Crushing of dissent

A high school student in Australia is struggling to keep quiet during climate change lessons...

For the third lesson the PowerPoint was brought out again with even more questionable statements claiming that putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is causing: an increase in temperature by one degree; a rise in sea levels; more bush fires; more droughts; more animals to become extinct; malaria to become more widespread (so much so that it would spread to the Northern Territory); the Arctic Ocean to be ice-free by 2050; the extinction of the polar bear; and, my personal favourite, “China and Indonesia will be too hot to grow rice.”

H/T Deadman



LSE boss resigns

The head of the London School of Economics, Howard Davies, has resigned over the links between his institution and the Libyan regime. There appears to be some sympathy in the media, with the Guardian in particular pointing out that universities have been encouraged to get more and more funding from private sources.

Readers here are aware, of course, of the source of funding for the Grantham Institute, home of a certain Mr Ward. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noted the incongruousness of Ward's overtly political actions being issued from the heart of a centre of learning.

Of course Mr Grantham is free to do what he likes with his own money, including setting up study institutes in famous universities. To my mind the problem is more in the fact that the LSE took the money without any apparent concern for what the Grantham Institute would be getting up to. There is something of a parallel in the case of the Gadaffi money, which seems to have been accepted without considering the risk of damage to LSE's reputation. Pecunia non olet, perhaps, but in business reputation is all. In a rapidly commercialising higher education sector, university bosses would do well to remember it.

Who ya gonna call?

Leo Hickman is asking for examples of eco-indoctrination in schools. I know a man who may be able to help him...

Statistical literacy

An interesting paper by Gerd Gigerenzer et al, looking at statistical illiteracy and what might be done about it. I'm struck by the emphasis on "statistical thinking" and how it is either taught too late, badly or not at all.

Rather like economic thinking, critical thinking and logical thinking.

Teacher training

This is from CRU's local paper in Norwich.

Hat tip Dave B.

Ignorance in academe

Tim Worstall has a lovely post looking at a new Campaign for the Public University. The campaign, featuring the cream of UK academia says it is "seeking to defend and promote the idea of the university as a public good".

As Tim explains, they seem to be a bit mixed up about what a public good is though. Which is not very impressive for the cream of UK academia.

Universities and critical thinking

Much good fun to be had at Donald Clark's blog, which concentrates on education and in particular, e-learning. Today he's looking at a survey of what students actually get up to at universities and whether they are actually learning critical thinking.

Do universities really teach critical thinking? This huge CLA longitudinal study on 2,322 students for four years from 2005 to 2009 across broad range of 24 U.S. colleges and universities, suggests not. Richard Arum of New York University found that they were woeful at critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication. 36% showed no significant gains in "higher order" thinking skill. 45% made no significant improvement in critical thinking.

Ouch.

Eco-schools

There was quite a lot of interest in the quote by a teacher that I posted up yesterday. On a similar theme, here is something I've been sitting on for a while.

The Eco-schools movement is, as the name suggests, an environmental programme for children. The idea appears to be to have a green spin to as much of the curriculum as possible, but also getting children to raise money for green charities and to involve their families in green campaigning.

As schools develop their eco-programme, they rise through bronze and silver awards, arriving ultimately at the highest level of eco-school award, the Green Flag. To reach this level, greenery needs to be pervasive across the curriculum.

Click to read more ...

Climate education

There are a couple of interesting posts I'd like to draw your attention to on the "Climate change in schools" front.

Climate Lessons is preparing a list of all the global warming websites directed at children and is looking for help and assistance.

Meanwhile, Harmless Sky asks "What the hell are we doing to our children?"

Sugata Mitra on kids teaching themselves

Another wonderful TED talk, this time from Sugata Mitra, an academic from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  Mitra gets children to teach themselves things.

Some fun before the weekend

This posting by Donald Clark made me laugh.

Have a nice weekend.

Climate lessons

Regular commenter John Shade has started a new blog called Climate Lessons, which will look at the way environmentalism and other green issues are taught in schools.

Why not pay him a visit?

Light blogging

I'm off to the big smoke for a couple of days, my first trip to the capital for a very long time. I'm going to meet a few people and then I'm listening to Martin Rees give a Reith Lecture tomorrow night.

Blogging will be non-existent.

In the meantime, here's something non-climate-related.

I was pondering the sad state of the education system when I chanced upon the clause in the Human Rights Act which says

the state shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and to teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.

Now, as someone with a deep philosophical objection to state education, I wondered if the state's respect for my convictions would extend to providing me with an education voucher to allow me to send my children to a private school.

Neat idea eh?

Is it a goer though? Well, I asked the Human Rights experts at the Guardian's Liberty Clinic and they have posted up a reply.

Diggers wanted

There has been some interest expressed in the idea of doing some more digging into the extent of green propaganda in schools. If anyone wants to get involved please could they drop me a line.

Climate change in schools

Readers who have expressed concern over the use of green propaganda in schools will be interested in this, a report on the Climate Change Schools Project.

The students really benefitted from the experience and really seem more aware of the different issues connected to climate change. They often now come to school in the morning to ask if I have heard the news and telling me we really do need to do something- Last week it was the fact that 1 in 6 houses are going to be at risk of flooding in the later part of this century.’