Teachers for Supply

My father, Philip Adey, who has died aged 73, was a chemistry teacher turned educationist and author. He devoted the vast majority of his working life to researching and promoting the teaching of thinking skills at college. His work on science teaching methods produced significant gains at GCSE, not just in science but in addition in maths and English. The strategy was further developed for primary education.

Philip was born in Sevenoaks, Kent. After attending Bryanston school, Dorset, he gained a BSc in chemistry and a PGCE and educational Diploma in Education from the London Institute of Education. Appointed head of chemistry on the Lodge school in Barbados in 1963, he left in 1970 to become a expert at the Caribbean Integrated Science Project based on the University of the West Indies.

Returning to the united kingdom in 1974 to finish his PhD at Chelsea College of Science and Technology, he then worked for the British Council in London and Jakarta, Indonesia, from 1979 to 1984. He went directly to be a researcher, lecturer, senior lecturer, reader and professor at King’s College London. After retiring in 2004, he continued working in Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Hungary and Poland. He was recently the education commissioner for Westminster city council.

Throughout his period at Chelsea and King’s, Philip pursued a research and development programme concerning the assessment and enhancement of college students’ intellectual ability. This ended in a chain of publications on cognitive acceleration and professional development programmes for teachers. His work with Michael Shayer and Carolyn Yates was highly influential. With Shayer, he wrote two bestselling books, Towards a Science of Science Teaching (1981) and actually Raising Standards: Cognitive Intervention and academic Achievement (1994).

Thinking Science, the curriculum materials of the Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education (Case) project, written with Shayer and Yates, can still be present in schools within the UK and beyond. His later work on Case in primary schools involved lots of colleagues within the UK, america and Australia.

Philip was tireless and intellectually rigorous, and engaged all on equal terms. His warmth and wit could remove darkness from a room. He was a great speaker and thousands of teachers was inspired during his professional development sessions. His commitment to high-quality science education for all was evident throughout his career. He delighted in challenging the various orthodoxies held dear by politicians and policymakers, and debunking myths in education. His last book, Bad Education, was published last November.

Philip is survived by his second wife, Jadwiga, whom he married in 2006; by his sons, Lewis and myself, from his first marriage, to Jennifer, who died in 2003; by Jadwiga’s daughters, Lucy and Sophie; and by his grandchildren, Ayesha, Kamilah, Saffron and Leo.

Geoffrey Coates, the celebrated organometallic chemist, has died aged 95. In his academic research, Geoffrey worked with hazardous air- and moisture-sensitive compounds containing metal-carbon or metal-hydrogen bonds. Their study helped our understanding of chemical bonding (and of questions of safety), and ended in new catalysts, semiconducting materials and reagents to be used within the chemical, oil, plastics and pharmaceutical industries.

His authoritative book on organometallic compounds, which grew from a slim monograph to a comprehensive, two-volume third edition in a decade, greatly helped generations of scholars and researchers.

Born in London, he was the elder son of 2 chemists, Joseph (onetime professor of chemistry on the University College of Swansea) and Ada. Educated at Clifton college, Bristol, Geoffrey studied chemistry on the Queen’s College, Oxford, then worked on high-energy substances (flares, explosives, bomb disposal) in the course of the second world war, before taking a lectureship at Bristol University in 1945.

In 1953 he moved to Durham University as head of the chemistry department, and through a higher 15 years transformed a small, fragmented unit in assorted buildings right into a well-balanced department housed in a contemporary building he designed, staffed and equipped. It’s now some of the UK’s leading chemistry departments.

A stickler for accuracy, Geoffrey could seem brusque, but was basically utterly unselfish, kind and considerate, concerned that individuals must be treated fairly. Though reserved, he was an excellent lecturer whose spectacular demonstrations, humour and inspired body language entertained and informed.

Having delivered what Durham needed, Geoffrey moved to the University of Wyoming in 1968 to play the same role there. His wife, Jean, whom he married in 1951, made her own career in medicine there. Retiring in 1979, Geoffrey remained very active, roaming the wild countryside, acquiring new skills, exploring the area on freighters and dealing for global causes promoting fairness and equality.

He launched our own careers, and greatly enriched our lives; we etc are proud to be members of his large scientific family. He’s survived by Jean, by his daughter, Helen, and son, Peter, and by his grandchildren, great-grandchildren and nephews. Geoffrey’s younger brother, John, the celebrated naval architect, died in 2010.

In the wake of the Newtown tragedy, NRA executive vice chairman Wayne LaPierre stated, “The sole thing that prevents a nasty guy with a gun is a superb guy with a gun.” The NRA also ran ads calling President Obama a hypocrite for sending his daughters to a faculty where armed guards protect the scholars, but not allowing armed guards to give protection to other American public schools. As a matter of fact, Sidwell Friends School doesn’t even employ armed guards.

After seven years of training highschool inside the south suburbs of Chicago, i do know that the presence of police would not enhance the academic experience; as a matter of fact, it might probably diminish it. However 68% of scholars in 2011 reported that their school has a police presence – mine isn’t any exception – these officers are generally more thinking about minor infractions than with major tragedies. Almost none of those law enforcement officials has encountered or directly prevented a sad school shooting. The fact is, because the Secret Service present in 1999 after the Columbine Highschool shooting, most faculty shootings were ended by means rather then law enforcement (pdf) intervention.

Most of my students and fellow teachers understand the desire for one unarmed police liaison to accommodate students who commit serious crimes on school grounds, but are not looking for to look more cops in schools, and positively don’t need them armed. This may only add to a culture where guns are commonplace, making them portion of day-to-day life in preference to weapons for use only when absolutely necessary.

We also know that armed law enforcement officials don’t necessarily make schools safer. A 2006 study of recent York City law enforcement officials showed that, in situations once they were firing at somebody, they hit their marks only 28.3% of the time. La police fared only slightly better that year, hitting their marks 40% of the time. Imagine if a stray bullet from a police officer hit an unintended target other than a violent intruder.

So why is the NRA calling for armed guards in schools in the event that they are so obviously unnecessary The answer’s simple: to direct the talk far from stronger gun control laws and toward security features in schools. More armed guards also means more guns, something that the NRA has a vested interest in bringing about.

On Monday, Congressman Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, and 6 other House Republicans took this one step further and introduced a bill that may fund the Cops in Schools program, which might give a complete of $30m in grants to varsities trying to increase armed police presence.

Putting more individuals with guns in schools isn’t the answer. By increasing police presence at school, we’re guaranteeing that more students may be arrested – perhaps unnecessarily. Increasing police in schools will contribute to the faculty-to-prison pipeline. In keeping with the ACLU(pdf):

“In practice, most faculty police spend a good portion in their time responding to minor, nonviolent infractions – children who’ve drawn on desks or talked back to teachers, to illustrate – in preference to behaviors that seriously threaten school safety.”

Minor issues corresponding to these that was once handled by school officials are actually being handled by law enforcement officials who will arrest students for such minor misbehavior. Students who bring weapons to university or who commit violent crimes on school grounds need to be arrested, for sure, but not those that write on desks or talk back to teachers. One arrest dramatically decreases the possibility that a student will graduate from highschool, and might create a number of different issues down the road.

As Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat, said last month within the first federal hearing at the school-to-prison pipeline,

“For a lot of teenagers, our faculties are increasingly a gateway to the criminal justice system. This phenomenon is a consequence of a culture of zero tolerance that’s widespread in our faculties and is depriving many children in their fundamental right to an education.”

More important, schools shouldn’t feel like prisons. President Obama’s children visit school with armed Secret Service agents as a result of their celebrity status. Their security detail is a need. a safety detail for each student in America isn’t. Rather, appointing armed guards to America’s schools will only make students feel confined in place of cared for. Schools must be places where students be happy to partake of their education, not where they feel unable to go for fear of police.

Vice President Joe Biden appeared on a PBS “Fireside Hangout” recently saying, “We’re not calling for armed guards in schools…we think that could be a terrible mistake.” Instead, he want to see $40m in federal funding for schools to rent mental health professionals and resource officers. Furthermore, President Obama is predicted to name for a ban on assault rifles and restrict high-capacity ammunition magazines. This makes much more sense than having armed officers in schools.

I wish to protect the security of the scholars in my classroom greater than anything, but adding guns to our faculties isn’t the approach to do it. A society that polices its schools adore it does its prisons can only result in students with lives more like convicts than children.

Finding Richard III (at the premises of Leicester social services no less) is testament to the ingenuity of archaeologists. Weaving together findings from historical analysis of texts with scientific analysis of the skeleton and the positioning, they’ve made an amazing case that these are the remains of the king.

As a historian, I spend various time looking to take heed to the dead. Now and again a curtain appears pulled aside and we hear them directly, and the sensation is awfully powerful. The way in which that the injuries to the skull match with among the historical accounts of Richard’s death did that for me: i used to be taken to Richard’s final moments, as his helmet was lost and his attackers closed in, his horse gone or stuck within the mud, the moments in other words when he knew he had lost his kingdom and his life. That human connection is precious, and rare.

This ingenious work has recovered a tremendous component of our heritage and can indubitably have direct economic benefits. “The King under the automobile Park”, as Channel 4 had it, will little question stimulate our creative and heritage industries. Leicester University’s archaeology department will, i am hoping, thrive at the publicity.

The findings go a way to resolving the question of ways the tale of Richard’s crooked back was exaggerated for political purposes. For me, though, the important academic significance of the find is its demonstration of the ability of archaeological techniques.

Combining insights from natural and social sciences, archaeology offers a really powerful way of understanding a number of the most inscrutable aspects of our past – consider the issue of interpreting Stonehenge, as an example, and what has now been achieved by this sort of sophisticated analysis. Archaeologists have plenty to inform us concerning the impact of climate change and fuel use, or the upward thrust and decline of complex societies: they provide us access, in other words, to an infinite store of human experience, that’s of direct relevance to a few of the best challenges we now face.

Despite the price and interest of what they do, archaeology departments up and down the rustic at the moment are facing difficulty. The explanation Undergraduate demand has fallen, and there’s no wrong way for them to pay their bills.

This situation reflects a key principle of the Browne review: that investment in higher education ought to be driven by student demand, informed by details about the cost and quality of courses. Archaeological science is costly, and doesn’t attract research funding driven by the quest for economic growth. Student numbers are low, nationally, and although student satisfaction measures and value put it on a par with history and English, archaeology departments cannot attract students within the same numbers, and are finding it hard to hide their costs.

A second aspect of presidency policy exacerbates the difficulty, the “core and margin” policy. Universities can now recruit unlimited numbers of scholars with A-level grades of ABB or better (the ‘margin’ that may grow), but are allocated reduced numbers of places for college kids with lower grades (the ‘core’ allocation). Archaeology has traditionally recruited heavily among ‘core’ students (often those from poorer backgrounds), and departments across the country are being caught by this. Highly selective universities now have a comparatively small ‘core’, and little room for manoeuvre in mitigating short-term movements well-known among high performing A-level students.

The intention is to permit such universities to grow, nevertheless it also creates an incentive for them to disinvest from disciplines with weak demand among applicants with high A-level grades. There is not any corresponding incentive for other universities to soak up that provision. a possible outcome of here’s that there’ll be reduction in national capacity in archaeology, and especially in expensive archaeological science. We are able to all be the poorer for that.

Archaeology isn’t alone. ‘Hard’ or ‘small’ languages also are stressed. They too, will struggle to make their way at the basis of study grants in order that the national capacity in Russian, German and Portuguese tend to decline. As with archaeology, a traditional university response it is going to be to attenuate costs – by targeting language teaching, and reducing the supply inside the politics, sociology, history or literature of these societies. We would expect more degrees in, say, politics with Russian language, emphasising accurate use of the language, and plenty of fewer which emphasise cultural understanding within the fullest sense.

While it will satisfy student demand, and permit universities to continue to prosper, it’ll represent a serious loss to our national research capacity and information base.

The debate concerning the Browne review, and its implementation has up to now focused on the results of high fees at the aspirations of our youth, and at the prospects of our universities as individual institutions. It is time, i suspect, to debate a 3rd dimension – the way forward for particular disciplines, and the chance that scholars and universities, acting rationally within the context within which they’ve been placed, fail between them to generate the mandatory investment to sustain these areas.

Small policy adjustments could help. Universities are currently allocated places in strategically important and vulnerable subjects (SIVS) no matter A-level performance. That is helping with languages, but archaeology and other subjects aren’t protected, while all be afflicted by the results of the core and margin policy in selective universities.

It is a classic collective action problem – no university or individual student has a specific interest in shouldering the prices of the mandatory investment, and so we run the danger that nobody will make it. Letting that rip is not any less a call than implementing a political technique to it, and it might be cheap to unravel.

Let’s no less than make a conscious decision, following a formal discussion, that here is easy methods to plan the national knowledge base.

Michael Braddick is professor and pro-vice-chancellor for the college of arts and arts on the University of Sheffield

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