Thoughts to Muse.

By Rowen Singh

“Do you not know who I am?”I can’t quite seem to recall how she appeared in my life. It’s almost as if she has always existed in my memory as far as I can recall and the further back in time I reach, the further back she appears. Still, there was no origin, no beginning, no single time or place I can remember seeing her dark, consuming eyes or her egregious disregard for modest clothing.“Are you searching your memory to find who I am?”You are my master.“And who are you?”I am your servant.“What else is there?”There is nothing else.“Good. Now then, write.”The ink cartridge that was jammed not a moment ago now flows freely as I scribble down words so fast I can’t even tell what I’m writing. The words are just inside me somehow and I have to get them out. I’m just doing it, not thinking. This is what artistry is supposed to be. A man, possessed by some need to act as a channel for something. What are our lives in the grand scheme of the universal truths that lie hidden deep in the collective unconscious. We are cogs in the machinery of nature, flowing through space and time unhampered by…Unhampered by…Blood. The pen broke. In my hands. That’s not possible.
Mistress. Where are you?“That’s not acceptable now is it?”What do I do?“First you struggle to answer my questions and now this.”She touches the blood on the page and rubs it between her fingers as her eyes pierce into mine.“Here, what colour is this?” She doesn’t shift her gaze from me.It’s red. Blood is red. It’s just dark.“Look again.”In the deep crimson smear of blood across her fingers there is a streak of blue, tiny and faint, but unmistakably blue.
The ink.“Clean yourself up and call it a night.”My fingers hurt. There is an uneasy feeling in my chest. I cannot sleep. I have written 42 stories. All best sellers. Why now? Have I reached the end of the road?To see…A whisper.
In the darkness.
Manifestations of the longings of a writer. It’s nothing.Tell me…A faint and delicate voice edging closer.Tell me a story.You are not real. A voice in my head, attempting to taunt me into delusion.Please.A quick story. Then, you leave me alone.
There was a man who lived long ago. He was weary and beaten. On his way to his miserable and forsaken job, he…Tell me a different story.An old man lived down by river. He lost everything he cared about in a flood. All that he had left was a worthless…Tell me a different story.I’m trying. Just wait.
Dillon was a soldier who had just returned from war to protect his people but he returned to an empty hou… to an empty…Do you see now?I have every single manuscript, hand-written, on my bookshelf. I pull them off the shelf, one at a time, flipping through the pages. It’s all the same. Every story.
How did I not see this? Everyone loves it. I’m a bestselling author.Once upon a time…Who are you?Once upon a time there was a young girl with glittering hair who would dance in the dreams of poets and writers.
She would stand in the streams of hopeless desires and plan to set free the souls of the tired.I can’t help but feel I’m losing my mind and yet there’s a sense of joy and intrigue I haven’t felt in a long time.
Tell me more.Jealous of her beauty, her evil aunt trapped her in walls of red, and forever it seemed her calls were dead.
Burdened with a duty, she took the blue from her eye, to sever the seams and it was you she did find.Why are you here, now?To stop an enemy, to open a view, to unlock a memory, to show you the truth.There’s that feeling of euphoria, you know the one that hits you momentarily after you find something you lost long ago, and the images come rushing back, assembling themselves in the catalogue of my memories.
A lady in red casts a shadow over me. One dark enough to hide my disheveled appearance and the sea of torn pages I sit in.“What is your heart’s desire?”To be a bestselling author. To write something captivating.“In exchange for unlocking your potential as a writer, I will ask you 3 questions every night and you must answer them such:You are my master.I am your servant.There is nothing else.”I understand.“Then tell me, who am I?”Why did I do it? Was it the foolishness of a child or the longing of a man? Is there a difference?
How do I undo it?To escape your master and evade disaster, you must break the plaster and change your answers.I grab my pen and march to the study. I throw open the book with such force it summons the desk lamp to its aid. My pen weaves rivers of blue ink and the story feels alive.A bright-eyed girl born into a new world. A world of limitless possibility.“Did you forget who you are?”I cannot move the pen. Her appearance darkens the room.I’m not who you say I am.“Who are you then?”I am… I am… I don’t know.Remember who you are, defender of the stars.I am your…“Do you know why you had writer’s block?”It was you. You gave it to me.“No. It was her. You wanted to write a story you had no idea how to tell. I gave you what you already had and it was the realism of your circumstance that people connected with. That’s what made you a bestselling author.”I don’t want it anymore.“You know where this will lead you? You are nothing without me. I am your master.”No.
No, you are my servant.“I serve no one…”I am your master.“You are…”There is another.“…”Another world. A new world. Isn’t that right?A world reborn, a start much brighter.Who am I?You are the writer.Who are you?I am your help.What else is there?There is nothing else.

A Spoonful of Sugar

The value of engagement in student learning.

Rowen Singh

When I was a child my parents would wrap a tablet in the dog’s favourite treat so he would wolf it down without knowing. I remember doing it myself on several occasions. Sneaking medication into a treat for my dog and making sure he didn’t spot it was just harmless fun to me as a kid. That is, until one day I stopped and wondered if my parents ever did the same to me. I’m pretty sure they didn’t, at least that’s what they tell me, but what they did do was show me just how important perception is.Quick test: is “learning” a verb or a noun?Trick question. It’s both. It depends on the context. If it is something actively being done, as in “I am learning how to read” then it is a verb. If it is something acquired or the result of another activity, as in “he struggled when it came to learning,” then it is a noun.
If you said that it was both a noun and a verb, well done. If your first instinct was to say verb, don’t worry, you join the vast majority of people because that’s usually how we see “learning,” as a doing word, and yet we tend to treat it like a noun.What’s the difference between learning as a verb and learning as a noun? Well, the former is active while the latter is passive. Students absorb and retain information more when they actively learn. This is why in recent years we have started moving away from the archaic practices of students being taught at. Goals in education are no longer about getting the student to remember the information but to use it. Every new teacher graduating is equipped with a solid understanding of Bloom’s Taxonomy which places remembering information at the bottom of an educational objectives pyramid and creating material at the top.That’s all well and good but how do you make learning active? Should we run laps between algebra and narrative writing?
Not quite. There are some researchers who do note a connection between physical activity and learning but this doesn’t necessarily extend to all students when implemented. There are many strategies that can be used to make learning active, from flipped classrooms to peer instruction to collaborative ranking tasks (which would be popular with students who have watched ranking/tier videos online) or anything that generally results in student autonomy, active learning encompasses a wide range of activities to enhance student engagement (Lombardi et al, 2021).Most of the research suggests using various strategies for active learning in order to increase engagement. However, I would say these strategies are used for engagement to increase active learning. It’s a subtle but important distinction that places the focus on engagement and not on the strategies associated with active learning. This is important because it acknowledges the personality of the student and their interests on a personal level rather than simply attempting to throw strategies at the perceived problem of disengagement. It also shifts focus from engagement being purely cognitive and includes other important forms of engagement like emotional and behavioural, which are all equally important (Pedler, Yeigh, & Hudson, 2020).You need simply look at how readily your children can recall information from TikTok or YouTube Shorts to see why engagement is important. Not only that, but they are willing, sometimes wrongfully, to act on information received from the above social media platforms. Imagine if that level of engagement could be harnessed for something such as… I don’t know… education.Engagement is the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine that is learning go down. Of course, it does that not by wrapping the proverbial medicine in sugar but by altering the perception of it such that there is no way to distinguish between medicine and sugar. So next time you pick your kids up from school, instead of asking them what they learnt, try asking them how they learnt what they learnt and how much they enjoyed learning in that way because the more they enjoyed it, the more likely it is they genuinely learnt something in a meaningful and useful way.Lombardi, D., Shipley, T. F., Bailey, J. M., Bretones, P. S., Prather, E. E., Ballen, C. J., Knight, J. K., Smith, M. K., Stowe, R. L., Cooper, M. M., Prince, M., Atit, K., Uttal, D. H., LaDue, N. D., McNeal, P. M., Ryker, K., St. John, K., van der Hoeven Kraft, K. J., & Docktor, J. L. (2021). The Curious Construct of Active Learning. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 22(1), 8-43.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100620973974Pedler, M., Yeigh, T., & Hudson, S. (2020). The Teachers’ Role in Student Engagement: A Review. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 45(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2020v45n3.4

Comedic News Stories

MediSecureMediSecure has been the victim of a ransomware attack. If you haven’t heard of MediSecure they are a company that deals with electronic prescriptions and this means the identities of some Australians could be at risk, possibly being held for ransom. The advice to Australians has been to increase the difficulty of their passwords, use two-factor authentication and generally improve their online security. We need to be more vigilant, Australia. I mean, what on Earth was it about MediSecure that convinced you that your medical information would be secure?https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-17/cyber-security-chief-says-medisecure-data-breach-isolated-attack/103860120

Robbing SeasonNew Zealand has been having its own crimewave. Apparently bees are now in what is known as “robbing season” where they start storing honey for the winter and it seems they’ve just decided to take it from our pastries. Yes, several bees were seen walking across sweet treats in a local bakery in Auckland. When asked for a comment, the bees said “Oh, you don’t like it when we break into your homes and take your food?”https://www.9news.com.au/world/bees-swarm-auckland-cafes-treats-during-robbing-season/f261d952-0d35-4f92-8d63-fe7692b9ce36

3G ShutdownAustralia’s 3G network will shut down soon and with it, the ability to contact Triple Zero for half a million Australians. If your phone is not compatible with the 4G network, you might be out of luck. Some people might not even know if their devices use 3G to contact Triple Zero because their devices aren’t equiped with something known as VoLTE. I may be getting old but I seem to remember a time when planned obsolescence only referred to the device itself.https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/why-half-a-million-australians-may-soon-be-unable-to-call-triple-zero/7gmv56ydh

Avian FluAs the new Avian flu outbreak spreads across the world, experts are warned we may be unprepared. While there are various strains of the virus and they tend to mostly affect birds, they have made the jump into humans. One case was reported in Australia… almost three months after it initially happened. According to a professor studying the governance of global pandemics, the lack of global coordination could slow down our ability to get this under control.
Yes, if only we had had some sort of pandemic trial run a few years prior!https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-01/avian-flu-outbreaks-are-we-ready-for-another-pandemic/103914284

How Good Writers Can Elevate Your Business

That advert you see before your YouTube video plays, the keynote speech from your favourite ASX listed company, the health minister’s address on the concerns of the next possible pandemic, that little safety leaflet that falls out of the new cheese grater box and gets stuck to the back of your shoe… Chances are, if you’re consuming it, it has a writer behind it. With so much content written by so many people, how do you find a good writer?
Here are 3 essential things that a good writer should have...

Engaging Content:What most businesses fail to realise is that reading is a part of the consumption process. You wouldn’t fill your $5,000 TV advert with grey pixels or put pieces of dirt inside your chocolate bar. Why create written content that is bland or self-defeating?
A good writer makes reading feel effortless rather than a chore. The last thing you want your business associated with is more work for the consumer, especially if that consumer is another business because perceived difficulty means perceived costs.

Trained Expertise:What makes a writer different from someone who can write? Most people would say “practice,” but that would only indicate that most people are not writers. Hidden within the word “practice” are the terms "skill" and "understanding". See, writing is not simply about communicating a series of words to someone else. It’s about transferring meaning. The reason your favourite book is your favourite book is not because it contains a bunch of fancy words but because it is steeped in meaning for you. It is the job of a writer to tap into that meaning and deliver to you the gift of its experience.

An Understanding of Trends:We live in a society where memes and trends spread quicker than a literal virus. So if you want to take the W, you need a writer who truly understands the assignment because most of the crowd you will be trying to rizz with your sponsored content probably need to touch grass. There’s a difference between products from villainous corporations and products that let you enter your villain era and a goated writer can make that difference.
If you have no idea what any of that means… it’s probably a good sign you need such a writer.

With the competition only increasing year on year, it is important that your material stands out and you make a name for yourself. There is no better way to do that than creating content that is engaging, rich with meaning and current.
After all, communication is key to making any relationship work. The stronger your relationship with your stakeholders is, the stronger your dominance over the market will be.
Now, if only you knew of a place where you could find a truly good writer…