"The behind-the-scenes story of the readers and booksellers who launched the Hunger Games franchise." An interesting look at how the book was a hit at the publishers and with influential readers and librarians long before it was on sale, let alone a popular adult book.

Anu Partanen in the Atlantic: "while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable. In his book Sahlberg quotes a line from Finnish writer named Samuli Puronen: "Real winners do not compete." It's hard to think of a more un-American idea, but when it comes to education, Finland's success shows that the Finnish attitude might have merits. There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland."

"the impact of humans on the earth since the early 19th century has been so great, and so irreversible, that it has created a new era similar to the Pleistocene or Holocene. Nobel Prize winner Paul J. Crutzen even proposed the name Anthropocene, and it’s begun to catch on."

"If we don't change the way ICT is thought about and taught, we're shutting the door on our children's futures." John Naughton on why people shouldn't just be learning programming, but learning why software is so important.

On calculators in school: [[ [Truss] had an example of a question set for 11-year-olds in which a calculator was allowed: "These are some prices in a flower shop. Tulips: £1.20 for a bunch; roses: 40p each; daffodils, 55p for a bunch. How many roses can you buy for exactly £2?" ]] Lest you think she's a luddite: [[ "I was a mainstay of my school computer club, and I was happy to spend time programming in BASIC." ]]

Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian on free museum entry for national museums, the route to it, and regional museums too.

A great piece from John Naughton in the Observer, hanging off the back of the Eric Schmidt lecture at Edinburgh but (rightly) critiquing too much British computing education as being about learning Word, not learning programming, and highlighting Arduino and the forthcoming Raspberry Pi £15 Linux computer.

“And he was like, you know, ‘Helloooo, what are you looking at?’ and stuff, and I’m like, you know, ‘Can I, like, pick you up?,’ and he goes, like, ‘Brrrp brrrp brrrp,’ and I’m like, you know, ‘Whoa, that is so wow!’ ”

"National Geographic Giant Traveling Maps are oversized vinyl floor maps. They are the largest maps ever produced by National Geographic and require a school gym or large room for use. Each map is accompanied by a set of activities and materials. The map is in one piece, and requires no assembly."

I was one of those kids who read the dictionary. Start at Aardvark. Would the Aardvark be as famous if he didn't start the dictionary?

gnat: Fascinating NY Times piece on public education. http://j.mp/9j4Fb8

strangePLperson: one and only Stefan Collini on education cuts in LRB: http://t.co/wFzMcfK

I was reminded of this today on Twitter, but I don't seem to have a bookmark, so: on mathematics, with an interesting bit about how the differences in how languages render numbers affecting the speed on which we learn numeracy.

Warren Ellis: "As an antidote to this audiovisual paraquat they intend to spray into our children's eyes, I say the BBC should re-run Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds. Bear with me."

"Human babies are useless on purpose. Because they don't have to do the adult work of predating and mating, fighting and fleeing, they can discover how the world works and explore the possibilities it offers." Alison Gopnik on altricial species and adaptability.

"Lured by Red Stripe and other totally legal substances, the scientists wowed festivalgoers with the delights of space travel and Jupiter's moons, the neuroscience of music and the propagation of waves in conga lines"

"A pioneering company in Denmark is giving people with autism the chance to apply their skills to jobs from IT to product testing. The result is a huge success that's about to be rolled out across Europe. Founder Thorkil Sonne tells Michael Booth how his workforce's superhuman recall and unflinching focus could teach the rest of us a thing or two"

This sounds pretty stupid: a teacher has a Twitter account which she posts to during the day (presumably via quick SMSes) and gets leapt on for doing so. The "teachers may access professional blogs which have educational value but are not allowed to have their own blog" policy seems somewhat draconian too.

As the educational year starts, the Economist considers the UK's universities. "Britain’s universities break even only by charging overseas [students] what the market will bear." "This source of income is now more valuable than government funding for research." Also: "Cambridge University’s vice-chancellor, said that her institution’s core mission was “to provide an outstanding education within a research setting”, not to promote social mobility. Obvious enough, perhaps, but John Denham, the secretary of state for universities, said he profoundly disagreed."

Lisa Jardine's Point of View column is back, and this time it's hung off David Leavitt's new novel based on Srinivasa Ramanujan; there's a short review of his life and interesting points about maths teaching.

"At Reykjavik University, 95% of staff are happy at work and each year the finances get healthier. Could that be because of all the women in top jobs? Anthea Lipsett reports"

More on the funding crisis at the STFC, which may lead not only to pulling out of facilities (cf Gemini links) but also a cut in the number of PhD and postdoc places. Sigh.

On education, particularly science education. Turns out selection is bad, variation within schools is good, and that the more you know about science the less you think the world will be OK. Oh, and Finland is good at schooling.

Interesting article about a new college for engineering and science in the US. "Its method of instruction has more in common with a liberal arts college, where the focus is on learning how to learn, than with a standard engineering curriculum."

The Register's hardware site notes that RM are selling the Asus Eee (rebadged as a Minibook- better name anyway) from next month. The headline price is ex vat and for the low end model, but still, not bad.

I thought my Double Science GCSE was bad, but it sounds like it was an exam of deep rigour and seriousness compared to the current "physics" GCSE.

"Oxford University should end its support for the homophobic, misogynist evangelicals at Wycliffe"

"If the world's future lies in scientists' hands, the answers are unlikely to come from the UK unless we reverse decades of political neglect, argues Nobel laureate Harry Kroto"

"It isn't transport policy or education policy that hits poor people hardest. It's poverty. This may seem a very obvious point. But the right has spent the past 30 years trying to convince everybody that it isn't true."

“I am convinced that rather than risk teaching a lie why teach anything?” Does Rep. Ben Bridges really want to have that on record?

"Students should sit exams in metal-lined rooms to block mobile phone signals amid fears that technology is fuelling a "substantial" increase in cheating, a Government-backed study said yesterday."

Do these kids not all have mobile phones anyway? Sigh.

"more than 30% of [university] students in the UK say they believe in creationism and intelligent design"

"A-levels should be phased out after a review in 2008 and the Government should introduce a ‘British Baccalaureate’ with a menu of academic and vocational elements" not that anyone will pay any attention

I wonder what the impact of this will be. Probably good for big projects.

Specialisation vs depth at graduate level; it's a problem right down to A-level though.

Failing to get grants to come back to Germany to do postdoc work. Sigh.

Apple offloading their K-12 product to, well, Pearson Education. A sign of refocussing inside the mothership towards entertainment/consumer devices?

"A scrupulous scientist like Huygens would rather be disappointed, than accept dubious evidence to provide pat confirmation of a pet theory." Good piece, this.

Good piece on capitalism, education, teenagers