Clouds

This morning's Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 ended with an item on clouds by Gavin Pretor-Pinney of the Cloud Appreciation Society.

Clouds: That one looks like a horsey ...

Besides background music from David Bowie, singing Bertold Brecht's Remembering Marie A. (... there was a cloud my eyes dwelled long upon ...), Gavin selected the wonderful Cloudbusting, from Kate Bush's 1985 (was it really so long ago?) album, Hounds of Love. And not a single mention of Wordsworth.

Nil nisi bonum

I've just realised ...

It's not a good idea to go criticising people who will be writing your next batch of references. And you certainly shouldn't complain about the facilities that they have kindly loaned you for your probation year. And as for questioning the philosophy that underpins their educational establishment ... don't even go there.

Unfortunately, the whole idea behind the "education" blog, as far as I can see, is to air new ideas. This often involves a critique of the status quo, and might even include a moan or two about how things could be done so much better if we did them this way instead of that way.

Again unfortunately, I think I have left too many hints about my current whereabouts, so that any searching analysis may be construed as veiled criticism (or worse). Which kind of defeats the purpose of the blog. I can't see any way round this conundrum. Can you?

Week Three

Here they come.
And I'm not ready.
How could I be?
I'm a new teacher and learning on the job.

(Frank McCourt, Teacher Man, London: HarperCollins, 2006, p.11.)

Yup -- I know that feeling.

Book of the Month

In a previous post, I lamented the fact that I was due to teach Visual Basic 6.0.

The problem was that (a) I didn't know the software, (b) I didn't own the software, and (c) Microsoft couldn't supply the software. (In fact, I was officially advised to purchase a VB 2005 licence, and then somehow regress to VB 6.0 -- quite how was never fully explained.)

All that has now changed, thanks to a book called Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic 6 in 24 Hours, which I stumbled upon during a recent visit to Waterstones. It's not so much the lessons that I'm talking about, because the LTS resource pack is based on VB6, so I could just have followed that. The real bonus, however, is the bundled "Working Model" of Visual Basic 6.0 that comes on a CD-ROM. And all for £17.99.

Blast! I've just realised that I could've had it from Amazon for only £13.59. But I wouldn't have had the satisfaction of supporting my local book shop.