Reading

After one too many arguments with a class of 2nd years, I have decided to ban all book borrowing. In fact, no reading at all. Why? Because “We don’t like reading” despite the fact that they’d happily sit for hours at a computer screen, flick througha  pile of mags, devour the sports pages and cartoons…  Nah, [...]

Read Full Post »

The Box of Delights

Allow me to quote from the DVD Times website,
At least seven television channels, seven national, one international and a host of regional radio stations, a website that’s amongst the best in the world, an early adopter of digital television, of widescreen and of on-demand services, all of which are entirely free of advertisements, and The [...]

Read Full Post »

A day in the worklife: period 1: mindmapping

Sometimes the most innocuous comment gives you a gentle nudge to look again at your most familiar work.  Like, mindmaps. I love mindmaps. They match my grasshopper brain and help keep its output under some kind of control. Lots of people don’t love mindmaps. And yet, when I show pupils how to put a mindmap together, very few seem [...]

Read Full Post »

Brains – the right stuff

Second class in the Train your Brain lessons. It’s a kind of introduction to studying for 1st years, focussing on different techniques to help them learn – mindmapping, acronyms etc - and demonstrating how their brain works - to the best of my current research – through association, using creativity and memory games inthe process.
I’ve taught this course for a [...]

Read Full Post »

Amber in Perthshire

Had a lovely night at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. The drive up was fabulous. I love night-time driving, so long as there’s other traffic around and it’s not inclined to attack. The presence of another, slightly more sane human is also of benefit. Our hotel room was massive! (I reckon it was larger than our living room) and we had great [...]

Read Full Post »

Terror and the Cake Fairy

Did my good deed on Monday night, delivering birthday cake around darkest Lanarkshire, leaving friends about 11.30 to head home. Travelling along the Clyde Valley I get that horrible feeling: there’s something behind me…
(Not behind me inside the car you understand, but following me on the road. I hate it when that happens.)
~Don’t be daft, [...]

Read Full Post »

Ambition and determination

Three times last week, I was reminded of an ambition I had from when I was wee. First Berlie Doherty asks a group of pupils if any of them want to be a writer (she’s asking them, so I keep arms by my side). Same day is my 40th birthday and I’m hit with that [...]

Read Full Post »

What happened to the Ninth Legion?

One of my favourite investigations, ever,  is the 1st year History investigation on the Romans. Why? Because it’s based around the sudden lack of information about the Ninth Legion, who supposedly disappear after setting off north to deal with us curmugeonly Celts. It’s a real mystery.
We begin by gathering information from the pupils about their knowledge of the Roman Empire and Celtic [...]

Read Full Post »

Comic strip miracles

A couple of weeks ago I was approached by the Principal Teacher of RE, who wanted her S2 class to investigate some of the miracles accredited to the shrine at Lourdes.
After a quick online search, I suggested we focus on the story of Jean-Pierre Bely, a man apparently cured of Multiple Sclerosis during a Lourdes [...]

Read Full Post »

Elegant vowels

This afternoon, I was sitting with Zebra Boy trying to keep him occupied, never the easiest of tasks. And then for some reason, he came up with the phrase “elegant vowel” and followed it with “a, e, i, o, u” in a musing sort of way, as if he was trying them out – which [...]

Read Full Post »