Journal article

Discussing nuclear war informally with a group of 16-year-olds I discovered that they had a great many different opinions about it, and many misconceptions. Stimulated by Hugh Lauder and Alan Scott and their 'Politics of Education' course at Canterbury University I set out to find out exactly what the situation was. As a trial run I prepared a survey and tested it on a group of third formers (Year 8). Interpreting the written answers proved to be a problem, however, so a second survey was prepared, consisting of a series of detailed statements with a choice of responses - a questionnaire.

Children learn a great deal from other children. The power of this learning from peers is easily seen. Children learn such things as playground games, the language of their friends, and social behaviour, remarkably quickly - and effectively. The significance of this learning has long been recognised by schools and some, particularly small country schools, use older students to help younger ones, though usually in an informal manner. This booklet suggests ways to use the potential of the peer group to help other pupils to become better readers.

Despite the fact that resources to help slow achievers in classrooms are usually less than adequate, we tend to overlook
one of the most powerful sources of children's learning at school - other children. Children pick up considerable knowledge from interaction with other children, including complex social skills and rituals, playground games such as skipping-rope chants and versions of the facts of human reproduction. Such information is readily shared in the playground, yet most teachers do not encourage this sort of learning inside the classroom.

Children of around six have rather different perceptions of people's roles than do older children and adults. They tend to focus on one aspect or characteristic of a situation instead of scanning all the information available. They have a strong tendency to see other people through their own reactions and how they are affected by them. (This is called centration.) Six- to sevenyear- olds have particular difficulty in understanding psychological qualities or complex motives and instead focus on the immediate and the concrete.

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (lEA) Written Composition Study is a survey of essay writing in 15 countries; Australia, Chile, England, Germany (Hamburg), Finland, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sweden, Thailand, the USA, and Wales. Since many aspects of practice and philosophy vary from culture to culture, one aim of the project is to provide a national portrait of each country's curriculum and teaching methods.

In this article the authors describe 5 barriers to learning faced by apprentices. They then outline a number of practical ideas that teachers and tutors can use to overcome these barriers.

Nowadays it is widely assumed that professionals have a good deal to teach parents about how to educate and bring up children. Nursery school, for example, is seen, not just as a secure and enjoyable environment for children, but as a place where their language and intellectual development will be fostered by professional attention. This is especially claimed in the case of working class children, whose parents are believed not to develop their language adequately.

Once a day I try to state in short words what I think. The words I use are words of one pulse. The rest of the day I use words that are two~, three~, or six-pulse words ~ just the way school folks ought to talk. But each day for a short time I work at plain speech. My aim is to clear my head. I learned this mode of speech a few years back. Dave Blum wrote of the Club for One~Pulse Words, a group of friends who write and speak this way as much as three hours a day. The group lives by these
rules.

Aggressive and unmanageable children pose one of the more difficult of the problems faced by the classroom teacher. Overseas research suggests that there are two factors which more than anything else predict the development of behaviour problems in children. These factors are (a) high levels of discord between parents, and (b) harsh and punitive treatment of the child by its parents.

Blocks are blocks - the units of wood found in every good pre-school. They fit together in exact multiples; they are fun to play with but they also introduce without fuss and direct teaching mathematical concepts such as addition and subtraction, and spatial concepts such as area, volume and balance. With blocks children can manipulate space as well as their imaginations. Car cases are like blocks you can live in.