Racism on Every Side: Good Unionism Will Lead to Good Race Relations . . . Someday

[Excerpt] This is not a black union, white union, red, brown, or green. This is a union of workers who, over the past 50 years or so, have struggled to make life a little easier for future members of this great union. These workers have had to put up with the likes of the Chicago Board of Education, the City of Chicago, the Chicago Park District, and the Cook County Commissioners. And, we must be prepared to continue this struggle. As a black man, as a former union organizer in both the North and South, and now as a local President, I know about white racism. I know what to expect and I\u27m ready for it. But racism from every side — sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit — is more difficult to deal with. Sometimes you confront it directly, sometimes you have to ignore it. Sometimes you make a point and move on. Always, you agitate and organize

Battle of the Blockbusters: Joss Whedon as Public Pedagogue

This article discusses the concept of public pedagogy and the reasons for considering it relevant to the work of the writer/ director/ producer Joss Whedon, creator of numberous TV programmes, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, and Films Serenity, Marvel's The Avengers and The Age of Ultron. It analyzes Marvel’s The Avengers (Whedon, 2012) and Christopher Nolan’s (2012b) The Dark Knight Rises as competing public pedagogies.It suggests that popular films can be seen as important educational projects; filmmakers have tremendous resources at their disposal and their creations have a global reach that cannot be matched by individual teachers or national education systems. Whedon can be seen as a radical educator; he enables his audiences to experience ways of looking at the world that challenge aspects of neo-liberal hegemony, and also encourages them to become critical thinkers who have to reflect on their own feelings and perspectives and resist simplistic perspectives on morality and the difficult political choices facing global society

Is teaching systemically frail in universities and if so what can we do about it?

This article explores the idea of ‘pedagogic frailty’ in relation to teaching systems in higher education. Using a model developed by Kinchin (2015) it explores four interconnected concepts: regulative discourse around teaching; pedagogy and discipline connections; research and teaching links; and locus of control of teaching. The concepts are looked at in terms of how and why they might contribute to pedagogic frailty and alternatively how they could contribute to creating a pedagogic system that is not frail. The article suggests that currently teaching systems are frail in relation to preparing students and staff for the future and that more effective pedagogy could be developed by changes in the structure and content of each of the four dimensions,Final Published versio

Three forms of learning in social context

This paper is an analysis of different forms of! earning in their social context. The forms of learning emerged from a research project into the ways that adults learn and the subsequent analysis endeavours to locate the types of learning within the wider social context. It is a tentative movement in the direction of a sociology of learning. There is not really sufficient space during this presentation to argue for a definition of learning and so one is suggested here: that learning is the transformation of experience into knowledge, skills and attitudes. The first part of the paper briefly describes the research project itself and its findings; thereafter there are three parts which discuss the three main forms of learning; finally, there is a brief concluding discussion.peer-reviewe

'Pleasure balks, bliss appears' or 'The apparatus shines like a blade' : towards a theory of a progressive reading praxis in creative writing pedagogy

This article argues that a reformation of Creative Writing’s reading praxis is required if it is to develop its unique potential as a field of intellectual enquiry. Roland Barthes, in his essay ‘On Reading’, identifies three types of reading pleasure. The third of these modes is that of ‘Writing’, in which ‘reading is a conductor of the Desire to write’. Of this mode, Barthes writes: Is this pleasure of production an elitist pleasure, reserved only to potential writers? In our society, a society of consumption and not production, a society of reading … and not a society of writing ... everything is done to block the answer ... my profound and -constant conviction is that it will never be possible to liberate reading if, in the same impulse, we do not liberate writing. (Barthes 1989: 41) It is the contention of the author of this article that the teaching of the ‘reading as a writer’ method in Creative Writing classrooms gives rise to a situation the inverse of that Barthes describes; it makes Creative Writing into a ‘society of writing’ in which reading is trammelled. The article explores and critiques the ‘reading as a writer’ technique, examines various progressive models of Creative Writing reading praxis, and proposes a radical ‘writerly reading’ praxis suggested by concepts from the work of Michel de Certeau. Keywords: Pedagogy, 'reading as a writer', experimental fictio

Computers in EAP: change, issues and challenges

Huw Jarvis looks at how computers can be used in projects in an EAP environment to develop students’ language and e-literacy skills

Book Review: Celia Hunt. Transformative Learning through Creative Life Writing: Exploring the Self in the Learning Process. London: Routledge, 2013. 197 pp. ISBN 9798-

People change, often in profound ways, when they engage in creative practices, but understanding the nature of these changes and the reasons why they take place continues to challenge adult educators. This book takes a close look at the effects of participating in postgraduate programs in what the author terms “creative life writing,” and makes the case for considering the students’ experiences as a form of transformative learning. The author seeks to extend our understanding of the nature of transformative learning as a result of these analyses. In the introduction and in the opening chapter Hunt details the Creative Writing and Personal Development Programmes that took place at Sussex University between 1996 and 2010. The remainder of the book is divided into four section

The control of root-eating scarabaeid grubs in Queensland cane-fields

The world-wide damage caused by the larvae of various lamellicorn beetles to sugar-cane, cassava, pasture land, root crops, and miscellaneous economic trees and plants, has engaged the undivided attention of many scientists during the last thirty years or more. The "White Grub" question in America, the notorious Cockchafer or "May Bug" in Europe, and the formidable "Grub Pest" of Australian cane-fields, constitute exceedingly complex problems which have for many years defied the efforts of entomologists, and at the present time, although partially solved, cock chafer beetles still continue to be responsible for tremendous financial losses. I t is interesting to note that the destructive species in each of these three examples are classed amongst the Melolonthinae, most of the grubs of which subfamily, in addition to their habit of ingesting soil and extracting from it organic matter, also devour living roots and the growing vegetable tissue of harder underground portions of plants. While the· majority of Queensland cane-beetles (including our most destructive) belong to the M elolonthinae; the subfamily Rutelinae. is also represented in our cane-fields by two species, both of which, however, happen to be of minor importance. In the present article it is my intention to deal with six of our northern scarabaeid beetles, all of which are common at times under cane-stools, and inflict damage of a more or less serious nature to the setts, roots, and subterranean basal portions of growing cane-sticks

Internet usage on English for academic purposes courses

This paper begins by documenting general usage of the Internet as a tool for delivery of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses. It then goes on to illustrate how a number of specific internet-based classroom activities might be integrated onto EAP courses in order to equip non-native speakers with the main skills that they are likely to need when following an academic course at a British university