Tuesday, 2nd December (Richmond)

Posted on December 2, 2025 by roycross

1. Two pieces from BOLD to start with today:

There’s no single right way to parent by a team from the School of Psychology at Sheffield University https://boldscience.org/theres-no-single-right-way-to-parent/

The pressure on parents to get parenting ‘right’ is immense. Many people offer parenting advice that is not backed up by evidence, or that may not suit all families. Study findings are sometimes distorted, as when attachment research is misused to claim that parents need to be with their infants constantly, or to allege that gradual sleep training will sever a secure attachment. There is no evidence that sleep training negatively affects attachment, but there is evidence that it helps protect a sleep-deprived mother’s mental health.

When helping your child hurts their progress by Meeri Kim https://boldscience.org/when-helping-your-child-hurts-their-progress/

When parents see their children struggle, their first instinct is often to step in and offer a helping hand. My 3-year-old daughter loves jigsaw puzzles, but sometimes gets frustrated when trying to solve them. I’ll point to a particular piece — “Maybe this one?” I say, knowing full well that it fits. A recent study suggests that giving children such unsolicited help, even in the form of a hint, can actually backfire.

2. A piece by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic, Why Does Steve Witkoff Keep Taking Russia’s Side? Trump’s envoy isn’t promoting peace. His interventions are helping Vladimir Putin. https://tinyurl.com/4wdk7sfn

Pay attention to the dates, because the timing matters. Steve Witkoff spoke with Yuri Ushakov, a Russian official, on October 14. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on October 17. Trump had been hinting that he would offer to sell Tomahawks, long-range cruise missiles, to the Ukrainian army. But he did not. Why not? Perhaps because Ushakov listened to Witkoff’s advice and persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin to call Trump on October 16.

3. Rethinking global issues: AI, equity and climate – two webinars from TeachingEnglish at 12:00 UK time this coming Friday. More info and registration here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teachers/rethinking-global-issues-ai-equity-and-climate-webinars

In these two webinars, our expert teachers from sub-Saharan Africa will help you rethink two global issues in English language education: artificial intelligence and climate action. In our first session, you will learn how AI can be a force for justice, allowing you to create inclusive learning spaces that allow all your English language learners to thrive. In our second session, our speakers share how they have used indigenous knowledge and set up research projects to help learners find solutions to climate issues where they live, developing their English language skills through practical, real-life projects.

4. And there’s an IATEFL webinar at 15:00 UK time the following day, Saturday 6th December, that’s open to non-members: Flip the Script: A Practical Framework for Reimagining Classroom Engagement with Ngan Phan Le Hai. More info & registration here https://www.iatefl.org/event-details/#/?id=723

This interactive webinar introduces Flip the Script, an innovative approach to English language teaching based on the FLIP framework. The session explores how to transform traditional teaching methods into dynamic, student-centred experiences that promote learner autonomy and critical thinking.

There’s a number of other IATEFL online events open to non-members listed here https://www.iatefl.org/events/ including Ian McMaster at 14:00 UK time the following day, Sunday 7th December on Working in international teams: how can AI help?

5. Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, has just died by assisted suicide. Here’s a report from The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/da314c5867b6e4ab

The founder of the Swiss right-to-die organisation Dignitas has ended his own life through assisted suicide at one of his own clinics, the group announced on Sunday. Ludwig Minelli, who became one of Europe’s most committed campaigners for the legalisation of assisted dying, died on Saturday, days before his 93rd birthday.

6. And, finally and hair-raisingly, a piece from Engelsberg Ideas about an early aerial photographer, Alfred Buckham, inspired by the current exhibition at The National Portrait Museum of Scotland, Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer https://engelsbergideas.com/reviews/when-the-photograph-took-flight/ Click on the photo names in the EI piece for the photos themselves, and here’s the exhibition website https://www.nationalgalleries.org/exhibition/alfred-buckham-daredevil-photographer

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Thursday, 27th November (Cambridge)

Posted on November 27, 2025 by roycross

1. First of three pieces on potential future uses of AI, Job for 2027: Senior Director of Million-Dollar Regexes from Tim O’Brien https://www.oreilly.com/radar/job-for-2027-senior-director-of-million-dollar-regexes/ I don’t understand all of it, not even the title, but I get the gist!

2. Secondly, Learning for Long Lives in the age of AI from Geoff Mulgan https://geoffmulgan.substack.com/p/learning-for-long-lives-in-the-age

I want to end with one final reason why this is going to become a much more important part of the political and policy agenda over the next few years: the evidence on cognitive decline. For most of the last century, there was striking evidence that, overall, IQ was going up across the world, something called the Flynn effect. But around the year 2000 this appears to have hit a maximum and even to have started in decline and since then, there’s been striking evidence that something is going wrong with cognition across the world: PISA test scores in the OECD in mathematics, reading and science have been falling for at least a decade now. There’s evidence from many countries that the share of adults who struggle with numeracy or literacy is rising quite fast, so in the US over a third of people cannot use basic mathematical reasoning to evaluate statements.

Here’s Wikipedia on the Flynn effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

3. Thirdly, what’s sauce for the goose should probably be sauce for the gander, shouldn’t it? Here’s a piece from The Guardian about a stooshie (my favourite Scottish English word) at the University of Staffordshire, ‘We could have asked ChatGPT’: students fight back over course taught by AI https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/nov/20/university-of-staffordshire-course-taught-in-large-part-by-ai-artificial-intelligence

And here’s the Collins Dictionary entry for stooshie https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/stooshie

and the Cambridge Dictionary one for what’s sauce for the goose https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/what-s-sauce-for-the-goose-is-sauce-for-the-gander

4. Language Teaching and English Literature (LTEL) is a new international peer-reviewed journal that will cover the most recent research in English Language Teaching and the study of classical English literature (defined as ‘the body of written work produced in the English Language by the inhabitants of the British Isles from the 7th century to the present day.’) Here’s the call for submissions for the first issue https://www.ubplj.org/index.php/ltel/announcement/view/28

5. And, finally, the website of the new art museum about migration in Rotterdam, Fenix https://www.fenix.nl/en/ Try their ‘suitcase stories’ https://www.fenix.nl/en/suitcase-labyrinth/

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Tuesday, 25th November (Richmond)

Posted on November 25, 2025 by roycross

1. This Demos report, Inside the mind of a 16-year-old: From Andrew Tate to Bonnie Blue to Nigel Farage – what do first time voters think about social media, politics, the state of Britain and their futures?, is encouraging overall https://demos.co.uk/research/inside-the-mind-of-a-16-year-old-from-andrew-tate-to-bonnie-blue-to-nigel-farage-what-do-first-time-voters-think-about-social-media-politics-the-state-of-britain-and-their-futures/ PDF below.

The key insights, “which challenge many assumptions and misconceptions about this generation”, say Demos, are:

Andrew Tate’s influence is fading – today’s teens follow a far wider mix of creators, from MrBeast to HasanAbi.

Young people are incredibly media-savvy, cross-checking what they see on TikTok with mainstream sources.

Mainstream politicians are not communicating effectively with young people – Nigel Farage is not liked but admired for using social media and for his straight talking. Keir Starmer is not disliked, he is invisible.

Knife crime is the number-one concern raised by young people, and is seen as a symbol of politicians’ failure to keep them safe.

Schools are closing down space for debate and discussion, leaving students craving honest discussion.

Despite their frustrations, most remain hopeful and confident that Britain can improve, and that they’ll build better lives than their parents.

Inside-the-mind-of-a-16-year-old_2025_report_final-NovDownload

2. Carbon Brief have produced a masterful summary of the key outcomes agreed at COP30 https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop30-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-belem/

A voluntary plan to curb fossil fuels, a goal to triple adaptation finance and new efforts to “strengthen” climate targets have been launched at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil. After all-night negotiations in the Amazonian city of Belém, the Brazilian presidency released a final package termed the “global mutirão” – a name meaning “collective efforts”. It was an attempt to draw together controversial issues that had divided the fortnight of talks, including finance, trade policies and meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C temperature goal. A “mechanism” to help ensure a “just transition” globally and a set of measures to track climate-adaptation efforts were also among COP30’s notable outcomes.

3. And on the same general theme, Where does our waste go? is a London Review of Books podcast with Brett Christophers & Thomas Jones https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/where-does-our-waste-go

‘Since the 1980s’, Brett Christophers wrote recently in the LRB, ‘firms have made vast amounts of money by sending the rich world’s waste to the global South’ – hazardous waste at first, joined more recently by discarded electronics, clothes and plastics. Literal mountains of our rubbish are accumulating on the peripheries of cities such as Accra and Delhi. Waste, like wealth, is unevenly distributed. In this episode of the LRB podcast, Brett joins Tom Jones to discuss what happens to our rubbish after we throw it away. They talk about where it goes and why it’s so difficult actually to get rid of it, let alone reduce the amount we discard, when the creation of waste is so much more profitable.

4. The BBC has most usually been accused of pro-Palestinian bias, and I was surprised to read this piece https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251110-bbc-editor-suing-owen-jones-over-pro-israel-bias-expressed-admiration-for-mossad/ Puzzling that the only other language that Middle East Monitor seems to offer in addition to English is Portuguese?

5. And, finally, an account of the curious career of James Watson, the author of The Double Helix, who died earlier this month, from STAT, whose mission is “to deliver trusted, tough-minded journalism on the business of making medicines, health tech, science, public health, hospitals, and insurance”. James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers https://www.statnews.com/2025/11/07/james-watson-remembrance-from-dna-pioneer-to-pariah/

And here’s The Telegraph obituary https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b09813cd5a26039d He chronicled the search for ‘the secret of life’ in his bestseller The Double Helix but damaged his career with his controversial views. Has a great photo of the young Watson and his collaborator, Francis Crick, captioned ‘they shared the sublime arrogance of men who had never met their intellectual equals’.

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Thursday, 20th November (Cambridge)

Posted on November 20, 2025 by roycross

1. The first of two events next Thursday, 27th November, with an early 08:00 UK time start for this one from LanguageCert, Creating Spaces for Conversation with Anna Hasper & Kieran Donaghy who “will share practical frameworks and strategies for creating caring classrooms and integrating multimodal approaches that mirror the realities of today’s learners”. https://www.languagecert.org/en/about-us/events/2025/voices-in-education-teacher-edition-event-2025

2. Elements in Research Methods in Education from Cambridge University Press is at 13:00 UK time next Thursday https://cambridge-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/2517628788668/WN_wadYrSq6TrSYlx9hN0fq1w#/registration

Sal Consoli & Samantha Curle will celebrate the inaugural volume in the series ‘Elements in Research Methods in Education’ series and interview the author of How to Use Generative AI in Educational Research, Dr Jasper Roe, to explore why he chose this specific topic, the writing process behind this book, and how he hopes it will influence educational researchers and practitioners. Whether you’re an early-career scholar or an established researcher looking to author your own Element in Research Methods for Education, you’ll find insights, a dash of inspiration and some practical advice.

3. Here’s a recently published White Paper from Sage by Tom Chatfield, AI and the Future of Pedagogy https://www.sagepub.com/explore-our-content/white-papers/2025/11/03/ai-and-the-future-of-pedagogy PDF below

This paper explores how education can respond wisely and imaginatively to the rise of AI in general, and generative AI in particular. Its recommendations are rooted in two principles: a) innovation must draw on what we know about how humans learn; b) AI’s power must not be allowed to hollow out the very skills required to navigate an AI age successfully. The tension at the heart of the second principle bears spelling out. Within the space of a few years, it has become possible to simulate knowledge and understanding of almost any topic while possessing neither. Freely available tools can be used to complete conventional assignments and assessments with ease, in the process potentially preventing students from gaining the very skills required to use AI adeptly: critical discernment, domain expertise, research and verification, analytical reasoning.

ai-and-the-future-of-pedagogyDownload

4. A wonderful teaser for her new (not yet written) novel by Elif Shafak on her blog, Unmapped Storylands, If You Ever Meet A Literary Ghost https://elifshafak.substack.com/p/if-you-ever-meet-a-literary-ghost

I knew then that I should have stayed. I should have talked to him. Fear does strange things to us, I wish I could have the courage to overcome my fear because, you see, he was someone I have always loved. Since then I have been reading and rereading everything about him—his letters, his novels, his travel notes….

Who do you think the ghost she saw was?

5. And, finally, Alexander Pushkin’s ‘The Coffin-Maker’ https://americanliterature.com/author/alexsander-pushkin/short-story/the-coffin-maker

Plus, Pushkin’s Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pushkin

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Tuesday, 18th November (Richmond)

Posted on November 18, 2025 by roycross

1. The Cambridge Dictionary ‘word of the year’ is one I’ve never heard or read or used https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/cambridge-dictionary-reveals-word-of-the-year-2025 Should I be worried, I wonder?

2. The Flipping Book Club “is free and is intended for those who wish to practice their English with L2 English speakers, joining in discussions about texts from writers from diverse countries and cultures”. More info and registration here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScI7mVwLihLor6U7VSEL_GjiW_7QyYhRFQB3eImZ3zd7UlnWQ/viewform

Sounds like a very good idea. It’s being facilitated by a NILE colleague, Chris Rose, whose latest novel We Live Here Now has been very well received, including by the books team at The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a5fa71658a5d1dd1 (Scroll down through the fiction section: Chris writes as C D Rose.)

3. The open-access ELT Classroom Research Journal aims to “publish teachers’ classroom research, but also, and perhaps more importantly, our aim to mentor teacher-researchers” https://eltcrj.com/ The latest (November 2025) issue includes articles supported and developed in three different ways:

mentorship on campus (Abu-Naji & Nassar)

mentorship through a dedicated mentoring support group (all three book reviews came through our MenTRnet partnership)

mentoring both before submission and during the publication process, by editors and/or by Mentor-Referees (the three papers from Cameroon).

You’ll find it here https://eltcrj.com/v2-i2-full/ PDF below.

ELTCRJ November 2025Download

4. And here’s the complementary Warwick University web archive on Mentor Development for Exploratory Action Research (EAR) https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/mdear It includes a video interview with the fairy godmother of EAR, Richard Smith – I was going to call him the godfather but I suspect he might not like that https://youtu.be/CAOaodHCscI – and lots more besides.

5. I stumbled across Liam Shields from Manchester University’s advice on How to Answer Essay and Exam Questions the other dayhttps://liamshields.com/teaching-and-study-materials/ (Love his site’s author-stuffing-face photos!)

A Good Introduction

•            State the answer you will give up-front. This is not a murder mystery novel!

•            Give an unequivocal answer. Do not simply list objections or conclude “maybe, maybe not”

•            Make it clear what steps you will take to establish your conclusion.

•            Explain why these steps will establish your conclusion

By stating your answer and plan early on you make it easy for the examiner to follow your argument.

It is fine to start the essay with “In this essay I will argue that…”

Think of your introduction as a promise to the examiner about what to expect. Then all you have to do is keep that promise. This will help you to avoid digression and irrelevancies later on.

Plus, a more famous example, Winston Churchill’s ‘Brevity’ memo of August 9th 1940 https://policymemos.hks.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum8096/files/policymemos/files/churchill_memo_on_brevity.pdf

PDFs of both pieces below.

answering-philosophy-questionsDownload
churchill_memo_on_brevityDownload

5. And, finally and crunchily, from Katja Hoyer, An Acquired Taste: Germany’s Favourite Crisps … and how their story begins in Ireland https://www.katjahoyer.uk/p/an-acquired-taste-germanys-favourite I had no idea that flavoured crisps were invented in Ireland.

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Thursday, 13th November (Cambridge)

Posted on November 13, 2025 by roycross

Blog version: https://roycross.blog/

1. Here’s the second pair of Cambridge Elements that I promised on Tuesday:

 Harriet Jacobs by Alan M. S. J. Coffee https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/harriet-jacobs/36A28B248321946C492A2BBF3EC86268 (PDF below.)

Long celebrated for her heroic feat of endurance in escaping slavery and subsequent activism, Harriet Jacobs was also an astute political thinker. Her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a remarkable philosophical text. It is one of the most insightful reflections, both on the nature of life as a slave, and on the relationships amongst slaves and between enslaved and free people.

harriet-jacobsDownload

Cognition and Conspiracy Theories by Andreas Musolff  https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/cognition-and-conspiracytheories/C0B84AB1F850EEF2769D680EC7BEFEFE (PDF below.)

Conspiracy theories, or “CTs” for short, have a bad reputation – and a great appeal. Together with “fake news,” they can have detrimental effects on the public’s understanding of political issues, leading to confusion and delusions about important topics, especially crises and their possible solutions. On the other hand, many, if not most, people across ideological and cultural divides seem to enjoy accessing and “entertaining” CTs. This observation cannot come as a surprise, however, if we remind ourselves that much of entertainment fiction, from fairy tales to popular novel and film genres, is based on plots that include conspiracies and theories about them.

cognition-and-conspiracy-theoriesDownload

2. Next Tuesday, 18th October, at 12:00 UK time, Anamaria Pinter & Helen Sherwin are presenting a TeachingEnglish webinar on Bringing today’s world into the classroom which aims “to explore gaming-informed ways to make classrooms more engaging, collaborative, and relevant to learners’ real-world experiences”. More info and pre-webinar reading and task here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teacher-educator/bringing-todays-world-classroom There’s also a recording of Gilly Salmon’s webinar last month on Becoming an e-moderator: Skills for the future https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teacher-educator/becoming-e-moderator-skills-future

3. Here’s the latest Engelsberg Ideas (EI) podcast, Andrew Ross Sorkin on lessons from the Wall Street Crash in which Sorkin discusses his new book, ‘1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street History’, with EI’s Iain Martinhttps://engelsbergideas.com/podcast/ei-talks/andrew-ross-sorkin-on-lessons-from-the-wall-street-crash/

4. Very timely, given I’m listening to Andrew Graham-Dixon’s life of Vermeer at present, Tiffany Jenkins’s latest post on her Strangers and Intimates Substack, Lice combs, vaginal syringes and cesspits: at home in 17th century Holland https://substack.com/home/post/p-178402081

This is how Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has chosen to answer one of its most frequently asked questions: what was daily life really like in the age of Rembrandt and Vermeer? Rather than mounting the usual parade of paintings and fine furniture, curators from different fields – decorative arts, textiles, jewellery – have joined forces with an archaeologist and an anthropologist. Together, in the exhibition At Home in the 17th Century, they have reconstructed a day in Dutch domestic life.

5. And, finally, many people have suggested that the BBC’s response to President Trump’s threat to sue should follow the precedent set by Arkell v Pressdram [1971] https://proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/arkell-v-pressdram-1971/

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Tuesday, 11th November (Richmond)

Posted on November 11, 2025 by roycross

1. The Cambridge Elements series is a treasure trove. Here’s two (very different) Elements that are currently available to download free (and I’ll post two more on Thursday):

Language, Gender and Pregnancy Loss by Beth Malory (PDF below.) https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/language-gender-and-pregnancy-loss/255AC3C75D78AD4783578BAED4CF1537

‘Miscarriage to me implies that you did something wrong, that you mis-carried your baby.’ – focus group participant, May 2024

This Element explores the gendered dimensions and impacts of the ways in which language is used to describe, define, and diagnose pregnancy loss, and how such language shapes experiences of receiving and delivering care during and after pregnancy loss in a contemporary UK context.

language-gender-and-pregnancy-lossDownload

Things of the Past: A Modern Yearning by Kasper Risbjerg Eskildsen https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/things-of-the-past/D4362687425B550FA05B08353BC3B009 (PDF below.)

Plus a short video introduction by the author https://vimeo.com/1124824660

The monks of the Hōryūji Temple protested loudly. For over a thousand years, they had guarded the shrine in the octagonal Hall of Dreams. Hidden behind its walls was the Guze Kannon, a seventh-century bodhisattva. Entering would be sacrilege. Thunder and lightning, the monks warned, might strike intruders, or an earthquake destroy the temple. But the bearded American, Ernest Fenollosa, and his young Japanese companion, Okakura Kakuzō, nonetheless insisted. They worked for the Art Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Education and were on a mission, exploring temples and shrines in the western region of Japan. The aim was to document and register historical artworks. Now, in the summer of 1884, they had reached the Hōryūji Temple. Over the monks’ protests, they made their way into the shrine …

things-of-the-pastDownload

2. We went to see the film Palestine 36 at the weekend, which was a sobering-depressing-shameful experience. Here’s The Conversation piece by Anne Irfan on the Palestinian Revolt of 1936-39 that the film tells the story of (with one eye on the present) https://theconversation.com/palestine-36-tells-a-forgotten-story-of-revolt-and-how-the-legacy-of-colonialism-endures-in-palestine-269052

And here’s the Wikipedia entry on Orde Wingate, the eccentric and brutal British Army officer who was largely responsible for the repression of the revolt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orde_Wingate

3. Here’s another piece from The Conversation on a well-intentioned request for a vegan menu that misfired and came across as the opposite of cultural appropriation https://theconversation.com/earthshot-prizes-request-for-a-vegan-menu-for-prince-william-leaves-a-bitter-taste-in-the-amazon-268597

4. This year’s winner of The Booker Prize was announced yesterday: David Szalay, for his novel Flesh https://thebookerprizes.substack.com/p/flesh-by-david-szalay-wins-the-booker

The Booker website also has a monthly feature on a previously shortlisted book: this month’s was The Fishermen by Nigerian writer Chigozie Obioma . You’ll find an interview, an extract, a reading guide and a chance to win a copy of the book all here https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/monthly-spotlight-the-fishermen-by-chigozie-obioma

5. And, finally and musically, Raag Jog played by Kaviraj Singh (santoor) and Shahbaz Hussain (tabla) https://outu.be/BIz_7zAzViEof

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To NILE with Love: Stepping Stones in Trainer Development

Posted on November 7, 2025 by roycross

Margit Szesztay and Uwe Pohl are organising an event from Budapest at 16:00 UK time tomorrow, Saturday 8th November, in celebration of NILE’s 30th anniversary, To NILE with Love: Stepping Stones in Trainer Development. Home made PDF attached and registration link here: https://bit.ly/NILE30Hungary

A special invitation to you all from your fellow NILE trainersDownload
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Thursday, 6th November (Cambridge)

Posted on November 6, 2025 by roycross

1. On Thursday next week, 13th November, at 15:00 UK time there’s an ECML webinar for teachers and teacher trainers at primary and secondary level on “Mediation in teaching, learning and assessment” which will present the achievements of the ECML project of the same name, a.k.a. METLA. More info and registration here https://www.ecml.at/en/Resources/Webinars

This webinar introduces participants to the concept of mediation and its role in language teaching, learning, and assessment in primary and secondary schools using practical examples of mediation tasks in various languages for both primary and secondary classrooms. Participants will explore the METLA databank and discover how it can support teachers in designing materials that foster and assess learners’ mediation skills. The session will provide concrete strategies for teachers to:

•            adapt tasks across languages, proficiency levels, and learner groups;

•            draw on learners’ heritage and home languages;

•            integrate pluricultural components into multilingual activities;

•            nurture intercultural understanding, openness, and respect for diversity;

•            assess mediation performance, with a focus on formative assessment approaches.

More information on the METLA project here https://www.ecml.at/en/ECML-Programme/Programme-2020-2023/Mediation-in-teaching-and-assessment

2. A day later next week, on Friday 14th November, between 12:00 and 15:30 UK time, TeachingEnglish is offering three webinars on Creative lesson planning:

How storytelling transforms learning with Claudia Tumba

Inspiring climate action through the arts with Zeny Zerfu

and a final session in which three teachers from around the world will share their own creative lessons. More info and registration here

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teachers/creative-lesson-planning-webinars

3. Timothy Cook was taken aback when his third-grade students at the American Community School in Amman – eight- or nine-year-olds – asked him if they could design an AI engine to help with their learning. Here’s his account on the Connected Classroom website of what they did, Teaching Students to Control AI https://connectedclassroom.org/perspectives/students-control-ai-not-use-it

4. Recognition of Morocco’s claim to the Western Sahara by the UN last week, another notch on President Trump’s ‘conflict resolution’ belt, did not attract a whole lot of attention. The latest post by Carne Ross on his blog, Western Sahara: betrayal of a people, a principle and of international law, makes it clear what he thinks https://carneross.substack.com/p/western-sahara-betrayal-of-a-people

The resolution is an abandonment of the Sahrawi people. It is also an abandonment of decades of international law. Of course, the poodles in chief, the Brits, voted for the resolution, complicit in the act of selling the Sahrawis down the river. Doubtless they’ve reasoned to themselves that this is a ‘sensible’ step forward, while keeping quiet about their abject sucking up to the Moroccans to stop refugees crossing the Mediterranean, sell military equipment etc.. Trump apparently sees it as an opportunity for him to ‘solve’ another conflict. This is also of course a symptom of the erosion of the world of rules that the UK and others pretend to stand for. At least Trump doesn’t pretend.

5. And, finally,  Big trouble in ‘Little Berlin’: the tiny hamlet split in two by the cold war, a piece for The Guardian by John Kampfner, tells the divided story of Mödlareuth, a tiny hamlet in south Germany https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/nov/03/big-trouble-in-little-berlin-the-tiny-hamlet-split-in-two-by-the-cold-war

A creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

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Tuesday, 4th November (Richmond)

Posted on November 4, 2025 by roycross

1. You get generous (and nonetheless slightly frustrating) extracts from the London Review of Books Novel Approaches podcast here https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/ Try the latest one on Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’ with Andrew O’Hagan, Tom Crewe and Clare Bucknell https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/novel-approaches-kidnapped-by-robert-louis-stevenson

2. This paper by Andy Green & Neil Kaye, The effects of system type and characteristics on skills inequalities during upper secondary education: a quasi-cohort analysis of OECD data, is quite technical but well worth a skim for what it has to say about in-built education system strengths and weaknesses https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02671522.2022.2150884#d1e167 The announcement here in the UK of the new ‘V’ Level exam has prompted people to revisit the paper, in particular to see to which of the four different systems the authors identify the new V Levels might belong:

Type 1 – mainly school-based systems with general academic and vocational provision in different types of institution, and apprenticeships delivered separately (e.g. Finland, France, Netherlands)

Type 2 – predominantly comprehensive school systems, with academic and vocational provision in the same institution (e.g. US, Canada)

Type 3 – relatively equal participation in school-based general education and employment-based ‘dual systems’ (e.g. Germany, Austria)

Type 4 – ‘mixed systems’ with many programmes of variable length and quality but with dominant academic tracks attracting the most qualified applicants (e.g. England, Ireland, Australia).

Types 1 and 3 perform much better and Types 2 and 4 much worse, the authors concluded.

Here’s an explanation of the new exam on the Department for Education’s Education Hub https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2025/10/new-v-levels-and-post-16-qualifications-explained/

and here’s a BBC piece about it https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyzjp5n5kro

3. Amol Rajan is everywhere nowadays on radio and TV. Here’s an episode of his podcast, Radical, with controversial head teacher Katharine Birbalsingh, British Identity: How Schools Can Improve Multiculturalism https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002k4ln

Headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh thinks multiculturalism in Britain has led to an excessive focus on our differences rather than what unites us, but she believes schools like hers can change that by teaching traditional values and British culture. Known for enforcing strict discipline at Michaela Community School in north London, Katharine explains why she promotes unity over diversity. She is also critical of those in power who ignore what she sees as the concerns of “white British people”, which she says breeds resentment towards minorities.

4. First of two from ELT Buzz – thank you! -a  trenchant guest essay from the New York Times by Anastasia Berg, Why Even Basic A.I. Use Is So Bad for Students https://tinyurl.com/336cr9b3

 Last spring, it became clear to me that over half the students in my large general education lecture course had used artificial intelligence tools, contrary to my explicit policy, to write their final take-home exams. (Ironically, the course was titled Contemporary Moral Problems: The Value of Human Life.) I had asked them about some very recent work in philosophy, parts of which happened to share   titles with entirely different ideas in medieval theology. You can guess which topics the students ended up “writing” about. My situation was hardly unique — rampant A.I. cheating has been reported all over the country. But I felt a dread I struggled to express until a colleague articulated the problem in stark terms: “Our students are about to turn subcognitive,” she said. That was it.

5. And, finally, unfairly, and eye-openingly (for most but not all of us), a video, also from ELT Buzz, We Found the Hidden Cost of Data Centers. It’s in Your Electric Bill https://youtu.be/YN6BEUA4jNU  I might be wrong, but I could imagine that the economics of power generation are much the same worldwide as they are in the USA.

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