I have something to admit… I have been on holiday for some time now and the past posts were actually preprogrammed so this site could stay alive.

In the meantime I have been reading (and writing) quite a lot, and this is some of the stuff I read:

• I read the book Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience by Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld. Is it interesting? Yes. Is it relevant to education? Well, someone should write a same book about education, now it’s only indirect relevant. I do wonder if Daniel Engber is right and the era of neurobunk is over. Actually I’m afraid that we’re still at the beginning of it in education, still I will get into epigenetics rightaway to be in time for the next craze!
• If you still haven’t had enough about the brain, read this post on IO9.com:
  “Despite all the recent advances in the cognitive and neurosciences, there’s still much about the human brain that we do not know. Here are 8 of the most baffling problems currently facing science.”
• Good news… the world is getting richer!
• Mealtime chatter helps boost children’s communication skills, suggests a study by the National Literacy Trust. So they started a new campaign. Read the story at the beeb!
• A new case study on The Netherlands for the OECD project “Governing Complex Education Systems (GCES)” shows that a timely, risk-based assessment of schools can help to significantly lower the number of weak schools.