And this was late in but made me laugh: And the Cambridge University Footlights, the incubators of comedy from Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and John Cleese ,to name but a few , are now offering a sensitivity reading for all comedy sketches, optional of course. ‘to check for potential oversights regarding racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism, or any other kind of sensitive or upsetting material’ I suspect there might be a sketch about that… https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/cambridge-footlights-launch-sensitivity-reading-service/ or https://archive.is/KtGSl
"Cutting the waiting list through hiring competent counsellors etc might be more effective but what do I know?"
What DO You know, Michelle? Or, what do You KNOW! Or, simpler yet: You DO know. I thought that about the Oxford children was satire, until I read Alison's fine comment(s). Man...
I've been interesting in improving the literacy rates, which is why I bought some copies of Siegfreid Engelmann's book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." I donno what to say about Americans and learning to read, write, and even think upon an occasion. I guess it's like over there, and the unions have a vested interest in maintaining they know best, when these methods were tested *decades* ago and found to be superior. Funny thing is I was reading on Direct Instruction techniques recently, and I didn't even know that Engelmann was central to all that. Live and learn a little more about DI and all that.
I'm sorry to "hear" about Scotland again.
And I gotta say: the UK once again leads by example with the reappearance of Kathleen Stock at Oxford. And the new Free Speech Act. If only something like that made headlines in the U.S.? Granted, something like that even happening in the U.S. is about as rare as hen's teeth normally are.
All that to say... Always nice You inform/entertain us on Fridays, Ma'am...
The improving literacy rates thing is interesting. Nick Gibb the education minister has had to fight the teaching unions etc to get the phonics teaching through. Even now there are voices saying -- well we should change because BORING. Phonics works. Once a child can read, many more things are much easier.
Kathleen Stock remain controversial in the UK, but what is quietly working is the Free Speech Union. They are forcing institutions to obey the law.
ALways wonderful to get your comments JT -- and I am back working on my Viking as my editor has promised comments by the end of next week. My agent enjoyed the partial so I am trying to get things accomplished.
TY for writing. Yeah, but I forgot to ask: Didn't You mention the FSU and/or Toby Young back when all that crap with the Society of Authors went on? Either way, glad You mention them here. "Institutional recapture"? Would be nice to see more-a that. We have some groups making some efforts on some-a these things. (FAIR comes to mind again.) Maybe I've just missed institutions in the U.S. doing things like what Oxford did. Maybe not. TY again.
Yes he was and is v good. He and the FSU have forced a number of changes.
They are having to expand their legal team...Yes I think they are a bit like FAIR but are solely focused on upholding free speech and the freedom of expression.
As I get older, I appreciate Ira Glasser more -- why he was right to lobby for the neo-Nazis to be able to march, even though it was v painful for the inhabitants. If you force ideas under ground they simply fester. Freedom of expression must allow good ideas to drive out the bad. That can only happen when you have debate.
If it were me, I'd let the grown-ups debate all they want, and those who wanna play with Legos can sit it out. There are enough adults to *have* a debate. I wish (if wishes would help ;-) that there were some pubs/sites that would publish the results of such debates. Next best thing to Your "Northumberland Calling"s. :-)
The mental image of Oxford students playing with Legos...my mind won’t accept it. Mental health for young people is deteriorating rapidly yet all the “solutions” coming from the psychological community are absurd and clearly not working. I think this is also the accumulation of 20 years of crappy self-help that says your feelings are the most important thing and need to be acknowledged and trusted at all times. Maybe the ability to rise to the occasion would be more beneficial. Treating adults like toddlers is nauseating. I feel sorry for them.
Salman Rushdie is a true hero. Even after his attack he stands firm. He’s an inspiration.
Sussex Car Chase: anyone who is familiar with midtown Manhattan (I am) knows that a two hour car “chase”is impossible. A two hour stop at every light, block the cross street, people jay walking against the light, packed FDR or West Side Highway escape route sounds more likely. Yellow cab driver laughed at their claim that they were being chased, and the official statement from the NYPD debunked their original statement.
After reading the TGIF news, I wish I could go live in the Robert the Bruce woods. 😊
I think it is worrying and something has gone very wrong with the whole mindfulness movement. ANd it is taking the short cut easy option, so it becomes performative rather than any substantive change. Will a lego set help or is simply insulting their intelligence?
Rushdie is a total hero. End of.
The car chase or non car chase is amusing -- people have said it is Harry's soft launch at trying to control freedom of the press in the US. Somehow I don't think that he will succeed. They did warn him that the press in the US were not like the press in the UK.
ANd around Loch Lomond is lovely -- we drive around it to get to the ferries for the Western Isles. It is truly a beautiful place.
I get the intention of mindfulness, but it’s too often used as a band-aid over a bullet wound.
A few examples: my last company, where everyone worked 60+ hrs/week sent “stress kits” to our homes (we mostly worked remote) that included coloring books, some squeezy thing and a weird back massager that one had to be a contortionist to use. Never mind that the company is chronically understaffed and won’t hire more bodies to lessen the workload. Also, my child’s school has a class call SEL (social emotional learning) where they teach relaxation techniques, etc., which would be nice but my kid said everyone laughed at the exercises and couldn’t sit still. Shocking! While well-intended the kids are just not ready for those things and an extra recess might have been a better idea!
I do accept that it is well intended (or they want to be seen to be doing something), but it can do more harm than good. They don't want to put the hard money in and hire the extra people. I understand SEL is another grift which does not always have the results it claims. An extra recess would have probably worked wonders. Still sometimes all one can do is laugh. It does remind me slightly of how they decided that babies should sleep on their fronts as it worked with preemies -- of course, you had that huge spike in cot deaths and the advice changed when they realised.
Hey, Alison. AFAIK, crappy self-help books have always been around. But, IMO, it really took the Boomers to make an industry of it. I don't recall where I read: "When Mindfulness for Dummies came out..." Big industry these days.
I just finished a Coursera course called "Learning How to Learn." They said that one-a *the* absolute BEST aids for learning is exercise. And they pointed out how cutting recess out was a net loss. To all concerned, unfortunately.
I believe recess was Bronson Alcott's invention. Good educator, not so good father of Louisa May. Sometimes children just need to be children, shocking as that may seem.
I am grateful that my memories of Manhattan (I've been twice) are borne out. And yes they are ludicrous which is really sad. I had been so hopeful when they married, so impressed that she was so certain about becoming a British citizen that I stopped emming and ahhing and applied.
And this was late in but made me laugh: And the Cambridge University Footlights, the incubators of comedy from Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and John Cleese ,to name but a few , are now offering a sensitivity reading for all comedy sketches, optional of course. ‘to check for potential oversights regarding racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism, or any other kind of sensitive or upsetting material’ I suspect there might be a sketch about that… https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/cambridge-footlights-launch-sensitivity-reading-service/ or https://archive.is/KtGSl
"Cutting the waiting list through hiring competent counsellors etc might be more effective but what do I know?"
What DO You know, Michelle? Or, what do You KNOW! Or, simpler yet: You DO know. I thought that about the Oxford children was satire, until I read Alison's fine comment(s). Man...
I've been interesting in improving the literacy rates, which is why I bought some copies of Siegfreid Engelmann's book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." I donno what to say about Americans and learning to read, write, and even think upon an occasion. I guess it's like over there, and the unions have a vested interest in maintaining they know best, when these methods were tested *decades* ago and found to be superior. Funny thing is I was reading on Direct Instruction techniques recently, and I didn't even know that Engelmann was central to all that. Live and learn a little more about DI and all that.
I'm sorry to "hear" about Scotland again.
And I gotta say: the UK once again leads by example with the reappearance of Kathleen Stock at Oxford. And the new Free Speech Act. If only something like that made headlines in the U.S.? Granted, something like that even happening in the U.S. is about as rare as hen's teeth normally are.
All that to say... Always nice You inform/entertain us on Fridays, Ma'am...
The improving literacy rates thing is interesting. Nick Gibb the education minister has had to fight the teaching unions etc to get the phonics teaching through. Even now there are voices saying -- well we should change because BORING. Phonics works. Once a child can read, many more things are much easier.
Kathleen Stock remain controversial in the UK, but what is quietly working is the Free Speech Union. They are forcing institutions to obey the law.
ALways wonderful to get your comments JT -- and I am back working on my Viking as my editor has promised comments by the end of next week. My agent enjoyed the partial so I am trying to get things accomplished.
TY for writing. Yeah, but I forgot to ask: Didn't You mention the FSU and/or Toby Young back when all that crap with the Society of Authors went on? Either way, glad You mention them here. "Institutional recapture"? Would be nice to see more-a that. We have some groups making some efforts on some-a these things. (FAIR comes to mind again.) Maybe I've just missed institutions in the U.S. doing things like what Oxford did. Maybe not. TY again.
Yes he was and is v good. He and the FSU have forced a number of changes.
They are having to expand their legal team...Yes I think they are a bit like FAIR but are solely focused on upholding free speech and the freedom of expression.
As I get older, I appreciate Ira Glasser more -- why he was right to lobby for the neo-Nazis to be able to march, even though it was v painful for the inhabitants. If you force ideas under ground they simply fester. Freedom of expression must allow good ideas to drive out the bad. That can only happen when you have debate.
I like it.
If it were me, I'd let the grown-ups debate all they want, and those who wanna play with Legos can sit it out. There are enough adults to *have* a debate. I wish (if wishes would help ;-) that there were some pubs/sites that would publish the results of such debates. Next best thing to Your "Northumberland Calling"s. :-)
The mental image of Oxford students playing with Legos...my mind won’t accept it. Mental health for young people is deteriorating rapidly yet all the “solutions” coming from the psychological community are absurd and clearly not working. I think this is also the accumulation of 20 years of crappy self-help that says your feelings are the most important thing and need to be acknowledged and trusted at all times. Maybe the ability to rise to the occasion would be more beneficial. Treating adults like toddlers is nauseating. I feel sorry for them.
Salman Rushdie is a true hero. Even after his attack he stands firm. He’s an inspiration.
Sussex Car Chase: anyone who is familiar with midtown Manhattan (I am) knows that a two hour car “chase”is impossible. A two hour stop at every light, block the cross street, people jay walking against the light, packed FDR or West Side Highway escape route sounds more likely. Yellow cab driver laughed at their claim that they were being chased, and the official statement from the NYPD debunked their original statement.
After reading the TGIF news, I wish I could go live in the Robert the Bruce woods. 😊
Have a good weekend everyone!
I think it is worrying and something has gone very wrong with the whole mindfulness movement. ANd it is taking the short cut easy option, so it becomes performative rather than any substantive change. Will a lego set help or is simply insulting their intelligence?
Rushdie is a total hero. End of.
The car chase or non car chase is amusing -- people have said it is Harry's soft launch at trying to control freedom of the press in the US. Somehow I don't think that he will succeed. They did warn him that the press in the US were not like the press in the UK.
ANd around Loch Lomond is lovely -- we drive around it to get to the ferries for the Western Isles. It is truly a beautiful place.
I get the intention of mindfulness, but it’s too often used as a band-aid over a bullet wound.
A few examples: my last company, where everyone worked 60+ hrs/week sent “stress kits” to our homes (we mostly worked remote) that included coloring books, some squeezy thing and a weird back massager that one had to be a contortionist to use. Never mind that the company is chronically understaffed and won’t hire more bodies to lessen the workload. Also, my child’s school has a class call SEL (social emotional learning) where they teach relaxation techniques, etc., which would be nice but my kid said everyone laughed at the exercises and couldn’t sit still. Shocking! While well-intended the kids are just not ready for those things and an extra recess might have been a better idea!
I do accept that it is well intended (or they want to be seen to be doing something), but it can do more harm than good. They don't want to put the hard money in and hire the extra people. I understand SEL is another grift which does not always have the results it claims. An extra recess would have probably worked wonders. Still sometimes all one can do is laugh. It does remind me slightly of how they decided that babies should sleep on their fronts as it worked with preemies -- of course, you had that huge spike in cot deaths and the advice changed when they realised.
Hey, Alison. AFAIK, crappy self-help books have always been around. But, IMO, it really took the Boomers to make an industry of it. I don't recall where I read: "When Mindfulness for Dummies came out..." Big industry these days.
I just finished a Coursera course called "Learning How to Learn." They said that one-a *the* absolute BEST aids for learning is exercise. And they pointed out how cutting recess out was a net loss. To all concerned, unfortunately.
I agree with Michelle's comments. All-a them.
There are reasons why I lkie you JT.
I believe recess was Bronson Alcott's invention. Good educator, not so good father of Louisa May. Sometimes children just need to be children, shocking as that may seem.
Didn't know either-a that about the Alcotts. TY, as always, all-a Youse.
Having sat in midtown traffic countless times, I laughed hysterically at their claim. It’s as ludicrous as they are.
I am grateful that my memories of Manhattan (I've been twice) are borne out. And yes they are ludicrous which is really sad. I had been so hopeful when they married, so impressed that she was so certain about becoming a British citizen that I stopped emming and ahhing and applied.
Right? If high speed chases were possible there would be no such thing as gridlock traffic! Lol