Have you ever noticed that all the animals in the popular children’s lift-the-flap book Dear Zoo are male? Every single one. It’s not an isolated example. Looking at almost 6,000 children’s books published between 1900 and 2000, the study, led by Janice McCabe, a professor of sociology at Florida State University, found that males are central characters […]
We’re still swimming in sexism Here’s a quick exercise for you: grab a pen and paper, or open a document on a device. Briefly note down the ten or so kids’ television shows that you see or hear most of when you are around kids. You could include kids’ movies as well if you like. What shows […]
What do kids need to thrive and learn all they need for adult life? Let’s ask Peter Gray! In this two-minute animated summary of a lecture on the value of play, educational researcher Peter Gray gives six fundamentals for self-directed learning. He’s a Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College, specialising in evolutionary perspectives on […]
I remember when I first read a report of how women and girls were suffering under the Taliban in pre-9/11 Afghanistan. I think I was about sixteen. Widows were starving – literally dying of hunger – because they weren’t allowed to shop for food without a male guardian. Girls were kicked out of schools and […]
One of my very favourite churches is Ponsonby Baptist in Auckland, where there is always much food for the mind and soul. The Sunday before last, I was lucky enough to visit once again, and several parts of the service were so profound and helpful that I wanted to share them with you too. The church […]
With friends and family scattered all over the globe, I’d love to have a huge map of the world in our house. When we move to Thailand later this year, it’ll be a priority purchase. The only reason we don’t have one already is my West Wing addiction. What a marvellous show. I rewatched all […]
The teachers choosing the song list for my primary schools in the 1980s were clearly a bunch of ex-hippies. We had psychadelia, folk songs and lots of Beatles, and certainly nothing written for children (unless the thoroughly depressing Puff the Magic Dragon counts?) And lots of protest songs. A friend and I (we grew up in […]
We may not have a TV, but DVD box sets and the internet are an enormous part of my life in the resting-or-breastfeeding days of late pregnancy and the ‘fourth trimester‘. I know I’m not alone in finding it suddenly much easier to watch than read during those hours on the sofa. It’s hard to […]
I know the title is a big call, but I’ll eat a suitcase of carrots if you can beat these 🙂 As I said in a post last Christmas, partly about the differences between Southern and Northern Hemisphere Christmas celebrations: St Paul’s Anglican Church in central Auckland is blessed to have some very artistically and […]
I don’t have much of my own to say about ANZAC Day. Like many of my generation I am deeply ambivalent about how to commemorate some of the most horrific events of the twentieth century. Rather than muddle around in my own thoughts, I thought I’d share some beautiful and brutal things from friends that […]