January 2002
This was a packed issue, with some good articles which we might come back to another time, but the key contribution was an appreciation of the life of Christopher Beedell, Teacher and Thinker. He was an outstanding teacher of residential child care who influenced a wide circle of students and colleagues. There were inputs by Christopher Reeve, Phyllida Parsloe, Roger Clough and Chris’s own eulogy concerning Barbara Dockar-Drysdale when she was given an honorary degree.
It really is important that we recognise the contributions of people such as Chris. The end result of their work is that individual children benefited, – and presumably as adults are still benefiting – from their impact. Readers working with children need to appreciate that they too can have a real life-long impact on people, whatever their skills or circumstances. High standards of care do not just happen; they are the result of years of hard work and fostering the right attitudes and values.
February 2002
This issue focused on reading and writing, and carried a number of book reviews and bits about creative writing. The article we’ve picked is by Marilyn Brocklehurst, who wrote about children’s books she recommended. Marilyn was once a children’s librarian, but for some years she has run a specialist bookshop for children’s books at Alby, a tiny hamlet in rural Norfolk.
Alby has become a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of teachers and child care workers as the range of material is tremendous, and the atmosphere is so friendly, with a cup of tea on offer and places to sit and read. It takes a bit of finding, being half a mile or so off the Cromer-Norwich road north of Aylsham, but it has generated its own electricity for years and so the wind turbine makes a handy landmark. A visit is also a good excuse for a holiday in Norfolk.
If you want to know more about the bookshop, the Brocklehursts or their turbine, have a look at their website – www.ncbc.co.uk .
March 2002
Another bulging issue, and this time we have picked a piece we reprinted from CYC-Net – partly to let readers know about the website, as it carries a lot of excellent material. This one is a piece by Jim Lees entitled Working with Street Youth with HIV/AIDS, and it simply gives a lot of straightforward advice.
The Webmag has been going for nearly seven years now, and we must have published over a thousand articles. Who refers to the musty piles of back numbers of hard copy magazines?
The Webmag articles are all there at the touch of the Back Issues button. Modern technology makes them available. But unless you are using a search engine, you might not think of rooting through our past issues, and if you are a new reader, you certainly won’t remember the pieces when they came out. There are some really good articles published years ago but still worth looking at, and this column pinpoints a few of them.