It is 50 years since John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their famous Bed-Ins For Peace.
John Lennon's Bed-In for Peace - Google Search
Bed-Ins For Peace - Wikipedia

Here's a poem about peace:

All Of These People

Michael Longley

Who was it who suggested that the opposite of war
Is not so much peace as civilisation? He knew
Our assassinated Catholic greengrocer who died
At Christmas in the arms of our Methodist minister,
And our ice-cream man whose continuing requiem
Is the twenty-one flavours children have by heart.
Our cobbler mends shoes for everybody; our butcher
Blends into his best sausages leeks, garlic, honey;
Our cornershop sells everything from bread to kindling.
Who can bring peace to people who are not civilised?
All of these people, alive or dead, are civilised.

All Of These People - The On Being Project

"All Of These People" by Michael Longley by On Being Studios | Free Listening on SoundCloud

And another:

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats | Poetry Foundation

On Radio 3 this weekend:

Peace and Protest

Words and Music

It is 50 years since John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their famous Bed-Ins For Peace. Actors Juliet Stevenson and Jamie Glover mark the anniversary with readings and music exploring themes of calm, tranquillity and activism.

John Lennon said of peace that it “is not something you wish for; it's something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away”. What Lennon did, with his new wife Yoko Ono, was to stage two “bed-ins”, one in Montreal and one in Amsterdam; welcoming the world's press to join at their bedsides. While in Montreal, Lennon recorded his 'Give Peace a Chance' anti-war song. We also hear Yo-Yo Ma’s Donna Nobis Pacem (Give us Peace) followed by Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps, written when he was a prisoner of war in German captivity and first performed by his fellow prisoners. And in Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha, Mahatma Gandhi makes a plea for non-violent resistance to injustice. The selection of readings includes All of these People by Michael Longley, Jerusalem by Naomi Shihab Nye and Ann Pettitt’s Walking to Greenham.

The selection of readings includes Between Waves, Heather Glover’s winning poem in the Poems for Peace competition run by the Royal Society of Literature. We also explore the peace of nature in WB Yeats’s The Lake Isle of Innisfree, in which the poet longs for the tranquillity of the island where he went as a boy, away from his adult life in the city. He imagines a life similar to that of the American Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, who lived this idyllic existence on Walden Pond. We end with Denise Levertov’s Making Peace on the need for poets to write of peace, creating an energy field more intense than war.

Words and Music - Peace and Protest - BBC Sounds

Here's the playlist:

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

• John Lennon and Yoko Ono (BBC World Service Archive)

  John and Yoko at the Amsterdam Bed-In
• 

  00:00

  Anon.

  Dona Nobis Pacem

  Performer: Yo‐Yo Ma.
  

  • SONY CLASSICAL 88697344802. 
  • TR1.

• Moniza Alvi

  How the World Split in Two read by Juliet Stevenson
• 

  00:03

  Olivier Messiaen

  Quatuor pour la fin du temps - Intermede

  Performer: Maryvonne Le Dizes, Pierre Strauch and Alain Damiens.
  

  • ADDA 581029. 
  • TR4.

• Michael Longley

  All of These People read by Jamie Glover
• 

  00:05

  Arvo Pärt

  Spiegel im Spiegel

  Performer: Nicola Benedetti.
  

  • DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4763399. 
  • TR6.

• Li-Young Lee

  Immigrant Blues read by Jamie Glover
• 

  00:10

  Philip Glass

  Protest from Sattagraha

  Performer: Douglas Perry and New York City Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
  

  • SONY SBK64133. 
  • TR6.

• Naomi Shihab Nye

  Jerusalem read by Juliet Stevenson
• 

  00:16

  John Lennon

  Imagine

  Performer: John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band.
  

  • PARLAPHONE 8219542. 
  • TR1.

• Heather Glover

  Between Waves read by Juliet Stevenson
• 

  00:22

  George Butterworth

  Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad - Is my team ploughing?

  Performer: Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside.
  

  • NAXOS 8572426. 
  • TR6.
• 

  00:25

  Joni Mitchell

  The Fiddle and the Drum

  Performer: Joni Mitchell.
  

  • REPRISE K244070. 
  • TR9.

• Ann Pettitt

  from Walking to Greenham read by Juliet Stevenson
• 

  00:29

  John Lennon

  Give Peace a Chance

  Performer: Plastic Ono Band.
  

  • PARLOPHONE 8219542. 
  • TR20.

• Christopher Logue

  from Prince Charming read by Jamie Glover
• 

  00:32

  Ian Campbell

  The Sun is Burning

  Performer: Simon & Garfunkel.
  

  • CBS CD63370. 
  • TR10.
• 

  00:34

  Gideon Klein

  String Trio - Lento

  Performer: Daniel Hope, Philip Dukes and Paul Watkins.
  

  • NIMBUS NI5702. 
  • TR2.

• Homer translated by Martin Hammond

  from The Iliad read by Jamie Glover
• 

  00:41

  Beethoven

  Symphony no 6 – Allegro ma non troppo

  Performer: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
  

  • DECCA 4783513. 
  • CD1 TR6.

• Wendell Berry

  The Peace of Wild Things read by Juliet Stevenson

• W.B. Yeats

  The Lake Isle of Innisfree read by Jamie Glover
• 

  00:52

  Max Richter

  Written on the Sky

  Performer: Max Richter.
  

  • FAT CAT CD1304. 
  • TR11.

• Virginia Woolf

  from To the Lighthouse read by Juliet Stevenson
• 

  00:55

  Toru Takemitsu

  Toward the Sea - The Night

  Performer: Aureole with Laura Gilbert.
  

  • KOCH 374492. 
  • TR7.

• Henry David Thoreau

  from Walden or Life in The Woods read by Jamie Glover
• 

  00:59

  Aaron Copland

  Down a Country Lane

  Performer: Leo Smit, piano.
  

  • SONY CLASSICAL SM2K66345. 
  • CD2 TR11.
• 

  01:01

  Harold Arlen

  Over the Rainbow

  Performer: Israel Kamakawiwoʻole.
  

  • HOT IZPROMO1. 
  • TR1.

• Denise Levertov

  Making Peace read by Juliet Stevenson
• 

  01:05

  Samuel Barber

  Agnus Dei

  Performer: Handel and Haydn Society Chorus.
  

  • AVIE AV0039. 
  • TR5.

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Peace and Protest
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challenging white supremacism in australia and new zealand

Following the terrorist attack on a New Zealand mosque, there have been several pieces looking at the wider context:
New Zealand has a long history of white supremacism -- and the US had a major hand in it
The Longer History of the Christchurch Attacks | The New Republic

But people have been warning about this for much longer:
White supremacy was the mainstay of Australian federation. Little has changed | Paul Daley | Australia news | The Guardian
The difficulties in overcoming the white supremacist phenomenon | The Strategist

Here is another way this can be challenged:
Aamer Rahman review – laconic comic on life in Australia, a 'Nazi beach resort' | Stage | The Guardian



Aamer Rahman (Fear of a Brown Planet) - Reverse Racism - YouTube
Comedian Aamer Rahman's Explainer of Reverse Racism Is Going Viral — Again

See also:
Jay Doubleyou: what is a 'native speaker' of english? the issue of race...
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creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity

School is bad for you:
Jay Doubleyou: what is the point of education?
Jay Doubleyou: how teaching interferes with learning
Jay Doubleyou: education happens beyond the classroom
Jay Doubleyou: why schools don't produce well-educated minds
Jay Doubleyou: the most schooled generation in history is miserable
Jay Doubleyou: seven ways school has imprisoned your mind ... ... greater personal freedom starts with deschooling

Here's a creativity expert looking at the issues:

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? | TED Talk

Here is he again:
Do schools really “kill creativity”? - RSA
Sir Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms | TED Talk
Summary of the TEDtalk "Do schools kill creativity?" by Sir Ken Robinson - Sophies Website
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the secret to speaking a new language with confidence is all about attitude, not ability

It's all about focus - which is how you play a video game:



Learning a language? Speak it like you’re playing a video game | Marianna Pascal | TEDxPenangRoad - YouTube
TEDxPenangRoad | TED
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goldilocks and the three bears > a story to tell the difference between present perfect simple and continuous

A classic story told in really clever way by Metro Goldwyn Mayer


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Goldilocks and The Three Bears (1939) with original recreated titles - video dailymotion

~ The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Cartoon Studio ~ - YouTube
Goldilocks and the Three Bears (1939)
Goldilocks and the Three Bears (1939) - IMDb

Alternatively:
Favourite Fairy Tales - Goldilocks and the Three Bears (1985) - YouTube

And very alternatively:
Family Guy - Goldilocks - YouTube
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learn common english phrases and sentence patterns

A message just received by this blog: 

I run my own English learning blog and recently published a lesson series on “English Conversation -100 sentence patterns”:

https://basicenglishspeaking.com/100-common-phrases-and-sentence-patterns/

As for this lesson series, there are several points that your readers can take advantage of as listed below.

• There are up to 100 lessons of various common phrases and structures for your readers to choose from. These lessons can help them survive or even thrive in any English-speaking country.
• Lessons are delivered with both texts and high-quality audio, which facilitates speaking and listening practices considerably.
• Each pattern is well-illustrated by three example sentences and a conversation to show how the pattern is used in real-life context.
• Example sentences and conversations are collected from daily life, so they are highly reliable, practical and applicable.

It might make a great addition to your resource page. :)

Michelle

http://basicenglishspeaking.com

Speak English Fluently with our FREE Basic English Speaking Lessons - Basic English Speaking


It is indeed an excellent resource: have a look!

100 Common English Phrases and Sentence Patterns (With Dialogue)

You want to improve your English speaking but don’t know where to start? You know a lot of English words but have a hard time making sentences in English?

You know why?

The reason is you don’t learn common English phrases and sentence patterns, do you? These phrases and patterns are said as basic units for you to make much more correct sentences in English.

Below are 100 common English phrases and sentence patterns that are much used in daily life. Each common English phrase includes real audios and scripts which help you learn sentence structures better, and make sentences in English much more easily.

If you master just one common English phrase or sentence pattern, you can make hundreds of correct sentences. This is the easiest way to make sentences in English.

Take time to learn all of the following lessons and you will improve your spoken English very quickly. And remember that deep learning is the key to English fluency. You should learn each lesson deeply before moving to the next one (5 lessons/day is recommended.)

You may also like:

• 50 Common Expressions in English
• Daily English Conversation by Topics

Finally, if you find these lessons useful, please share with your friends and let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

(Audio Lessons) 100 Common English Phrases and Sentence Patterns With Dialogue - Basic English Speaking
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