Build a beer cooler

Wine is all well and good, but sometimes it just has to be a cold beer. What to do, then, when the beer is warm and all you have to hand is a wine cooler? Easy - simply place beer in wine cooler, and wrap parcel tape around for a snug fit. Voila - an effective and very stylish beer cooler.

beer cooler

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Learning styles are a myth and I am not an auditory learner

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I switched on Radio 6 this morning, and the track they were playing had a drum sound which caught my ear. It reminded me of a rototom - a tuned drum which was quite popular in the 80s. I had a set of three in my drum kit.



I doubt many listeners would have made that connection. I suspect many listeners would not even have particularly distinguished that drum sound. I think many people just hear songs in a much less differentiated way, unless they make a real effort. I, like most musicians, tend to hear the guitar, the drums, the bass, the keyboard and the vocals separately.

In other words, I am extracting more information from the audio than some might.

It would be tempting to imagine, therefore, that I would learn better through hearing than through other senses. But that is nonsense. Imagine trying to learn about the physical geography of a country through hearing about it without a map!

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Sacrifice and Memory

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He offers an analysis of how ritual sacrifice arose in societies, which I find fascinating and utterly convincing. His contention is that it arose after our ancestors developed the capacity to think about the future, and therefore began to realise that delaying gratification could deliver longer term benefits. In other words, that sacrificing something of value in the present could lead to good things in the future. Having discovered this, it is a small step to imagine that sacrificing something of value, like a goat, might also lead to good things happening in the future.

This link between delaying gratification, personal sacrifice and ritual sacrifice had never occurred to me before. It now seems obvious. Perhaps it was already obvious to most people.

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Some Thoughts about Skills-Based Curricula

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I can see the appeal of this, but I am wary. Here are a couple of things which would worry me if they were true:

1.  Is this curriculum seeking to develop generic, transferable skills?

If so, we really need to distinguish between actual skills which are applicable in a range of conte…
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