I love this research. I am a proud daydreamer – always has been, always will be.
Daydreaming has the capacity to drive teachers insane. In my day it lead to bad reports and vicious lectures. Nowadays it often leads to recommendations for an ADHD diagnosis and the resultant daily dosages of Ritalin.
Daydreaming could help children concentrate – and even perform better in tests, researchers claim.
The children also feel less anxious and more motivated to perform, according to a review of studies on the value of time to reflect.
Education should focus more on giving children time to think, claim researchers at the University of Southern California.
Research indicates that when children are given the time and skills necessary for reflecting, they often become more motivated, less anxious, perform better on tests, and plan more effectively for the future.
It is also important in helping us make sense of the world at large … and contributes to moral thinking and well being.
A teacher on the New South Wales Central Coast has pleaded not guilty to assault charges, after he allegedly dared a group of students to hold dry ice with their bare hands.
Damien Hilton is facing eight charges, including cause grievous bodily harm by neglect, after a group of Terrigal High School students were injured during his science class earlier this year.
The 49-year-old, who was employed as a casual teacher, is accused of daring 10 children to hold dry ice for as long as they could.
The students were treated for burns, with two taken to hospital.
Hilton faced Gosford Local Court today and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A CASH-strapped US high school hopes to raise money from a wealthy benefactor by auctioning itself on eBay.
Officials at The Learning Center in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, are seeking bids starting around $US600,000 ($548,000) to offset steep budget cuts.
The eBay listing describes the public alternative school for at-risk teens as “pre-owned” and “slightly used.”
The winner won’t own the school, which is located near Philadelphia. But he or she will get a naming opportunity, a free large pizza and the satisfaction of “delivering an education to a group of kids who could really use it”.
If a bidder is found it will be the first time someone buys a school in return for a free pizza.
When a child is bullied it is rightly considered unlawful, yet when a teacher is bullied it’s considered free speech. The only thing stopping the vulgar website Rate My Teachers from being banned is the fact that it is an American website which is allowed to operate under the guise of free speech.
The teachers’ union wants the Education Department to shut down a website it says allows students to make defamatory and slanderous comments about their teachers.
The State School Teachers Union council resolved recently to write to the department asking it to close the Rate My Teachers website that some students use to abuse teachers personally and professionally.
“The website has allowed anonymous postings for some years, many of which would be found to be defamatory and slanderous of teachers if tested against legislation,” the resolution said.
The US-based website’s rules state posts will be removed if they contain profanity, name-calling or vulgarity, but recent comments about WA schoolteachers include “She is a whore”, “He is a douche bag” and “Sadistic bitch, she is a horrible teacher”.
Other posts say teachers are “bad” or “completely incompetent”. The website emerged in Australia six years ago, but this is the first time the union has made a formal request for help from the department.
Can you imagine if there was a website called ‘Rate My Students’?
Two Californian brothers have been arrested after allegedly making a video showing two young children punching, kicking and choking each other as a group of kids and an adult watch.
Gabriel and Agustin Gamboa, 23 and 24 respectively, were arrested on June 29 and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor after Los Angeles TV station KTLA saw the footage and alerted police.
Agustin posted the video on his Facebook page last Wednesday under the title “My nephew messed him up for picking on his home boy”.
The two-minute video shows two boys aged four and five wrestling on the ground and kicking and punching each other.
At one point in the clip Gabriel can be seen moving some cheering children out of shot so his brother can have a clear view as he films.
Are parents derelict in their duties if they refuse to buy their children the latest gadgets such as smartphones, tablets, game consoles and i-pods?
Absolutely not!
On the contrary, it can be argued that any parent that buys those items when they can’t afford to, is derelict in their duties:
IT was dubbed the “digital divide” – the gap between the haves and the have nots in the computer age.
But far from missing out on the electronic essentials of modern life, new research shows children from poorer families are keeping up with wealthier counterparts.
High-tech ownership is consistent across all income levels, research by insurer GIO reveals, with the average teen owning $1882.06 worth of equipment.
And tech-savvy teens are much more likely to own computer equipment than sports gear or a musical instrument.
About 42 per cent of kids own a laptop, while half own mobile phones and more than three in five own an MP3 music player such as an iPod. But less than a third of kids own sporting equipment or a musical instrument.
Sociology expert Dr Michael Bittman said most of the devices were essential for teens to function socially.
I disagree vehemently with Dr. Bittman. Teens do not need the latest devices, they need to understand that money doesn’t grow on trees. They need to respect the volatile nature of the economy and the hardships their parents face in ensuring that they have the necessities.
Teens would be best advised to worry less about their social standing and more about how they could contribute to their family, rather than run their family budget dry.
Facebook are using their own lack 0f vigilance as an excuse to relax very important age restrictions. Instead of giving up on protecting minors, Facebook should try harder to stop under ages kids from accessing their own Facebook page:
Facebook is still mulling over whether to open its doors to those aged under 13, but in Malaysia, nearly 250,000 children, some as young as seven, have already signed up on the world’s biggest social network.
The young Internet users, like millions worldwide, have managed to avoid the age-restriction ruling by lying about their age, sometimes with the help of their parents.
I believe that it is very hard for male teachers to get a job in the public system. Often public schools are female dominated, to the point where a token male would have some effect on the staff-room dynamic. I feel that it was a major factor in my inability to secure a job in the public school system. As I recounted in an earlier post:
I applied for 30 Public School positions over the summer and none of these possibilities turned into a job offer. Nobody in the State system was prepared to take me on. Sitting in the job interview, I couldn’t help but wonder whether I was leapfrogged because of my gender. I know it seems rich for a male to cry sexism, but the selection panel was nearly always all female and on walking around schools, I noticed that nearly all the teachers were female. In the name of a close-knit staff dynamic, it wouldn’t have been such an easy proposition to disturb the status quo and invite a male into the staff room inner sanctum.
But while males might be discriminated in the public system, I have it on good authority from people high up in other private schools, that males are preferred over females in the private system because they don’t go on maternity leave. So it goes both ways.
Still, after all women went through (and to some extent still do) when it comes to being overlooked for jobs, you can understand why it doesn’t feel right to have a male shouting sexual discrimination:
A MALE primary school teacher has alleged he was the victim of sex discrimination after losing out on a job to a young woman.
Glenn Telfer claims he was the top candidate for a permanent post at an Edinburgh primary after doing the job for several months and earning plaudits from parents and his boss.
But the 55-year-old ended up out of work after the job went to Louise Hunter, 25.
Mr Telfer is taking Edinburgh City Council to an employment tribunal claiming sex and age discrimination.
Just in case you thought that only teachers who give zeroes lose their job:
A Manhattan judge has denied a petition by a New York City teacher to win her job back after she was fired for engaging in inappropriate behavior in 2009.
Cindy Mauro, a 34-year-old French teacher at Brooklyn’s James Madison High School, was caught half naked in a classroom, ‘kneeling between the legs’ of a topless fellow teacher, an arbitrator found.
Mauro and her alleged lover, 32-year-old Alini Brito, had vehemently denied allegations of a ‘lesbian lovefest.’ The 34-year-old claimed that she was only helping Brito deal with her diabetes by bringing her some candy to raise her blood glucose levels.
Both teachers also denied they were ever naked, alleging that the custodian who walked in on them during a school talent show had a vivid imagination, the New York Daily News reported.
He’s been pushed down a ski hill, jumped, beaten and pounded so hard that he’s suffered three concussions.
He’s been bullied so badly over the years that he’s twice threatened suicide.
Yet the expelled teen who’s made Fraser Sutherland’s life a living hell is being allowed back into his high school next year. And administrators have told the 15-year-old victim to suck it up and forgive his “reformed” tormentor – or find somewhere else to go in September.
“I shouldn’t have to leave the school when I didn’t do anything wrong. I believe the person that is doing the harm should leave,” said Fraser, who’s just finished Grade 10 at St. Brother Andre Catholic School in Markham, Ont.
“What we’re fearing is this individual is going to come back to finish the job,” his angry dad, Kirk, said. “What’s it going to take? Does he have to be left lying in a puddle of blood in the school bathroom?”
“Suck it up … or find somewhere else to go?” I hope that line isn’t accurate.
You are talking to a child that had to endure terrible hardships at your school due to one of your students – show some respect!
Topical Teaching 