Books. It’s all very well to limit other things to the useful and the beautiful, but how does a reader throw out books? I discovered I had more to say about this than would sensibly stay in the comment thread, so here are some scattered thoughts on the owning of books. I grew up in […]
Some of us just don’t get around to clearing out our junk. But most hoarders are shackled to mountains of stuff because of one of two sentences. #1 ‘But it’s bound to come in handy one day!’ #2 ‘But it has a lot of sentimental value…’ If you’ve got the headspace and storage space, I […]
It is a legal right in New Zealand for all children to have free education that meets their needs. This includes the right to ‘special education’ for people under 21 years old who need extra support, or something different from the usual classroom teaching. The vision statement of the Ministry of Education, in relation to […]
Playschool, Rainbow, Sesame Street: I could still sing you the theme songs. The Muppets. The Smurfs, though I was disdainful of the lack of female representation, even at six. The Flintstones and every other Hanna-Barbera cartoon ever made. Happy Days, Diff’rent Strokes, The Cosby Show, Benson, Charles in Charge, M*A*S*H, The Beverly Hillbillies, Hogan’s Heroes, […]
I’ve become obsessed with reading about unschooling. If I could wave a wand to make any kind of educational approach feasible for my family, at the moment unschooling is at the top of the wish-list. At first I thought unschooling was the latest, hippest word for homeschooling, but no, it’s its own thing: learning without school […]
Don’t you find it annoying when you’re watching one of those beautifully filmed, artistically arranged cooking shows on the telly and the really, really ridiculously good-looking presenter offers to whip up something for dinner in less than 20 minutes out of a few staple ingredients from the pantry? Actually, I wouldn’t find that annoying, I […]
The wheel, the codex, the ice-cream. These are among the things so awesome they need not be re-invented. Also, a 40-day Lent plan for 2013. It turns out Stewardship UK are putting on a thoughtful, well-designed, user-friendly Lent practice called 40 acts. I’m inviting you to join me in joining them. 40 acts of generosity, […]
It’s the first day of school for lots of people in the Southern Hemisphere this week, if they haven’t already headed back. I am among the hundreds of thousands of people who read and were moved by Glennon Doyle Melton’s yearly talk to her son about what’s important at school: Chase – When I was […]
Many of my mentors are fictional. Characters in novels whom I not only like but also want to be like. I really like Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and I’d even enjoy being her for a bit, apart from the lack of modern plumbing, medicine and feminism. But I don’t find myself thinking ‘now, this […]
You can tell by the volatile weather, road closures and slow news days that it’s the middle of the summer holidays (in the Southern Hemisphere, obviously). When I was a kid, we spent every summer at a campground or two somewhere around the country, in our trusty Camp-O-Matic. And every summer, we would visit a […]