Gisela Hoyle's Blog
February 20, 2015
A Fountain in Berlin
In her National Book Award acceptance speech, Ursula K. Le Guin said: ���Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.��� https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk
And that was the final thing I needed to hear on my internal debate on what...
November 14, 2012
Word subterfuges
One of my many long-suffering colleagues was working on a document today called a ‘staff capability policy’ and I felt quite strongly that the words ‘capability policy’ were an oxymoron – or at least to some extent contradictory. I am not sure exactly why this should be. I have an abiding and deep-seated suspicion of the word policy and really do think it capable of all kinds of subterfuge and camouflage of less than savoury ideas.
The word seems to be invoked when actions need to be justified...
November 13, 2012
Lies, damn lies
Because obviously the way to make these reports more efficient and helpful is to employ one more of all those lovely measuring devices that are now the sad and withered heart and soul of what used to be education. The powers in their wisdom decided to add a column in which teachers would note whether the poor soul under scrutiny had achieved his target level that lesson!
Pray tell: which target worth achieving is achieved in the hour? What teenager worth the name would be inspired by such a mean, small document to ‘try harder’ or care more consistently about work, which has been made deliberately trivial so that it can be measured in an hour?
When, oh when, did we agree to set our sites so low; and allow the grey men of the data world to wield these ridiculous unreal numbers over the development of human beings with such frighteningly precise inaccuracy? And when did we allow the world of mathematics – that perfect poetry of the universe – to become the servant of such lies and deliberate misrepresentations of the reality of young people developing, thinking, rebelling and becoming human?
October 9, 2012
“Teaching read…
Literacy at the school where I teach is a hot topic currently: we’re not very good at it: below national average apparently on various yardsticks of reading proficiency.
What to do about it?
At secondary school, few teachers are equipped to teach reading explicitly – and as Louisa Moats says: it IS rocket science. Because teaching reading is teaching thinking, is teaching the interpretation of the world and all it throws at one – and there is no ‘just’.
There is no ‘if they could just learn spelling/verb constructions/punctuation/word recognition they would somehow magically be able read.
There are so many aspects of it – and if it has been neglected there are years of frustration to combat, too.
How can we give back to these children the joy, the power and the freedom of being able to read?
"Teaching reading IS rocket science."
What to do about it?
At secondary school, few teachers are equipped to teach reading explicitly - and as Louisa Moats says: it IS rocket science. Because teaching reading is teaching thinking, is teaching the interpretation of the world and all it throws at one - and there is no 'just'.
There is no 'if they could just learn spelling/verb constructions/punctuation/word recognition they would somehow magically be able read.
There are so many aspects of it - and if it has been neglected there are years of frustration to combat, too.
How can we give back to these children the joy, the power and the freedom of being able to read?
March 21, 2011
It’s March
when willows green yellow
and casual grace throws white
round naked branches
when almost is a yearning earth
of never quite forgotten
urgent hugely returning
delicate surge
of pulses quickening
almost
<>
waiting and aching
knowing
how brief the blaze
of almost
must be
March 10, 2011
Turtle-song
For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
Song of Solomon
a mistranslation – it seems – for turtle-doves
and a smug glee in scholars
till curiosity leads to
creaky quacks grunts squeals
and oddly plaintive trills
by which these carapace-d ancients
call from their solitary habits
for yearly company
<>
and after the anxious blind scramble through warm-dark sand
turtle-song is not in sound but sea
the pulse of plankton-surge
diving and swelling in weightless chords
to doze long days in the contented
wordless companionship of birds
February 26, 2011
Reading Homer
I dreamed of Ithaca I think
and knew it not
after much swimming in circles
round a famed-for-wonders city without gates
through rising speeding water full of
small and slimy things
terribly dangerous
<>
on the seventh round
I saw perilous alps and caves of startling blue
where couchant lay a giant snow-white goat
on slopes too steep for horses
serenely licking ice
as my father’s wildebeest
once licked salt
its face was human
and his place was home
<>
I could not go to him
swam on dream-driven
then woke
and dared to name
where I had not quite been
January 29, 2011
Winter Stars
Winter drags on – though the stars keep turning time and appearing consolingly on the horizon telling stories to while away long nights.
Coma Berenices
/Suetonius: Titus reginam Berenicen,
cui etiam nuptias pollicitus ferebatur,
statim ab Urbe dimisit invitus invitam[1]
Winter’s late midnight approaches and
faint on the eastern horizon rise
the stars of victorious Ptolemy’s merely human queen
pale and fine as her golden hair’s anxious
thanks shorn for that ancient altar
and snatched into burning permanence
where the whirling tales of careless gods
affably dance the years’ indifferent divinations
<>
300 circumnavigations later her namesake’s
credulous prayers
crashed soundlessly
against the voracious walls
of Titus’ crumbling empire
without astronomy’s cool comfort
[1] ‘Titus, who was even said to have promised marriage to Queen Berenice, immediately sent her away from Rome against both their wishes.’
