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Category Archives: Education

‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’

January 3, 2009 – 4:55 am

Or, the use of hygiene as a proxy for moral worth.
Last week, a man died when — so it appears — two paramadics failed to render appropriate assistance. The legal phrase is ‘wilfully neglecting to perform duty in a public office’. The circumstances aren’t clear, but reading between the lines (among other things) one suspects [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in England, Feminism, Motherhood | Comments (19)

Here we go again…

December 7, 2008 – 9:02 pm

Once again, the endlessly tedious arguments about academic bias in humanities departments at universities are to the fore, with a Senate Report on same just released. Mark over at Larvatus Prodeo has an interesting discussion going, which I recommend. Some of the lefties (but not any of the LP posters) are doing themselves no favours [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Academia | Comments (44)

‘Some rooms are like cages’

November 29, 2008 – 3:20 pm

Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself
How it’s strange that some rooms are like cages.
Sonny’s yearbook from high school
Is down from the shelf -
And he idly thumbs through the pages.
Some have died.
Some have fled from themselves.
Or struggled from here to get there.
- Paul Simon, The Obvious Child
In my last year of high school, [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Feminism, Personal, Personal liberty | Comments (21)

Accelerated learning comes to Court

September 18, 2008 – 6:00 pm

The mother of a very gifted child is suing the Queensland Government for failing to enrol her 9 year old daughter in Year 8 at a Queensland public school. There is no minimum age for enrollment in high school, but the Queensland Government cited fears over the girl’s social development as a reason for refusing [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Children, Law, Motherhood, Personal, Society | Comments (4)

Student evaluations again

September 17, 2008 – 12:29 pm

I’ve written before on student evaluations, with a bit of a giggle about some of the answers I get.
As I have said, my worry has always been that the kinds of questions asked are too vague, and the responses don’t really reflect, well…anything:
There is also a “multiple choice” part of the questionnaire that students must [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Academia, Law | Comments (21)

A Comedy of Manners

September 12, 2008 – 6:44 pm

Recently, a discussion about manners has developed in the comments thread of SL’s latest post on Sarah Palin. And so my interest was sparked by a post on The Age’s Essential Baby blog with regard to modern children and their lack of manners.
Apparently, the Australian Scholarships Group and the National Excellence in Teaching Awards organization have [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Children, General, Motherhood | Comments (11)

“Why did I get this mark?”

September 2, 2008 – 1:14 pm

One of the problems I found with my law degree is that I was never quite sure why I received the marks I did. So I am very sympathetic to students when they consult me for exam feedback. I go through the exam with the student and point out where they lost marks, and what could [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Academia, Law | Comments (28)

If you notice this notice…

August 25, 2008 – 12:47 pm

…you’ll notice this notice is not worth noticing.
This story made me laugh. It concerns the tale of two frustrated creative writing students on a mission to save the US from bad grammar. Unfortunately, the tale ends in tragedy:
A campaign by two grammar vigilantes to correct mistakes on signs across America has come to an abrupt end [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Fark!, General, Society | Comments (19)

Exercising the brain

August 18, 2008 – 6:10 pm

Given that a recent comment thread on Germaine Greer turned into a discussion of dyslexia and learning difficulties, I thought I might start off a direct discussion of learning difficulties in a post. I just read a book called The Brain that Changes Itself, which discusses neuroplasticity and the capacity of the brain to change. It had [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Academia, Children, England, Society | Comments (22)

Snobbery and class

August 7, 2008 – 1:04 pm

The first time I became aware of class as a concept was when I moved to the UK. I had been a student at my independent girls’ school for precisely three days when I heard some girls in my class talking about “townies”. “What’s a townie?” I asked, all innocence.
A barrage of explanations came out, [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in England, Media, Society, The Left | Comments (38)