Cleaning Classrooms and Getting Kids Out of a Mess

Spring clean strategies that could make school a little less rubbishy. A cross-curricular lesson that all students should learn is that picking up somebody else’s discarded crisp packet or water bottle will not give them cooties. Better yet (especially if this fear of physical garbage is genuine and not, as is suspected, fabricated conceptual garbage), let’s not drop things in the first place. Littering seems to be a peculiarly British disease. Colleagues who’ve taught in Dubai and Shanghai speak in reverential tones about pristine classroom environments. Those who’ve travelled to Europe, North America or Australasia don’t note quite such a … Continue reading Cleaning Classrooms and Getting Kids Out of a Mess

In Defence of Paper: I’ll Be Keeping Stig of the Dump

If you ever find time to Netflix and chill in amongst all the planning and assessment, you might have caught Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up, in which the Japanese organising consultant compels viewers to de-clutter their lives and homes. Now, I am conscious that my classroom would undoubtedly benefit from the trained eye of a professional organising consultant, although I doubt a teacher’s salary would stretch to such expertise. What I – and numerous other bibliophiles – take issue with is Kondo’s minimalist dictum stating that book collections should be limited to 30. I am willing to concede that space-saving Kindles … Continue reading In Defence of Paper: I’ll Be Keeping Stig of the Dump