Learning in Playful Environments

I got lucky, once, when teaching a Literature class about point-of-view. My friend Mark Friedlander had made an art installation which showed what I was struggling to tell. I took my class to the gallery and invited them to engage with Mark’s work. It was plywood, like a packing case, about two meters high and a meter square. On two sides were tiny holes. If you walked up and put your eye to a hole, you saw into a miniature white corridor illuminated from above. It was like looking into the start of a labyrinth; your imagination was invited into the possibilities of a space where your physical body couldn’t go. Mark Friedlander You can see some later iterations of Mark’s work here . It strikes me now that Mark’s box was a lot like the way I think about poetry: it was a space for the viewer/reader to make meaning. Many meanings were possible but all were bounded by Mark’s manipulation of the space - his crafting of the materials and his manipulation of the light source. Tonight I have ...

Sunday night in Singapore Primitive people, so I’m told, Feared photography because It stole their soul. In civilised countries, Like Singapore and Australia Kalashnikov cameras Shoot holes in everything - Capturing images Like there’s no tomorrow.

The line between word and world Is no greater than A typo. Tongue tip To tooth Touching a Certainty I have no Way to Verify. "Guilty" "Innocent". Words and Words and Words and Worlds entwined; Tripping off The tongue Like Lazy mood Music that Means Nothing. A missing Letter Signifying Everything.

A photo Freud, I think, would have been amused by the photo I took outside his house this summer. Across the road from the Viennese apartment where Freud worked and lived is now a 2 nd hand shop and in the window of this shop is a display of Barbie Dolls. My photo captures the facade of the Freud Museum reflected above a crowd of used Barbie Dolls. It's not hard to imagine what Freud might have thought about Barbie. With her impossibly exaggerated proportions, the Barbie Doll represents an intrusion (extrusion?) of adult sexuality into childhood consciousness. Freud claimed that sexuality in various forms is an inherent part of childhood anyway, but I suspect he might have had a lot to say about the way consumer marketing has used the Barbie Doll to exploit the uncertainties of an emerging childhood identity. What I’d be interested to hear is Freud’s thoughts about the focus of this marketing – is Barbie more marketed to children or their parents? Is the attraction of Barbie’s exa...

In the 1980s, when I went to Melbourne University, the Old Arts building had only one renovated lecture theatre. In contrast to the oak panelling and uncomfortable chairs of the other spaces, the "Public Lecture Theatre" had tiered seating upholstered in the pastels of late '80s modernity. It was a place of flickering fluorescent lights and shimmering contrasts. Outside, the sandstone walls spoke of tradition and gravitas; inside, the sound-absorbing roof panels whispered invitations to the future. Each week I sat in this shimmering space for my "Introduction to Philosophy" lecture. My lecturer was one of the best teachers I have ever had. Frustratingly I don't remember much about him, but I have vivid recollections of his teaching. Lectures would begin with him walking briskly to the lectern, removing his tweed cap and taking a piece of chalk from his pocket. The entire lecture would be structured as a conversation between "Chalky" and "Hatty...

Venturer top secret by Ian f. Sime My rating: 3 of 5 stars Very much a book of its time, this is a rollicking yarn in the spirit of Biggles and the "Boy's Own" collections. It's of particular interest to those connected to the heritage of Kurt Hahn as the author was a teacher at Gordonstoun School and the plot is loosely based on the voyage of the school's vessel, the "Prince Louis of Wales", during WWII. The archivist at Gordonstoun reports that the Prince Louis was sailed by a crew of boys with 4 professional sailors provided by the Blue Funnel line. She took three weeks to make the voyage from the Moray Firth in Scotland through the Caledonian Canal to Aberdovey in Wales and narrowly missed a ramming when she fell in with a blacked out convoy in the Irish Sea. View all my reviews