As part of the standardised testing this year, students were asked to nominate a person for a hypothetical “Hero Prize” and give reasons for their selection. 50% of the students at my school nominated their mother (interestingly, none nominated their father). The impact a mother has on a child is unquantifiable and the heroism many mothers face at a time when finding the right work/home balance is as tricky as ever, should not go unnoticed.
The bucket list compiled by a an 11-year-old, charting the list of activities she would like to do with her mother while she is still well enough, strikes at the heart of how unimaginably hard it would be for a child to lose a parent, especially a mother.
To donate to the fund, visit Kate’s Bucket List on Facebook.
Bosses at one of Britain’s top universities today warned students face being kicked off their course for naming and shaming sexual partners on an ‘offensive’ Facebook page.
Students have been posting details of sexual liaisons and links to the personal profile pages of those involved on the Loughborough Rate Your Sh*g page.
Similar pages have been sprung up at universities across the country, although social networking giant Facebook has said it has removed all of the pages which have been reported.
The pages see students give their peers marks out of ten on a range of factors. The Loughborough page has attracted around 2,500 likes in just a few days.
Furious bosses at high-ranking Loughborough University, Leicestershire, today branded many of the comments ‘personal’ and ‘offensive’.
And they vowed to discipline students who posted on the site, for contravening their policies on acceptable use of IT and harassment.
The institution – known for its sporting prowess – is ranked 12th in the Sunday Times 2013 university league table.
The page encouraged students to send their reviews to an administrator who then posts them anonymously on behalf of the users.
I abhor cheating of any kind, but there are some things I detest even more than cheating, such as humiliation and abuse:
High school students suspected of cheating on final exams were subjected to a strip-search by their teacher who was looking for a missing cell phone.
An internal investigation is underway at Cap-Jeunesse High School, in Saint-Jerome, Quebec, regarding the May 24 incident which involved 28 students.
According to reports, during a math exam, the teacher asked all the students to hand in their cellphones to avoid cheating.
When it was discovered that one was missing, she allegedly stopped the exam and ordered each girl into another room where they were strip searched, according to reports.
One teenage girl, who did not want to be named, told QMI Agency: ‘They put us in a small room. They said “take off your bra, then raise your arms”. They even tapped us on the back.’
The school board said the principal was not told of the incident.
The parents of the students involved were later contacted and the situation was explained.
Spokeswoman for the school Nadyne Brochu told Sun News that it was a ‘disproportionate action under the circumstances’.
The school board said that ‘the decision seemed best’ to the teacher at that time but later acknowledged she ‘lacked judgement’.
They also acknowledged that the ‘climate was not conducive to a good test’ so they were allowed to retake the test if they wanted.
It is not known if any of the teachers involved will face disciplinary action.
‘Disproportionate action’? “Lacking judgement’? Talk about an understatement! If I was the parent of one of these students I would take legal action.
I love the intentions behind this, but ultimately I am a cynic. What may have been intended as a day off to enjoy the sunshine will, for a majority of students, be another opportunity to waste away another day in front of a screen:
In a sun-deprived part of Washington state, the promise of nice spring weather prompted a small private school to give students a day off to enjoy the sunshine.
Friday is a “sun day” of sorts for the 205 students at Bellingham Christian School, a small, private, nondenominational Christian school in Bellingham, Wash., about 90 miles north of Seattle.
“SCHOOL CANCELLED DUE TO GREAT WEATHER! WAHOOO!” the school’s website announced Thursday night. “Yeah! It’s a Sun Day today and everyone gets the day off from school.”
Principal Bob Sampson said he wanted to give students some time to re-energize and enjoy the weather, adding that he wanted to re-create the excitement snow days get among the kids. He began teasing the possibility of giving the day off earlier in the week.
“In a world that’s got a lot hard things going, it’s fun to create a moment of joy,” Sampson said.
123 Color: Talking Coloring Book ($0.99, all ages) Let your toddler color in the car without any risk of broken or (yuck!) melting crayons. Unlike other coloring apps, this one teaches your little one to recognize letters, numbers, shapes and colors, making use of animation, sound effects and classic children’s music. Featuring different dialects and six different languages, your kid can brush up on her foreign phrases while honing fine motor skills.
iStoryBooks (free, all ages) Keep your little learner occupied for hours while helping her learn to read. Stories featured in this app include several fairy tales and fables, as well as a few interactive alphabet books and even a selection of multicultural tales. iStoryBooks publishes a new book every two weeks, and a parents’ section of the app gives you the option to add or delete titles from this interactive library.
Road Trip Scavenger Hunt (iOS, $0.99; Android, free, all ages) “I spy a family having fun on the road!” Everyone competes in this high-tech version of I Spy to see who’s the first to spot a particular word or object. The app keeps score and lets you determine a winner without any arguing. The iPhone app has over 140 different things to find; the Android version is a bit more basic, but you can add two additional game packs for $2.99 each.
Stack the States ($0.99, all ages) Cure backseat boredom with laughing and learning! Your kid answers questions about the states in a fun, quiz show format. Younger kids start to recognize state shapes, while older ones learn the capitals. A correct answer allows players to add a state to their stacks, and the player with the highest stack is the winner! If your pride and joy’s your one and only, though, there is a solo-player mode.
1. It’s time spent together. Reading time is time when you’re focusing on no one else and nothing else but them. It’s impossible to read to your kid and look at your smartphone or watch TV at the same time. I read to each of my children separately before bed. This lets me spend quality time with them individually. It makes for a longer bedtime ritual, but I don’t care because I love it.
2. It’s a conversation starter. Books always give us a reason to talk with each other, even if we don’t feel like we have anything to talk about. It keeps communication open.
3. It’s a great way to talk about emotional health. We talk about the things that happen in the stories, how we would feel if they happened to us, and how we might deal with such events the same or differently. Books have helped me broach topics that I might not have thought to raise if it weren’t for the subject matter in the story.
4. It’s a great way to honor the individuality in your children. I read different things to my daughter than I do to my son. We go to the bookstore and they pick out books about topics about which they are interested. Through paying attention to what they want to read, I can learn more about what their likes and dislikes are, including what they might want to be when they grow up.
Many teachers have had their love of teaching eroded because of the emphasis on standardized testing. The teacher featured in this powerful video above, uses YouTube to resign from a profession she once loved.
I found this quote to be most compelling:
“Raising students’ test scores on standardized tests is now the only goal. And in order to achieve it, the creativity, flexibility and spontaneity that create authentic learning environments have been eliminated. Everything I loved about teaching is extinct.”
I love stories about inspiring teachers. What makes this teacher’s story so special is that she inspired one of my countries most loved and respected filmmakers:
FILM director Baz Luhrmann’s career could have turned out very differently had it not been for his English teacher at Narrabeen High School.
Lorraine Bowan took Mark Anthony “Baz” Luhrmann to his first Shakespeare play.
And when Luhrmann prepared for his first audition for the National Institute of Dramatic at the age of 18, she helped him. But, most importantly, Ms Bowan brought him back to class when he dropped out of school in Year 11 to work in a Mona Vale shop.
She was doing the morning roll and when she realised Luhrmann was not in class, a student told her he had quit school to take up work at a shop.
“Straight after school I drove up to Mona Vale to find him and said, ‘Mark, what the hell are you doing? Make sure you’re back in class tomorrow’,” she said.
While Ms Bowan later forgot about the episode, Luhrmann recounted it up in front of all the guests at a party she attended at his Darlinghurst home about 10 years ago.
“He said ‘you’re responsible for what I’m doing now’,” she said.
“It’s very nice that he remembers me in that way.”
Anyone interested in the aptly named School of Death? I hope not:
Philosophy professor Simon Critchley from New York City’s New School said he believes that the only way to really learn how to live is to prepare to die.
So, as part of a larger theatrical installation this spring called School of Death, he offered a suicide note writing workshop to anyone who was interested in appreciating its literary art form.
The notes studied ranged from the terse and emotionally conflicted — “Dear Betty: I hate you, Love George” — to the narcissistic: “Now you will appreciate me.”
“The worst thing that can befall us is to die alone,” said Critchley, 53. “And the suicide note in some strange way is not to die alone. It’s always addressed to someone. It’s a failed attempt at communication.”
Topical Teaching 