Opinion

Here I comment on a wide range of issues from education to politics, the arts and more. I welcome lively and opinionated debate, so please leave your comments.

Towards boundary crossing: primary and secondary school teachers teaching creative writing and its redrafting
This academic article, written by Professor Tom Dobson and I, explores the research we did looking at primary and secondary school teachers attitudes towards creative writing and redrafting. This is a rare piece of research which compares primary and secondary school teachers’ approaches to teaching creative writing. It shows that primary school teachers can be formulaic in the way they teach creative writing, using product approaches. However, in secondary schools the picture is different: teachers, particularly those, who are writers themselves, give students more agency in redrafting and shaping their writing. This indicates how professional development should involve primary and secondary school teachers in dialogue with one another to cross boundaries of practice.

The British Library, research and creative writing
Creative writing can be used to help people engage with the British Library and its collection. MA students led members of the public through the Library, inviting creative responses to its archive and exhibitions.
What can the opera ‘Carmen’ teach us about domestic violence?
A blog written for my publishers, Blue Door Press, which explores how and why the opera ‘Carmen’ can be seen as a critique of violence and masculinity.
Four reasons there is a Connected Curriculum at Goldsmiths
Why bring all the students at a university together to learn critical thinking and research skills?

Tender is the night

Finished reading Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Tender is the Night’ and was struck by the author’s deep psychological insight, his ability to scrutinise the tiniest reactions of people when they are confronted or challenged, his uncanny, enlightened cynicism that sees multiple causes behind every gesture, every flick of the eye, every glance. The scene where Dick Diver […]
Violence in the classroom

A depressing survey that shows violence in the classroom is on the increase: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3564297.ece http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/onethird-of-teachers-threatened-796778.html‘
Interesting article on the brain controlling accent

Great article for English Language A Level students on how the brain controls accents here.’
BBC Radio 5 Live Debate On Universities

Appeared on Richard Bacon’s show, arguing that too many students were going to university, studying non-courses’. Too many courses are not serious: Outdoor Adventure With Philosophy, Ghost-Hunting, Surfing Studies. The guest arguing the other point of view, said that students should be able to study whatever they want. I argued there was limited money in […]
Rose-tinted government recruitment campaign on BBC Breakfast

Appeared yesterday on BBC Breakfast talking about the new government advertising campaign to recruit teachers. I complained on the Beeb’s very red sofa that the government didn’t tell the truth, that it gave false hopes and that it sold the lie that teachers are paid like people in the corporate world. The campaign highlights all […]
Good analysis of the crime statistics

The Sunday Times ran a good analysis of the crime stats in this interesting comment piece. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article3382270.ece?openComment=true‘
Good analysis of the crime statistics

The Sunday Times ran a good analysis of the crime statistics in this interesting comment piece. The same edition ran an illuminating interview with a former gang member.
The Asbo Round The Corner

Our local corner shop has finally had an Asbo slapped on the local youths in our area to stop them intimidating and harrassing them, after years of abuse and violence. The local residents rose up and named and shamed the miscreants in court. All seems peaceful now at the shop: there are no youths smoking […]
Newsnight — Yob Culture

Appeared on Newsnight talking about yob culture with Ken Jones, a top policeman, Rob Williams from the Children’s Commission, and a leading magistrate.
Two In A Tower and The Trumpet Major

Going through a major Thomas Hardy phase, as if teaching ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’ wasn’t enough. I felt his novella, ‘Two In A Tower’ is a marvellous achievement. It’s about a poor, young, pretty astronomer who falls in love with an unhappily married lady of the manor. The pair secretly marry, only to have […]
Pere Goriot — Balzac in Paris

Loved reading Balzac’s most famous novel in Paris, walking the streets, observing the lemony sunlight on polished stone, and living the life of Raustignac, the poor student, who seeks the high life in the ballrooms and salons of 19th Century Paris. The novel is a real pot-boiler, full of melodrama, wronged fathers, conniving daughters and […]
The Road Home by Rose Tremain
BBC Breakfast and BBC News 24

Back at the Beeb on Sunday morning talking about new research which shows girls are just as badly behaved as boys, but just in subtler, trickier ways. I described how boys have thrown missiles, stuck ripped cans on my chair, fought and hurled abuse at me, while girls have caused probably more trouble by lying, […]
London Talking — Appearance January 15th 2008

Made a brief appearance as a named guest on London Talking, with Konnie Huq, Nick Ferrarri, Vanessa Feltz and a rep from the NSPCC. The discussion was on whether it was right to smack children or not. Nick Ferrarri and some other ill-informed guests defended smacking, which in my view is tantamount to defending violence […]
A squirt too far — a review of Chesil Beach

Read another ridiculous Ian McEwan novel, the denouement of which is laugh out loud funny. A poor unfortunate chap’s premature ejaculation on his wedding night in the 1960s leads to the break-up of his marriage and the effective demolition of his life. McEwan’s tone is serious, earnest, studied, descriptive, but he failed to convince me […]
Review of Affluenza by Oliver James

Psychologist Oliver James has written a big, fat book about why too many of us are suffering from affluenza’ — a virus of the over privileged who want more and yet more. Apparently, the Western world contains some of the unhappiest people as well as the wealthiest because our ‘selfish capitalism’ has created a culture […]
The Well-Beloved By Thomas Hardy

Now this is a great novella. A sculptor growing up on a small, quarried island just off the Dorset coast, is afflicted by this condition whereby he falls in love with ‘the well-beloved’ in a woman, and that this essence of feminity, this life principle, jumps from woman to woman in a maddeningly capricious fashion. […]
What’s happened to Iain Banks?

Read ‘The Steep Approach To Garbadale’ and couldn’t believe how poor it was. Where has the energy and originality of his old books gone? Where’s the invention of ‘The Wasp Factory’, ‘The Bridge’, ‘The Crow Road’. More than where’s the writing ability? His prose is so lame and tired now. And the plot! It could […]
Interesting article on a parents who set up their own state school

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article2935515.ece‘
Will sacking lots of teachers solve our woes?

Appeared on BBC News, responding to a government adviser who says we should be sacking teachers in schools which are performing badly. I say that many good teachers are unhappy because of the multiple pressures that they face: pupil indiscipline, lack of parental support, government paperwork, the pressure to get results versus giving children a […]