement for students that  enable them to demonstrate the skills and knowledge employers and Higher Education Institutions require. What we don’t need is political meddling in the National Curriculum and its assessment,  with successive governments wrecking the life-chances of young people for the purpose of pursuing political ideology.

Dick 'N' Dom: Eeny Meeny Macka Racka Rari Dominacka Shickapoppa Dickywho...

Dick & Dom - Eeny Meeny Macka Racka Rari Dominacka Shickapoppa Dickywhop...

Iago (Bob Hoskins) tells of a handkerchief............so sad to hear that Parkinson's disease has robbed us of an acting great

Very sad to hear overnight that Bob Hoskins has been suffering with Parkinson's Disease and has retired from acting. His cockney portrayal of Iago in Jonathan Miller's 1981 production...perhaps as unlikely as that of Anthony Hopkins as Othello......inspired not only a love of that particular play but all of Shakespeare's literature, for which I am eternally enriched and grateful. Good luck with everything Bob......

There's a mudskipper in all of us.......

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb tree , it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
 This quote is often attributed to Einstein and it should be displayed prominently in every classroom...we have an obsession with identifying children who are 'gifted and talented', an approach that inevitiably leaves those not labelled as such as an educational underclass and  fails to recognise that ultimately all young people are gifted and talented in ways which may not be immediately apparent or that emerge later in life. It is the substantive role of the teacher to explore and nurture that 'hidden' talent in every child........and, who knows.....possibly find a fish that CAN climb a tree amongst all those who show an inclination to do something else instead.