Category Archives: Culture

Poem: Corsica

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

Corsica Corsica Our island Rest and refuge So wild and warm In our hearts and minds Casting shadows on every other place Always there and forever yearning for us Cold spring water to quench our thirst On a sun baked granite … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , | 1 Comment

John Minton in Corsica

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

John Minton (1917-1957) was a brilliant English artist and contemporary of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. He was one of the foremost English painters of the 1940’s and 50’s whose influences include De Chirico and the surrealists as well as … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Embracing the canon, resisting the canon

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

The BBC’s Ten pieces is a brilliant music education resource for primary schools based on a selection of 10 pieces which introduce children to classical music with a range of associated materials for schools to use. Although there is nothing specifically ‘primary’ about … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Education, Teaching and learning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Reading dystopias

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

Reading dystopias Utopia: an imagined society or state of things in which everything is perfect or close to perfect. Dystopia: an imagined society or state of things in which things are very far from perfect to a frightening extent. An … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Fiction, Learning resources, Reviews, Science in Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

From Bamako to Timbuktu

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

The brilliant director Abderrahmane Sissakou grew up in Mali and has named two of his films after Malian cities: Bamako and Timbuktu. Watching these two remarkable films recently over one weekend in the sequence they were made was a moving … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Young poets ‘write the wrong’

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

Brave new words from young writers at Newham Sixth Form College (NewVIc) Poetry is not a luxury, something we only turn to when more important things have been seen to. Poetry is essential. We need to listen to it, read … Continue reading →

Posted in NewVIc, Poetry | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

‘Saying thank you’ – a poem for father’s day.

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

Saying thank you In the beginning very little gratitude Who gets to choose their parents after all?   But gradually you realise what you’ve been given And in time you understand the debt you owe   So, For bathing me … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Gulliver’s levels

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

Jonathan Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, first published in 1726, mocks the travel journals of its day with their increasingly fantastical adventures. It is also brilliant social satire, mercilessly tearing through contemporary conventions and pretentions.   It can also be read as a thought … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Fiction, Philosophy, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nazim Hikmet: Hiroshima and Strontium 90

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

            I Come and Stand at Every Door (Hiroshima) I come and stand at every door But no one hears my silent tread I knock and yet remain unseen For I am dead, for I … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Learning is dialectical

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

An attempt to start from first principles… There is now, there is before and there is after. Whatever time is, our awareness of it helps us distinguish between past and future. Within our own lived experience we understand the difference … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Education, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The multilingual citizen in a multicultural society

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

I want to speak about the experience of being bilingual and bicultural and its educational benefits. I am not an expert or an academic and I have no research findings to share. I have worked in diverse communities for over … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Education, Teaching and learning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Citoyens multilingues, société multiculturelle

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

Quelques réflexions sur le vécu bilingue et biculturel et ses avantages éducatifs. Je ne suis ni expert ni chercheur et je ne vous propose pas de résultats d’une recherche scientifique. J’enseigne depuis 30 ans dans des communautés diverses et je … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Education, en Francais | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Paoli in London

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

He’s been called the Che Guevara of the 18th century. He was a freedom fighter, a democrat and an intellectual. He was celebrated by Voltaire and Rousseau for producing one of the first republican constitutions of the enlightenment era; one … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, History | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The keyboard and the music

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

We spend much of our time in front of keyboards. Our computer keyboard is an essential interface with the world as it appears to us on our screen. We use keys to input letters, form our words and meanings on a virtual page which … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, music, Teaching and learning | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

‘Useful work v. useless toil’ by William Morris

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

Introduction: This lecture from 1884 is a clear and powerful statement of Morris’s political and economic manifesto, which also informed ‘News from Nowhere’ (1890) his visionary fable of life after a revolution. His critique of the waste and inequality inherent in … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, History, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment