5 12, 2021

The End of Education

By Jason van Tol|2023-12-14T23:48:39+00:002021-12-05|Education|

The End of Education

The word education derives from both the Latin educare: ‘to bring up’ and educere: ‘to lead forth’. Unlike its German counterpart bildung, which historically focussed on self-formation, education thus has a distinct social dimension. The perennial question is: To bring up for what? Leading to where? More generally: To what end?

Two overarching and conflicting purposes of education have existed in Australia’s national educational policy dating back to the 1989 Hobart Declaration – the first of its kind. These have been education as preparation for employment, versus education for active and informed citizenship. Consider the definition of […]

29 08, 2021

Tokyo

By Jason van Tol|2023-12-14T23:47:54+00:002021-08-29|Creative Writing|

Tokyo

The train ride was like any other in the early afternoon, so much space that one could watch the urban labyrinth flit by while sitting down. During rush hour people would gush in like water, filling the space completely and evenly, businesslike, without waste. The buildings of the outside world flashing by would be obscured, making for a tedious journey of staring at one’s shoes, the ads near the ceiling, or the back of the next salaryman’s neck. On rare occasions someone next to me would have the courage to practice his English, and state in a halting, monotonous […]

27 08, 2021

Scarlet Honeyeater

By Jason van Tol|2023-12-14T23:51:55+00:002021-08-27|Creative Writing|

Scarlet Honeyeater

Spring’s grevilleas,
Brings scarlet honeyeaters,
PLID-o-Willy-erk.

24 08, 2021

Class Division

By Jason van Tol|2023-12-14T23:52:16+00:002021-08-24|Education|

Class Division

In 1985 a grade three teacher in Iowa named Jane Elliott tried an experiment on her class to teach them about discrimination. On one day she gave to all the blue-eyed students special privileges, like extra recess time, while the brown-eyed students were disadvantaged: having to stay in at recess, not being allowed to use the drinking fountain etc. On the second day she reversed these privileges for the brown-eyed students and discriminated against the blue-eyed ones. Her experimental lesson was later turned into the documentary A Class Divided. What’s remarkable about this is how quickly the […]

26 09, 2018

On Time

By Jayveetee|2023-12-14T23:46:57+00:002018-09-26|Creative Writing, Education, Science|

On Time

Regardless of the object of study, learning takes time. Some lessons might take only a few minutes, others may take a lifetime. In the latter case, one may decide the object of study is not worth pursuing.

When I was in high school I was fascinated by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and, in those pre-Internet days, read as much as I could on the subject in the few books available. Although special relativity (which deals exclusively with inertial frames of reference, or those which are non-accelerating) can be studied by anyone with high school mathematics, general relativity (that dealing […]