Categories for Books

September 3, 2025

Book review: Creative Schools by Ken Robinson

[It’s a re-post from March 2021.]

When you teach a child something, you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself. Jean Piaget

I read the book for the first time when I was doing my post-grad diploma in education. But now I’ve decided to return to this publication, especially since I became more involved in my daughters’ education.

The main message I took from this book is that education equals creativity. Education is an organic process (p. 41), because children are natural learners (p. 74). The learning process happens through play (p. 94) and it encourages mastery (p. 114).

The publication highlights some positive and inspirational stories and ideas about education, e.g. the world famous Finnish education system, Salmon Khan’s flipped classroom (p. 113) and teaching through and about the arts (p. 196).

Why read such publications? Because, I wouldn’t want learning and learners to be reduced to numbers in the future (p. 172) and I believe there might a more creative and organic approach to education.

Do you read books on education? What’s your most inspirational or favourite publication? Please let me know in the comments below.

August 11, 2021

Book review: The Lido Guide by Emma Pusill and Janet Wilkinson (with my own recommendations!)

That’s such a useful publication: a well-researched guide to open-air swimming pools in the UK and Channel Islands. It contains a long list of lidos with some practical information about them, like addresses, website, contact details, short description of the pool and a couple of photos. In the introduction, we read that the majority of the open-air pools are community run by groups of volunteers who have often saved the pools from closure. We’re encouraged to visit the lidos on rainy and windy days, too (sounds adventurous!). There is even a short extract on the pronunciation of the word ‘lido’ (is it lee-doh or ly-doh?), as well as a mention of the historic pools of Britain. What personally surprised me was that Wales only has one open-air pool?!

As a swimming enthusiast myself, I also want to include here a short list of the lidos I have visited:

Bristol Lido

Clevedon Marine Lake

Portishead Open Air Pool

Weston Marine Lake (visited in August 2022)

The Rock Pool, Westward Ho!

Chagford Swimming Pool

Shoalstone Seawater Pool, Brixham (visited in June 2023)

Bude Sea Pool

Jubilee Pool, Penzance

But, with this lovely catalogue of different lidos, I feel well-equipped to explore more open waters.

Lastly, I want to mention that the marine lake in Weston-super-Mare is being currently refurbished (June 2021), so I am hoping to go there for a splash in summer 2022 (yes, it was re-opened in 2022)!

Do you have any favourite lido(s)? Please let me know in the comments below.