Micro-teaching has been a tried and trusted part of teacher preparation programmes for decades but it is a valuable feedback tool that is mostly absent in day-to-day teaching. This is a shame as the original micro-teaching model, developed by Stanford University throughout the 1960s, aimed not only to provide student teachers with an opportunity to gain practical experience of and feedback on their teaching, but was also designed with the intent of observing what methods work best in the classroom and, importantly, to provide experienced teachers with a form of in-house professional development[1]. In his groundbreaking book Visible Learning (2009)…
Avoiding Conflict in School
There is a dearth of university seminars and professional development opportunities to help prepare both the novice and experienced teachers build positive relationships with parents. Too often, outside of mandated conferences, parents and teachers meet only in times of conflict.
Such conflict is something that all parties would rather avoid. New teachers are particularly disadvantaged in dealing with this. It is easy to forget that not so long ago parental conflict, for them, meant staying out too late or not tidying their room. Having to manage disgruntled parents is new and daunting. Conflict with parents will fit into two general…
In a recent Op-Ed for the Washington Times, former US House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich stated that liberals and conservatives in the US no longer share any common ground from which to disagree and find solutions to pressing political issues. Liberals and conservatives, Gingrich contends, live in such different and irreconcilable realities that he fears that America is headed towards a “serious, bitter struggle”. Claims that the US is headed towards civil war have been commonplace over the past four years but have remained largely confined to the fringes of serious political discourse. …
On Monday 1st June, NBC reporters Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny broke a story that the white supremacist group Identity Evropa were infiltrating the mass protests that have ravaged the US since the death of George Floyd with the intention of inflaming racial tensions. It was a shocking story; a white supremacist group posting as Antifa threatening to bring violence to the suburbs.
On Tuesday Collins appeared on MSNBC with anchor Stephanie Ruhle to discuss the episode and on Twitter where the story was enthusiastically shared by numerous Twitter verified journalists, Collins opined “I have been taken aback by the…
Or how I fell foul of the Resistance Troll to Media Pipeline
I was Progressive Dad, a political satirist in a similar vein as Godfrey Elfwick and Titiana McGrath. I mocked internet outrage culture both left and right. My modus operandi; if you are mad online and looking for a straw man to prove your point, I’m available. ProgDad made international headlines several times like the time he tried to convince gun enthusiasts to use “words not guns” in home invasion situations and the time he heroically chased MAGA hat-toting racists off a bus. An avid vegan, ProgDad went viral…
Advice from a Bavarian Octogenarian
I am on my way to Füssen in Bavaria when news comes over the radio that all schools in the south of Germany will be closed for five weeks. I am spending my birthday in the mountains as I do every year. While just over the Alps in Northern Italy millions of people are on lockdown because of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), in Germany, people go about their lives as normal. At a cafe in the centre of Füssen one elderly gentleman jokingly refuses to shake the hand of his friend as he joins him at their table for what looks…
Brian’s journey from Labour Party Member to White Identitarian
Brian (name changed for privacy) contacted me in May of 2019 to tell me how social media has proven pivotal in his political shift from mainstream liberal to white identitarian. After two years of speaking with the far right, I can, with confidence, state that his story is typical of many young white men who populate the Twitter, Telegram and Discord DM groups on the fringes of the extreme right. So I have decided to print his interview here.
Brian is 33 and comes from Manchester, England. He self-identifies as a political extremist: “I’d define myself primarily as a white…
Two trans women found an unlikely support network on far right social media
Bea and Diana (both names changed) are male-to-female transsexual women. They are also members of far right Social Media chat rooms. This may seem like an impossible juxtaposition and yet it isn’t. Bea is in her late 20s, white and lives in Oregon. Diana is 24 and does not want anyone to know her location. While both state that their political beliefs are not linked to their transsexual identity, there are some similarities in their personal experiences that have influenced their slide to the far right.
Both Bea and Diana come from challenging family backgrounds. Bea grew up in a…
On June 29th there was an attack on journalist Andy Ngo at a protest in Portland. In the aftermath there was a concerted effort by Antifa sympathisers to portray outrage over the attack as right-wing pearl-clutching while many who were shocked by the violence pointed to the silence of or downplaying of the incident by liberal media outlets. This kind of polarisation and spinning of events is, sadly, ubiquitous in the era of the so-called “culture wars”. To their credit, Andy Ngo did appear on CNN’s New Day show to speak about the attack shortly after being released from hospital…
Dr. Eoin Lenihan
Education. Extremism. Words in The Daily Caller, Quillette, Post Millennial, EdWeek, International Schools Journal and more.
