Secondary education around the world has been significantly disrupted by covid-19. Students have been forced into new ways of independent learning, often using remote technologies, but without the social nuances and direct teacher interactions of a normal classroom environment. Using data from the School Attitudes Survey—which surveys students regarding the perceived level of difficulty, anxiety level, self-efficacy, enjoyability, subject relevance, and opportunities for creativity with regards to each of their school subjects—this study examines students' responses to this disruption from two (...) very different schools with two very different experiences of the pandemic. This paper reports on the composite attitudinal profiles of students in the senior secondary levels at each school. The findings challenged our expectation that the increased difficulty and anxiety caused by the disruption would reduce perceived opportunities for creativity. Indeed, our analyses showed that the students at both schools demonstrated generally positive attitudes toward their learning and strongly associated opportunities for creativity with other attitudinal constructs including enjoyability, subject relevance, and self-efficacy. These complex associations made by the students appear to have buffered the impacts of the disruption, and they may even have supported creative resilience. (shrink)

Kennedy shows that Plato gave his dialogues a similar musical structure, dividing each dialogue into twelve parts and inserting symbols at each twelfth to mark a musical note. These passages are either harmonious or dissonant and traverse the ups and downs of a known musical scale. Many of Plato's early followers insisted that Plato used symbols to conceal his own views within the dialogues, but modern scholars have denied this. Kennedy, an expert in Pythagorean mathematics and music theory, is able (...) to show that Plato's dialogues contain a system of symbols that are undetectable by those without knowledge of obsolete Greek mathematics. The book begins with a concise and accessible introduction to Plato's symbolic schemes and the role of allegory in ancient times. The author then annotates the musical symbols in two of Plato's most popular dialogues, the Symposium and Euthyphro, and shows that Plato used the musical scale as an outline for structuring his narratives. (shrink)

Mark Johnson argues in favour of embodied experience as the basis for knowledge. An important implication of his analysis is that these experiences instigate pervasive metaphorical systems. Johnson 's argument involves reductionist problems, chicken-and-egg problems and, at times, unclear criteria for what counts as a basic experience and a metaphor.

A cross‐national study of differences in the identities of nursing in England and Australia and how this has affected nurses’ capacity to respond to hospital reform This paper examines similarities and differences in the identity of nursing in England and Australia. In doing this we examine how in each country nursing has developed different ideologies and strategies. Our analysis draws on data derived from a cross‐national study of hospital staff in England and Australia. We demonstrate how differences in the occupational (...) identity of nursing in each country are registered in their values, attitudes and beliefs. We suggest that these differences reflect the interplay of factors such as the strategic stances of nursing professional and industrial organisations and how nurses in each country have positioned themselves in responding to recent changes in health policy. (shrink)

Pictures are tactile as well as visual. Outline pictures stand for the same kinds of surface features in touch and vision. Vantage point geometry is used by blind and sighted perceivers in pictures. Limits of pictures may be comparable for the blind and sighted, and transcended in useful ways. Introduction In keeping with a conference on the multimodality of human communication, the purpose of this paper is to show that some aspects of pictures are tangible as well as visual. Many (...) means of communication are often considered to be exclusively visual or auditory, but the exclusionary view requires radical revision, the evidence from pictures tells us. (shrink)

Usain Bolt’s Lightning Bolt pose, one arm highly extended to one side, suggests action. Likewise, static pictures of animals, legs extended, show animation. We tested a new cue for motion perception—extension—and in particular extension of dancer’s legs. An experiment with pictures of a dancer finds larger angles between the legs suggest greater movement, especially with in-air poses and in lateral views. Leg positions graded from simply standing to very difficult front and side splits. Liking ratings were more related to Difficulty (...) ratings than Movement ratings. (shrink)