Author: admin

So, another school begins. You might think that I’ve jumped the gun a little bit, with more than a week of school holidays still to go, but that’s not the case – today was the first day back for the exec at my school. To be honest, I haven’t really stopped working at all during…

It seems like I spent a fair amount of my childhood holidays in the car. We were forever travelling south to visit the family in Melbourne, or heading the other direction to visit cousins in Brisbane. It seemed like, wherever we were living, we were the ones on the move, and summer holidays often seemed…

Brisbane: a town of hills and old Queenslanders. XXXX and ceiling fans. It’s a town with a beach culture, even though it’s not really on the coast – it’s along the imaginatively titled Brisbane River. It’s a town that’s outgrown it’s boots, and now looks uncomfortable and out of place when compared to cities like…

So, I’ve noticed that there’s been plenty of debate, for whatever reason, about the government funding of private schools. Admittedly, most of this ‘debate’ has taken place on twitter, which means that it’s limited in its efficacy or meaning, but I still find it surprising that we are talking about this old chestnut – I…

I’ve finally got around to doing some focused reading on Putnam’s Bowling Alone (2000). For the uninitiated, this is the book that kind of made social capital an important and relevant topic of conversation in modern academic thought. Basically, Putnam suggests that, based on an analysis of a range of different kinds of social measures,…

Something that I decided that I needed to engage more with was feminist and critical race theorists. As far as I understand it, these schools of thought grew out of the Marxist and critical theory traditions. Whereas these traditions were focused on an understanding of power through mostly economic and political means, they did so…

Well, it is fitting that, on this, the last day of 2012, I consider what I have achieved – or failed to achieve this year. Such is the nature of praxis – reflective action. Now is the time to consider what I’ve done this year, and what has been successful in order to plan what…

The topic of citizenship education is one that has been explored in great detail. Some of this research has focused on citizenship education in general, but a more select group has centred on ideas relating to citizenship education in schools and other formal educational institutions. The idea of exploring citizenship education in such settings brings…

So I’m early this year. What of it? Anyway, I’ve been contemplating Christmas, and the holidays and families over this period. As school slowly winds down, you start to think about Christmas day, and seeing all of the family for the official once in a year Christmas gets together. And of course, with it, there…

It’s hard to look at what has happened in Newtown, Connecticut with any kind of dispassionate reason. There’s something that affects everyone at the most visceral level, when children and schools – places that are meant to be safe, places that are meant to be protected – are attacked, and young children and their teachers…