Issues in Education

I have to acknowledge that while I have addressed educational concerns on this site, this is not a typical post for Roundhouse Rhetoric . But I didn't write this for Roundhouse Rhetoric . I wrote this for Compspot as a follow up to a teaching workshop I conducted on Friday about using blogs in the classroom. For those who are not interested in teaching writing, but who are interested in blog-promotion tactics, this post does offer something for you. It addresses how to increase a blog's visitors, how to transform visitors into readers, how to turn readers into return readers, and how to encourage ... Read Full Story

W ith thanks to my South African correspondent for the following amazing perspective on the relative size (rather than the size of our relatives) of Earth and our planetary cousins. The first image shows that in a straight fight with either Venus, Mars, Mercury or Pluto, Earth would be a clear winner: - However, if any of the other planets look as though they may want to join in, the following image shows that it would be wise for Earth to either through in the figurative "planetary towel", or prepare for one hell of a beating: - Clearly if our solar system were ever ... Read Full Story

I have a near and dear relative who is the Head of a Mathematics Department in a secondary school in the UK. I had a lengthy discussion with her today about the state of education in England, in particular, her current school which I would like to share with you. It might help to put my views into context if I tell you a little bit about the environment I was raised in. My parents were not rich, worked hard in back-breaking manual jobs and tried to turn 2 pence into 10 in order to feed and clothe the children born in the UK ... Read Full Story

I don't know if it's just me, but lately I've been feeling more and more frustrated with college, with schooling, and with the entire education system, not only in this country, but worldwide. It seems like nowadays (or maybe always, I can't really ascertain for myself) the "people telling you what to do" system of living has managed to get it's greedy paws on just about everything, especially when it comes to education. From the time I was little, I remember learning about how I should write, the famous 5 paragraph system, the intro-body-conclusion scheme, and the strikingly lurid outline format which I battle ... Read Full Story

“All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know …Until Now.” In The News: Everyone’s reminiscing about Potemkin Village. President Bush visits Iraq… specifically, the most secure airbase in Iraq. 17 miles in diameter and home to 10,000 U.S. Marines. But the comparison is to Potemkin’s ruse IS striking: The village : From Wikipedia Potemkin villages were, purportedly, fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. Conventional wisdom has it that Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate ... Read Full Story