September | 2020 | garyhollingsbee.com

music

Young Knives, Barbarians

Just when you thought it was literally the end of civilisation, The Young Knives (or, more properly) Young Knives without the “The” any more have released a new album, Barbarians. And. It’s. Rather. Good. Indeed. Their last album was something like 7 years ago. It’s very very welcome. Their earlier quirky and delightfully melodic songs – which still get a lot of play around these parts – have given way to some incredibly dark sounding tunes that are eerily menacing but equally amusing. Their description as “self-aware nihilistic miserabilists” is evident in their very odd, disturbing music videos which are…

English teaching, blog, Education

The Goalkeeper’s Revenge and Other Reminiscences of English

This morning I was talking with Alice about my experiences of school. We’d been swapping anecdotes about childhood as you do when you get older and try to discern some sort of pattern in those early years that led to where you end up as an adult. It’s all a bit Dockery and Son (and I continually worry how much influence Larkin had on me in my late teens). Anyhow, it led me to think hard about my own experiences of English at secondary school. Most of it is forgotten, mostly vague memories and a few vivid recollections. I went…

Education

Questioning Rosenshine’s Principles

In search of the real Rosenshine In the 4th September 2020 issue of the TES, Jessica Powell argues that Rosenshine’s principles are “poorly understood”. In the article, Powell describes her initial sense that the principles are “straightforward, uncontroversial” and a framework of approaches that most teachers are already doing. The danger, she suggests, is that the 10 principles become a quick-fix or checklist for senior managers. Powell speaks to Tom Sherrington and Mark Esner (a teacher and TES columnist) who argue that Rosenshine permits teachers to teach in ways that seem intuitively right. Esner sees critics of Rosenshine as “radical…

books

Some Thoughts About Caitlin R. Kiernan’s Agents of Dreamland

After the desert of ebony sand, there’s a great city of spiralling towers and crystal domes. Beyond the city is a vast methane ocean as still as glass. Furious storms travel the ocean. Benzene falls like snow. Ancient beings hunched over machines on this planet detect NASA’s New Horizons interplanetary probe as it passes Pluto. A mosaic is constructed. Pieces that hurt when you think about them too hard. It’s no coincidence that I bled from the back of my neck as I read, the blood congealing into thick, black powdery scabs . It just wouldn’t stop and my hands…