Is there such a thing as an ‘all-rounded’ child?

Now, I am not one for putting people into boxes – least of all because of how much knowledge they hold in their head or the material value of their academic status (if that is not confounding two measures). However, when it comes to measures of intelligence, particularly amongst students still in the precarious stage …

7 Quick Takes: Exam Confidence

7 Quick Takes Friday is hosted by This Ain't the Lyceum. ~1~ Work at things until they’re rote. If revising a certain topic bores you, you're probably at the stage where you understand it. ~2~ Use acronyms, aphorisms, ascriptions. Start associating the names you probably won't remember by themselves with phrases that you'll be able …

Among the Catholics

Are you taking your faith for granted? Or are you acting like a Pharisee in your criticism? But everyone is a sinner, and everyone can be saved.

All Along the Watchtower

Newman noted that one of the problems converts had was with the reality of the Catholic Church. Most of them, like him, had had very little do to with the Catholic Church in its parish form before conversion. They had, as he had, studied a good deal, prayed a good deal, and had a good idea from the available sources of what it was they were joining. They were joining the Church founded by Christ. That was all true at the level of the ideal; in practice they found, as Newman himself did, things were somewhat different. People were often perfunctory in the performance of their religious duties, familiarity had bred if not contempt, then the sort of ‘by rote’ practice which had been an irritating part of his original church. As one Archbishop has put it, writing about the 1940s, there was:

mumbled Latin, rushed hurried gestures, half genuflections…

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Photo of the Week: Learning Styles

You know how people see different elements of a single structure? ie. In a painting, a writer might see the story, whilst an artist might instead look to the brushstrokes and tones. It occurred to me as I was thinking about this phenomenon that it might be used to discern a child or youth's a) …

TCWT: By the Examples of Books

It’s time for December’s Teens Can Write, Too! blog chain post (and I almost forgot!). This month’s prompt was: “What works of fiction have taught you by example, and what did they teach you?” In a way, this is a very difficult and very simple question to answer, and I don’t know how much I’m …

Association, Learning and Character – Psychology and Fiction

Behaviour is a function of its consequences – to show us that what we do is effective and rewarding. It’s been said time and again that characters actions must be relevant to the plot, not abstract or simple accidents. Well, those actions can be accidents, but incidental accidents, like in those comic sketches where one …

The Life of an English Student, Part Three

What are university lectures? In a conversation about my previous two posts, I was asked this, or words to its extent. I think one doesn’t truly appreciate the simplicity and ‘sameness’ of British university lectures until Sixth Form (or years 12 and 13 – these are ages 16 – 18) or not even then, depending on whether …