XFacebookYouTubeLinkedInEmail

Blog archive

Everyone values critical thinking, don’t they?

NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir! Charles Dickens, Hard Times Gradgrind was a fictional character. Dickens invented him as a caricature of what was no doubt some fairly awful teaching in [...]

2019-10-19T22:30:02+01:00May 2nd, 2017|Featured|

Why group socialisation theory argues against grammar schools

My last post was written to explain why I thought 'grammar schools for all' was probably an unworkable idea. I introduced Judith Rich Harris's group socialisation theory to support my arguments, but may have done so in a way which muddied the water. Katherine Birbalsingh picked up from reading my post that I was inadvertently advancing an argument which leant support to those advocating for more academic selection at the age of 11. Reading her response has helped to clarify my thinking and, to ensure that my arguments can't be used in this way I feel I need to write a [...]

2017-04-30T15:56:09+01:00April 30th, 2017|Featured|

Why ‘grammar schools for all’ won’t work

A better, but overlong, title for this would be "Why grammar schools don't work for all and why 'grammar schools for all' (probably) won't work". At the birth of the comprehensive school movement, prime minster Harold Wilson made his well-known rallying cry, "Grammar schools for all'! Every child, no matter their background, or academic potential could go to a school which would share the values of the selective Grammar schools. It was a lovely idea and, as we all know, it failed to materialise. The reality, for very many children, became secondary moderns for all. Of course Wilson was well-intentioned; of [...]

2017-04-30T14:23:13+01:00April 30th, 2017|psychology|

Are you fooling yourself? Education and epidemiology

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman Epidemiology is the science of trying to find out what makes people healthier. Epidemiologists look at data to identify causal links between improved health and other factors. It is a correlational science which means that it can never really prove a causal link it can only suggest that a connection between two or more variables is unlikely to be caused by chance. Correlation is a tricksy business. Perfect correlations tend not [...]

2017-04-29T19:00:32+01:00April 29th, 2017|research|

The promise and danger of neuroscience

With the advent of increasingly inexpensive access to brain imaging technology, neuroscience has entered a fascinating period of rapid advancement. The ability to generate images of what’s going on in our brains is hugely exciting, and the enthusiasm for trying to apply this science to education should come as no surprise. However, neuroscience is probably the ‘wrong level of description’ to provide meaningful insight into classroom practice: observing the actions of particular groups of neurons, or activity in various regions in the brain is a long way from teaching a classroom full of children. Concepts like neuroplasticity, or findings about the [...]

2017-04-26T19:57:13+01:00April 25th, 2017|myths, psychology|

What do teachers think differentiation is?

In Why Knowledge Matters, ED Hirsch Jr sets out the case against differentiated instruction, saying, "the attempt to individualize the content of the language arts curriculum has been a quixotic idea that has put teachers under enormous pressure to achieve the impossible." He explains further: When a teacher is attending to the individual needs of one student  in a class of twenty, nineteen are not receiving the teacher's attention. all sorts of techniques conspire to obscure that fact - group work, isolated seatwork on boring work sheets, and "independent study' with choice of books from the leveled-reader bin.(p. 72) In What If [...]

2017-07-15T22:11:41+01:00April 24th, 2017|research|

Is “our knowledge” different from theirs?

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. C. S. Lewis Over on the Progressive Teacher blog, my case against 'neo-progressivism' has been critiqued. This is much to be welcomed and, as the anonymous author embraces rather than tries to deny that there is a debate, I want to do it the courtesy of a considered response. In it, my position is described as follows: "students should acquire knowledge, then use that knowledge as [...]

2017-04-14T14:15:34+01:00April 14th, 2017|Featured|

A summary of my arguments about education

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew. Oliver Goldsmith A tradition without intelligence is not worth having. T. S. Eliot Debating ideas in education - and anywhere else - is essential if we want to improve the lot of children and society. Over the past 6 years of so I've learned huge amounts from taking part in this back and forth and have, as well as becoming a good deal more knowledgeable, become a lot more adept at thinking critically about the ideas I encounter. My views have changed a [...]

2017-08-16T13:59:14+01:00April 13th, 2017|psychology|

The Great Education Debate

Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate. Hubert H. Humphrey With increasing frequency, someone will pop up on social media to announce to the world that debating the best way to approach the project of education is a waste of time. These are the reasons I'm typically presented with when I demur: 1. It's boringly repetitive and nothing new is ever contributed. 2. It's just a bun fight rather than an actual debate and no one ever changes their minds. 3. Real teachers in real schools don't know anything about it so it obviously can't be [...]

2017-04-18T17:29:04+01:00April 12th, 2017|Featured|

The consequences of freedom Part 2

Last month I wrote about RD Laing and how his conception of freedom has had a lasting and negative impact on education as well as wider society. In this post I want to consider the role of Isiah Berlin in shaping how we have come to think about freedom. Berlin was a Russian born, British educated philosopher and political theorist. At the heart of his thinking was a concern with how to protect individual freedom. He wanted human beings to be free to make their own mistakes without well-meaning, paternalistic institutions making decisions about what is best for us. He saw this nannying attitude [...]

2017-04-12T12:08:33+01:00April 12th, 2017|behaviour|

Neo-progressivism

Like most people involved in education, I believe in social justice. I want all children, no matter their backgrounds or starting points, to have the best chance of achieving well. I want young people to be creative. I want them to be skilled at collaborating with others to solve problems. I want them to be able to clearly and critically communicate their thoughts. I want them to take on challenges and persist in the face of set backs. I want them to be prepared for an uncertain future. And, of course, I want them to be tolerant, compassionate, open-minded, curious, cooperative [...]

2018-01-23T13:16:52+00:00April 9th, 2017|Featured|

Why do we forget stuff? Familiarity vs recall

Now and then, I've taught whet seemed to be a successful lesson. I'd explain challenging content, check for understanding, get some great responses to consolidation activities and, at the end of the lesson, students would troop out happy, confident and certain they'd grasped what ever it was I'd taught only for them to have seemingly forgotten it all by next lesson. Sound familiar? How is it that children can appear to have understood one day but forget the next? In order to remember something, first you have to think about it. We can't think about everything in the environment because we have [...]

2017-04-09T21:50:41+01:00April 8th, 2017|psychology|
Toggle Sliding Bar Area
Go to Top