Everything Old is New Again.

Didn't we suspect all those keyboards were doing us no good, especially the kiddies?

Read on the train on the way home tonight, in the Age today, an article about the (for some) forgotten art of penmanship and all the competitive advantages of occasionally picking up a pen rather than always keyboarding it. Who knows, maybe in a year or two, self-proclaimed progressive schools all over the country will be putting out shiny brochures that tout their brain-enhancing, quill and parchment sessions in conjunction with their usual brain-shrinking, advanced computer skills classes:

Educational research has concluded that handwriting skills increase brain activation and also stimulate the learning process. At the University of Stavanger in Norway, magnetic resonance imaging research established a cognitive link between the haptics of writing by hand and the activation of the brain's sensorimotor system. That is, students writing by hand remembered letters better than those typing on a keyboard.

Studies undertaken at the University of Washington determined that students wrote faster and in more complete sentences when writing by hand as opposed to writing using a keyboard.

That is, the correlation between better handwriting skills and improved academic performance in reading and writing can no longer be ignored.

Children who have the capacity to write fluently, legibly and automatically are better equipped to generate and evaluate ideas, judge responses and organise their thoughts. Indeed, poor handwriters struggle to write down their ideas and will quit the writing process sooner than those who write fluently.
 

 

Almost Human

As much as I hate kowtowing to reality, I had to accept yesterday that a week’s recovery probably means a week, or at the very least more than 3 days, and so I’ve deferred my commuting and Arvo Job schedule until tomorrow. Today I hope at the very least to string together a few ideas and do some meaningful writing, as well as go for a long walk during which I plan to inhale copious amounts of invigorating country air. Naps will be only be taken on an absolutely-need-to-nod-off basis, and schlepping around dozily wondering what to do next will be severely curtailed. I’m going to try for a normalish day.

On the upside, I’ve had time to catch up on a few Internet stories, including the ongoing adventures of Commander Camilla Corona SDO, the inspiring US Astrochicken who recently headed up an extremely dangerous NASA mission.

In her own words:

"I flew into one of the strongest proton storms in years. The source of the radiation was sunspot AR1429, which unleashed more than 50 solar flares during the first two weeks of March. At the peak of the storm charged particles hitting Earth's upper atmosphere deposited enough heat in only three days to power every residence in New York City for two years. It was pretty intense. Earth-orbiting satellites reported proton counts ~30,000 times normal," she said.

If you don't know her, Camilla is a true Renaissance rubber chicken. Not only is she NASA’s Solar Dynamic’s Observatory’s mascot, but being a type A rubber chicken, she spreads her enthusiasm for all things spacey by visiting classrooms, science fairs, festivals and exhibits to teach about the Sun, space weather and space exploration. Recently, prior to her latest mission, she trained (and hung out) with Russian cosmonauts in Star City, and posted about the experience on her blog. Not a prude, she freely recounts her recent run-ins with space station toilets and explains the whole business of going about your business when off planet. She tweets, and is on Facebook, Google+ and other social media, and tirelessly spreads the inspirational messages that science is cool, that science is for everyone, that space is the biggest adventure of all, and, very importantly, that space adventures are for girls too. She does all this while providing historical information about past space missions, slipping in a spot of gossip about astronauts, giving updates on NASA’s present work, and posting photos of the wonders of the universe. The world could definitely do with a few more rubber chickens like Camilla.

But not only is Camilla intelligent, brave, gregarious and media savvy, as an everygeek’s rubber chicken, she’s not averse to pop culture. After her Star City training, and an international meeting in Helsinki, our jet-setting Commander Corona stopped over in London to attend a Dr Who exhibition and investigate the Dalek phenomenon.


Ah, if only my life were as glamorous and exciting and useful as this rubber chicken’s.

Out Of Smart-Mouthed Babes

Scene: On board a V-Line train.
Characters: Mother, Father, two over-excited children of the are-we-there-yet type, and an eavesdropping commuter with a laptop.

First Sibling, pointing out window: Look, look! It’s kind of a train!
Second Sibling (scathingly): Not kind of a train! It is a train.

An argument then ensues about what First Sibling actually meant by ‘kind of’. Second Sibling, a pint-sized pedant, will not give an inch, while Second Sibling grows louder and increasingly desperate to salvage some credibility.

Mother: Be quiet, both of you! It doesn’t matter what anyone said.

Dramatic pause.

Second Sibling (in a shocked tone): But Mummy, it does matter!

Eavesdropping commuter silently applauds.

If You're Not Happy and You Show It

Apparently, if you're a sourpuss academic at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, my old stomping grounds, you'll get in trouble with your bosses, as the university has recently introduced a "behavioural capability framework" that requires staff to promote positivity and show passion for the job, all of which will be measured by "external benchmarks of performance excellence", a loaded phrase open to multiple levels of interpretive abuse if ever I heard one. All staff members have to sign off on this code by April 13, three months before they're due to begin negotiating a new collective agreement with the university. And if you don't sign the framework? Hmmm. I can't say for sure, but there's a word that starts with a letter that is also a buzzing insect and ends with what the postman delivers that might be of relevance in this situation.

So how did this come to pass? When did the world become place where some control freaky behavioural bureaucrat could come up with such a ridiculously restrictive idea, get it past a committee of people supposedly possessed of the ability to think critically, and have a university actually demand that their professional thinkers and questioners act like smiley salespeople pushing a mobile phone plan? What happened to the idea of universities fostering brilliance and individuality and eccentricity? And are kids these days really to be denied memories of a certain surly lecturer, someone they can bond over and bitch about for decades until one day the penny drops and they're old enough to realise what the old grump was trying to teach them?

It all sounds a tad Orwellian to me. Let's measure that smile. Let's weigh that passion. Let's plot points on your personal positivity graph to keep a detailed check on how non-negative you've been.

Gah!

Sucky schoolie semantics

More proposed legislation: the Victorian Coalition government wants to give teachers and principals the right to force students to open their bags or lockers or turn out their pockets if said teacher or principals “reasonably believed” they might contain harmful items. What’s more, the government proposes that teachers would also be authorised to search any vehicle used for a teacher-supervised student activity.

So far, so authoritarian. People can argue the pros and cons of teachers going through the car boots of parents who are dropping off the kids according to their own fears, beliefs, political inclinations, and paranoia, whatever. The bit that many find interesting is that these laws will only apply to government schools.

The reason given by the Education Minister Martin Dixon for authorising these new search powers is a wonderful piece of backhanded spin: “Violence in our schools escalated under the Brumby Labor government. The Coalition government is determined to improve the safety for our children in government schools.”

So all in all, what our present government is saying is:

1) State schools suck (it’s not our fault).
2) State school kids suck.They’re rowdy, ungrateful little beggars who need to be kept in line.
3) Private school kids don’t suck. They’re inherently better, brighter and more upright than state school kids. The government trusts them implicitly.
4) Parents who send their kids to state schools suck. State schools are dangerous places. Parents who really love their children would mortgage the house or work four jobs to ensure that their kiddies go to a nice, safe private school.
5) Fixing up the state school system sucks. It’s boring, and it’s hard work, so let’s come up with a whizz-bang, media-attracting solution full of innuendo that will pit the haves and have-nots against each other to distract from the fact that the government won’t hire good teachers and pay them what they’re worth, invest in infrastructure and technology, or engage in other such commitment-heavy solutions.
6) Being the Education Minister sucks. Sometimes you actually have to go to state schools (yuk) and pretend to care about them.