Day 139: Education and society--a chicken and egg story?

Day 139 (24 Apr) Wednesday. Another early start to take the lecture, mark 3, at 10.00am.  Hope the students don't mind the change in style. 

First, the loris, at 6.12am

A shell of their former selves

But before then, the loris chime in right on time so at 6.12am I'm off feeding them and also take the opportunity to check those butterfly chrysalises I left just before I went away. Not surprising, the little caterpillars are now beautiful butterflies, somewhere. There was a song we were taught as kids about chrysalises and a few lines play through my head as I check out the chrysalises. 

I've never failed to be in awe of nature, in all its forms. I very nearly did science rather than Japanese, when I was forced to make the choice some 30-odd years ago...I wonder what might have been. 

Somewhere in between lecturing in the morning, consulting with colleagues, taking phone calls, dealing with an exploding email inbox, I notice *the* number attached to the number of tweets that seem to escaped from my fingers over the last little while. I like the '612' but wonder should I be worried about the 25,000 in front of it...? Oh well, a twittery life. 

Too many tweets?

Later in the day, the 4.00pm lecture on Japan, today it is about education and civil society. It serves as a timely reminder about why education matters and we engage in some interesting discussion about the relationship (or not...) between education and society: tradition and culture or institutions and rules? There is much that is both good and bad...it is turning out to be a bit of a theme for the week. 

Tute time, at 6.12pm

By 6.12pm, we were moving into the tute presentation and discussion. In this course, I encourage students to develop their own research projects. We've had some good presentations so far and I expect it will continue. It is always interesting when students are given a roving commission to develop a topic that interests them. It is good to give them the opportunity to understand how research comes to be. 

Teaching done, it is back to the office to tie up loose ends before the day's end. Tomorrow is Anzac Day...