Foreign correspondence: journalism in the Germaine Greer Archive

Germaine Greer’s print journalism forms a significant portion of her archive. It needs to be reassessed and recognised as having equal value to her other types of writing. Greer’s journalism powers much of this major archive and it is important to acknowledge that this archive is as much a journalist’s one as it is the archive of a feminist, a performer or a literary scholar. Greer’s own methodical creation and re-creation of her print journalism legacy into a series of records in the Greer Archive is also an implicit argument for the value of her ‘smalls’. As a recordkeeper, she has gathered up ‘the madwoman’s underclothes’, the hundreds of articles published around the world.     

Why are Older Faculty Members More Accepting of Students with Attention‐deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? A Life‐course Interpretation

The presence of university students in the United States with disabilities is not a new phenomenon. However, little is known about the attitudes of university faculty concerning less visible disabilities such as attention‐deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Using a sample of faculty at a university in the United States (n = 136), the impact of age on faculty’s acceptance of ADHD was examined. Results indicated a higher percentage of older faculty members, compared with middle‐aged and younger faculty, selected ADHD as a condition worthy of special instructional accommodations. Irrespective of age of the respondents, ADHD had the lowest acceptance as a condition deserving special accommodations. Finally, fewer middle‐aged and older faculty attributed difficulties experienced by a student with ADHD symptoms to “bad” character, a lack of discipline or a lack of motivation. These findings suggest more emphasis should be placed on disability‐related education and training for faculty members during early stages of their careers.     

May I be excused? Why teachers leave the profession

Considerable research has been conducted into teacher retention. Less is known of ex-teachers' circumstances: salary, workload, working conditions, “job prestige”. For this study, telephone interviews were used to ask 21 ex-teachers about their journey from teaching, and views on their current working conditions by comparison. This paper focuses on the events surrounding these people's decisions to leave the profession; these ex-teachers are in a privileged position to comment on teaching by comparison with their subsequent work. Few regret their decision to leave the profession. The findings have implications for teacher recruitment, education, provision of working conditions, and for the promotion of teaching.     

Teachers' judgments of students' early literacy skills measured by the Early Literacy Skills Assessment: Comparisons of teachers with and without assessment administration experience

Teacher judgments about students' academic abilities are important for several reasons, including their day‐to‐day instructional decision making. Not surprisingly, previous studies have investigated the accuracy of teachers' judgments about their students' reading abilities. Previous research, however, has not investigated teachers' judgments about students' early literacy skills, nor has previous research systematically examined how teachers' training and use of an objective assessment instrument impact their judgments of students' performance on that instrument. This exploratory study offers the first investigation of teachers' judgment accuracy of pre‐kindergarten students' early literacy skills, and compares the judgment accuracy of teachers with and without opportunities to administer the Early Literacy Skills Assessment (ELSA). Findings suggest that teachers with opportunities to administer the ELSA had a significantly higher percentage of accurate judgments across half of the ELSA subtests, but their judgment accuracy was still no better than 50%–60% on all but one ELSA subtest. Implications for school psychologist practitioners and researchers are presented. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.