Tag Archives: school
Aasof on the deep reading brain
Posted by on Nov 30, 2019
This week on Facebook: I have to go away and think about how we will develop as a species when global digitisation become prevalent. Does the book Fahrenheit 451 become a reality? Is there to be a new global history in which a new enlightenment, or age of reason, becomes a prominent feature of global digitisation? Perhaps, as the article posted last Sunday suggests, the effects of this new global digitised society will be profound¹. The two remaining references suggest that deep reading²·³ has become the necessary adjunct to an education that has changed since I was at school and deep reading was taken for granted. Read more of this post
Poetry & other ‘things’!
Posted by on Sep 7, 2019
This week on Facebook: Not that I am short of things to write about but sometimes even I get bored with myself and my tendency to rabbit on and on… Still, when I meet my ex-colleague for our monthly ‘pie and a pint’ we often discuss how little things have actually changed. Then we are both getting old and hold the geriatric view that the world is going to hell in a handcart.
Of course materially things have changed quite dramatically, particularly post WWII and especially for the following generations. Although I’m not sure that today Aaron Copland could call his piece Fanfare for the Common Man without raising a controversy. I’m sure that any such controversy would get a mention in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, unlike Copland’s sexuality. It seems that todays society has a predilection for declaring and writing about sexual orientation something that has yet to occur, at least in our conversation over a ‘pie and a pint’. But then it may all be part of a geriatric view that the world really is going to hell in a handcart.
Not so the epigram plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, which is probably familiar to most of my generation. However, some of my family may read my reflections so for their benefit I will add that it was a somewhat cynical remark by Alphonse Karr translated as, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”.
Short Stories
Posted by on Dec 8, 2018
This week on Facebook: I have decided to have a lazy December, which turned out to be not as lazy as I had assumed. Nevertheless: December 2018 is going to feature reprises from Aasof’s Reflections beginning with some short stories that I have enjoyed writing. Clearly my first love is web research and I have enjoyed writing and researching material for all of my short stories. The following (in chronological order) are a selection of those that I enjoyed writing and researching the most.
Read more of this post
‘Like you know’ — Christmas 2017
Posted by on Dec 27, 2017
Vagueness is on the march and it isn’t just formal education that has brought this about, firstly television, then the Internet, and now mobile phone texting, all impact on both the written and the spoken word. Read more of this post
Whom the Gods would destroy
Posted by on Oct 4, 2014
My posts on matter considered obscene, reminded me of the 1930 case when Sir Ethelred Rutt K.C., had the misfortune of appearing before a full Bench of magistrates on behalf of the headmaster (a clergyman) of Eton College. Certain publications had been found at Eton College by a Police Constable Boot in his zealous discharge of a special warrant, whereupon the headmaster was charged under Lord Campbell’s Act, England’s first obscenity statute. The headmaster admitted that the publications kept on the premises were to be ‘sold, distributed, lent, or otherwise published’ – within the meaning of the Act – to the students under his charge, who were from thirteen to nineteen years of age. Read more of this post
A Literary Trip
Posted by on Jul 5, 2014
A recent post on the introduced me to the book Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. I had heard of the book but hadn’t read it or any other works by this authoress. Intrigued by ‘Aunt Ada Doom’s glimpse of “something nasty in the woodshed” that left her traumatised and confined to her room for decades, utterly dependent upon the Starkadders’, I went in search of the book and came across a review by ‘Anna’ on things mean a lot – a reading journal Read more of this post
Banned Book Week
Posted by on Sep 28, 2013
Banned Book Week is the United States’ national book community’s annual celebration of the freedom to read, this week libraries and book stores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship (see more information on Banned Books Week). Read more of this post
Sherlock Holmes (the never-ending story)
Posted by on Jan 16, 2012
During the war when I used to go to Saturday morning pictures – three pence to get in and no refund if it was bombed while you were inside. Incidentally threepence in say 1944 becomes around £4.50 today – so it was considerably more expensive to go to the Saturday cinema in 1944. Read more of this post
Knowledge is not a shovel
Posted by on Mar 6, 2011
Some time ago I posted a piece with the title It’s Hell For Democracy. Based on the writings of C.S. Lewis, part of its intent was to show that contemporary thinking and criticisms on society are rarely the outcome of original thought. In the post Lewis’s thoughts on education are truly contemporary and yet he published them some 40 years ago. Being aware of Lewis’s views an article with the title Knowledge is not a shovel – Universities and democratic society, with this quote attached, caught my attention.
The primary aim of education, however one understands it, must be to nurture the ability to reflect, to develop new ideas, and to implement these collectively, writes Gesine Schwan. Cognitive multilingualism is the only way to prevent the specialisation of knowledge narrowing our horizons to an extent that results in structural irresponsibility.
Like – ‘er’, you know, they’re only words.
Posted by on Feb 13, 2011
Education, Education, Education, was the mantra of New Labour in 1997, which certainly appealed to me, having the experience of two boys being educated in a state comprehensive school. An appeal reinforced by my experience in a military training establishment for adolescent and mature students. However, 13 years post New Labour’s mantra and some 20 years post the Tories Citizens Charter, it seems that instead of a nation educated and proficient in the use of ‘simple English’, we are now a nation of ‘English simpletons’.
