Literacy: a global issue

Literacy: a right still denied to nearly one-fifth of the world’s adult population09-11-2005 1:50 pm Governments and donor countries are curtailing progress towards Education for All (EFA) – and broader poverty reduction – by according only marginal attention to the 771 million adults living without basic literacy skills, says the fourth edition of the EFA Global Monitoring Report, “Literacy for life”.* “Literacy is a right and a foundation for further learning that must be tackled through quality schooling for all children, vastly expanded literacy programmes for youth and adults, and policies to enrich the literate environment,” says Nicholas Burnett, the Report’s director.  Article continues

Chatrooms help needed

Chatrooms: help neededParents are showing an alarming level of ignorance and indifference towards their children's participation in Internet chat rooms, with boys in particular being left to their own devices.  Article continues

Swedish and Ikea communication style

A Swedish take on things
Last week, Massachusetts' first Ikea store opened in Stoughton. I tried to make it there yesterday with my family, but after a long hour in which the traffic inched forward on a narrow two-lane road, we questioned an Ikea shuttle bus driver headed in the opposite direction; he said we had another hour ahead of us. We baled out and went to Boston's North End for dinner instead.But here's what's really blown my mind about Ikea: an interview with Ikea Group president Anders Dahlvig that appeared in Thursday's Boston Globe Business section. In it, he says that, "Our quality is OK, but there is more to do," and "in the 1980's, we had a lot of problems with quality." When asked if he owned Ikea furniture, he said, "about 50 percent."If an American executive had been asked the same questions, you know what you'd get: "Of course, all my furniture is Ikea. We're committed to quality! It's job #1. [Oops, that might be taken...] We're proactively looking for news ways to make our quality even better!!!"Executives say these kind of things because that's what they're trained to do. Be positive. State missions. Spin for advantage. This, we're told, is "effective" communicating. You know, the kind that "interacts" with consumers and "builds bonds."Of course, it doesn't. But difficult realities rarely trump heart-felt illusions. So we exaggerate, boast and preen. And the real result is lost credibility. Or worse, a collective yawn from the masses.Mr. Dahlvig served it up straight. And what he said wasn't all positive and glowing. Some of it may have been, by our American standards, ill-advised.But you know what? I believe him. And when the traffic finally clears (February, perhaps?) I'll make that trek to Ikea.

Does reading to children help them to learn to read?

Does reading to children help them learn to read?Eric Durbrow pointed me to this article in the Globe and Mail. Its lead sentence offers a surprising claim:Parents take note: Reading to your preschoolers before bedtime doesn’t mean they are likely to learn much about letters, or even how to read words.But aren’t teachers and literacy advocates constantly urging parents to read to their kids? Aren’t their entreaties backed by research?   Article continues

Carey's backlist released

Carey's Backlist Released by Random House
During September and October 2005 Random House [released] all of Peter Carey's backlist as the Sydney- and Melbourne-based publisher takes over the rights to Carey's books from University of Queensland Press. Designer Jenny Grigg has created new jackets for each of the books with Carey's name dominating the design. Random hopes the new covers will entice book collectors' interest, thereby boosting sales.

Goodnight Moon - smokeless version. In the great green room there is a telephone, a red balloon, but no ashtray. "Goodnight Moon", the children's classic by Margaret Wise Brown, has gone smoke free. In a newly revised edition of the book, which has lulled children to sleep for nearly sixty years, the publisher, HarperCollins, has digitally altered the photograph of Clement Hurd, the illusrator, to remove a cgarette from his hand. Read the whole article.

Collaborative story writing

Glypho – collaborative story writing on the net.  The introductory storyline is introduced, and then people from around the world contribute characters and plot. These are written into a chapter by two writers and then people vote on the best use of the ideas.  At least I think that’s how it happens.  Check it out.

Negotiating confidence

Ten Steps to Win-Win Negotiating. Negotiating confidence Negotiating can be a challenge. Sometimes we watch successful negotiators at work and wonder if it is an ability they were born with. But with a little time, information, and preparation you can head for the negotiating table with confidence. 1. Be prepared. Define your objectives and use lateral thinking to brainstorm possible ways they can be achieved. 2. Research the other party’s objectives and brainstorm the methods they may use. “Find the edge” – any pressure points or hidden agendas. “Information is power.” 3. Prepare yourself and the way you use the venue. Choose your seating for power, your clothes and your attitude. 4. Establish a cordial relationship on opening the meeting. Specify the aims of the meeting. 5. Raise less contentious issues first. 6. Promote harmony, minimise the negatives and articulate areas of commonality. 7. “Win-win” means compromises on both sides, so be prepared to bargain. Start with two lists – your must-haves and your might-haves, and start with a higher level than you expect to obtain. Highlight the contribution of your concession to the other person’s objectives. 8. Be prepared to release information at times beneficial to your cause. Use silence. 9. Listen for surprises. 10. Articulate the agreed outcomes and any timelines, or they may collapse. Use detailed preparation and the win-win method and you have the tools to approach negotiation with confidence.

Scotiabank Giller prize winner

Author, David Bergen wins the 2005 Scotiabank Giller Prize Toronto, ON (November 8, 2005) - David Bergen has been named the 2005 winner of The Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s premier literary prize for fiction, for his novel The Time In Between, published by McClelland & Stewart.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2005
"who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms"
Harold Pinter
United Kingdom
b. 1930
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Reading

For years, studies have shown that the most significant therapy for young offenders is not Outward Bound camps, not psychological counselling, not tough love or family healing, but remedial reading. While no one would deny the importance of all those other approaches to troubled, destructive behaviour, many studies for over 30 years have consistently shown that help with literacy has a more profound and lasting impact on the rehabilitation of antisocial kids than anything else.  Read the whole article

Email communication

How Not to Stick Your Foot in Your Mouth via E-Mailby Reid Goldsborough
E-mail is the most common form of business communication today; it’s among the most common forms of all communication. Yet many people communicate poorly with e-mail.
That’s the opinion of Janis Fisher Chan, and I agree. Chan is the co-founder of Write It Well (http://www.writeitwell.com), a publishing and training firm operating out of Oakland, Calif., that, since 1980, specializes in helping businesspeople write clearly and concisely in e-mail and elsewhere. She also authored the newly published book E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide, as well as eight other books on business writing and additional topics.
I talked with Chan about why we write poorly in e-mail, what consequences this can have, and how we can improve. Article continues

Email terms explained

Glossary of Email Terms
A comprehensive list, with succinct explanations.

An impostor?

Focus: Is this an impostor I see before me?
Scholars claim they have finally identified the real Shakespeare. But the drama is not over yet. Richard Woods reports The most enigmatic and mysterious drama ever created by William Shakespeare is about to reach its denouement. Or so certain scholars hope.
This tragi-comedy — let’s call it Where Art Thou, Will? — has for years beguiled and bamboozled audiences with a simple theme: who really wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare? The answer, say these scholars, will be revealed in a book to be launched on October 19 at the Globe theatre in London, a replica of the playhouse where Shakespeare once trod the stage.  Article continues

A Word wrapped in light

A Word wrapped in light

A modern, written language has the advantage of hundreds of years of established usage. If there is an emerging visual language in our age of new media, it is necessarily a nascent one. As computer technology — and, by extension, computer interfaces — infiltrate more and more areas of our lives, the semantics of ideographic representation may well become increasingly standardized.  Read the whole article

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