Adrian Buck > Recent Status Updates

"Marsh beleived that the lessons were buried in the scars that the human species had left left on the landscape for thousands of years." - meteor strikes, glaciation, the conversion of forest to grassland by herbivores?

'Humboldt was the "greatest of the priesthood of nature', Marsh said he had understood the world as an interplay between man and nature..." - The idea the man is somehow apart from nature is an Abrahamic one, have environmentalists replaced the worship of God with the worship of nature?

"Humboldt had plucked the word Kosmos from ancient Greek where it meant order and beauty - but one created through the human eye" - for my purposes the best chapter so far, one that defines Humboldt's conception of nature by contrasting it with others. Not so much THE invention of nature as AN invention of nature. Thoreau played an important part in the development of the American conception of Wilderness.

"Knowledge did not 'chill the feelings' because the senses were connected'...Thoreau followed Humbolt's deep seated belief in the 'deep seated bond' that united knowledge and poetry." - the Metaphysical poets?

"There was no need to go on an expedition to distant countries" - indeed this is implied by the concept of nature as a whole.

"Thoreau would follow Humbolt in his belief that the 'whole' could only be comprehended by understanding the connections, correlations and details." - but where did the sense of this 'wholeness" come from?

"Humboldt discussed how plants and animals 'limit each other's numbers'" - something I was taught at school - grass, rabbits and foxes. This actually is a contribution to ecology, why does it just get a passing mention?

"If God had created plants animals in the first place, did the concept of evolving species imply he had made initial mistakes? Similarly if a species became extinct and God continuously made new ones, did this mean that he constantly changed his mind?" - same could be said of imperfect and varying instances of the same species.

"As long as the colonies were under Spanish control, the United States exported huge amounts of grain and wheat to South America. Once they turmed away from colonial cash crops their 'produce and commerce would rivalise ours', Jefferson told the minister of Spain in Washington, DC" - Jefferson doesn't come out of this book looking too good.

"Whereas a clock consisted of parts that could be dismantled and then assembled again, an animal couldn't" - the difference is not so apparent in an age of organ transplants and genetic engineering.

"It was 'cultivated nature', Buffon had written, that was beautiful." - I'm going to have to read her gardening books.

"James Lovelock's famous Gaia theory of the earth as a living organism bears remarkable similarities" - this is a big reach, the Gaia hypothesis has a mechanism, the climate regulating behaviour of bacteria, that doesn't seem to have a role in Humboldt's concept of interconnectedness. A mechanism is the difference between science and mysticism.

"At the time of writing, Siri and Google Now are examples of how the built-in interactivity of phones can be put to good use' - Wow! Just wow, we're none of us safe.

"like a child on an exeat from school" - how long since I've seen that word in print, since 1985, I guess.

"Sometimes a faith would grow weak, and then the god of that faith also drooped and dwindled and fainted for his daily portion of incense." - Neil Gaiman makes much of this.

"...just as the imponderable bloom of the grape was ignored by the manufacturers of artificial fruit. Something 'good enough' had long been accepted by our race."

"...any country which has beech clumps and sloping grass and very clear streams may reasonably produce him." - the Bükk?

"There many reasons why we teach the way we do. The most prominent refer to the way we were taught and learned languages ourselves." - the mismatch between ELT CLT textbooks and Grammar-Translation teachers.

"..and, most importantly, engage in regular dialogue with colleagues online or in the staff room about what works best in the classroom" - in Hungary, what happens after the classroom door closes is a professional secret.

"Having regular conversation time with colleagues, especially native speakers. You could devote an hour a week formally at school or socially to conversation." - Ah, the Közgé in the noughties, how I miss you!

"In languages, however, a lack of proficiency is hard to conceal and it can undermine your credibility, which can, in turn, affect the motivation and behaviour of your class" - I have always been surprised that my classes ask me - as the native speaker - to evaluate the English of my colleagues.

Ultimately, the greatest challenge of planning for self-efficacy is to strike a balance between providing enough opportunities for success while not lowering expectations too much." . i.e. getting into the zone of proximal development as Vygotsky would have it. Extremely difficult in a class setting.

"[Cognitive dissonance results] in one of two outcomes: The individual changes behaviour..." - the way it is described here, cognitive dissonance leads the process Jung called transcendence, hence a fundamental process in mental life.

"The 'over-justification effect', intrinsic motivation decreases when expected external rewards are given for completing a particular task or only doing minimal work, when the student perceives that the reward is not really justified." - this book badly needed an editor, but it is good to see this in the literature. Educational authorities should consider this when they adopt a policy of grade inflation.

You won't read anything like the "Behaviour Management" chapter in ELT literature. Although it was comforting to discover my experiences are not unique, a lot of the problems I have encountered in Hungarian schools are the product of resource constraints and cultural confusion which are not easily correctable by the individual teacher.

"Gear your activities to the time of day, what subject the students have just had and even the weather" - where I have one lesson a week with a non-motivated class on Tuesday afternoon after a 75 minute lunch break I should set my expectations for the year accordingly.

"Redirect low-level disruption - use non-verbal cues" - there should be a whole book on how teachers can and should use non-verbal communication in classroom management.

"You need to be familiar with the school's policy on sanctions and apply it rigorously...You have a duty, in this regard, to your colleagues who you hope will be applying the same standards" - this seems a triumph of hope over experience, or in the case of the non-native teacher, over a lack of experience. Teaching takes place behind closed doors.

"Seating children in rows facilitates on-task behaviour and academic learning; whereas in more open arrangements, such as clusters, facilitate social exchanges among students" - good use of non-pejorative way language

"...whether it was a verbal or a moral stammer Shevek had never decided."