XFacebookYouTubeLinkedInEmail

Blog archive

Heads I’m right, tails I’m not wrong

The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs. Self-conceit often regards it as a sign of weakness to admit that a belief to which we have once committed ourselves is wrong. We get so identified with an idea that it is literally a “pet” notion and we rise to its defense and stop our eyes and ears to anything different. John Dewey* Let me start by being really clear: I am very much in favour of conducting research into the merits of educational claims. [...]

2020-08-08T17:58:15+01:00October 12th, 2015|reflection|

“Works for me!” The problem with teachers’ judgement

It is with our judgments as with our watches: no two go just alike, yet each believes his own. Alexander Pope One of the difficulties inherent in challenging teachers' judgments is that when those judgements appear to be contradicted teachers sometimes say, "Well, it works for me and my students." This is hard to challenge. Anthony Radice made a similar point in a recent blog post about the debilitating nature of complacent certainty: A clear example of this kind of complacency is contained in the words, ‘I know my pupils’. It’s the killer punch to an argument, because it is not [...]

2019-02-10T18:46:05+00:00October 11th, 2015|leadership|

What every teacher needs to know about '21st-Century learning'

Here's my column in this month's Teach Secondary magazine which is packed full of stuff much better than my meagre scrawlings so you'd be well advised to subscribe. You’ve seen Shift Happens, right? Several years back this ‘inspirational’ video was on heavy rotation in school INSETs up and down the land. Although it’s fallen from favour more recently, there’s still an updated 2015 version doing the rounds (look it up on You Tube if you can be bothered). Among its many outlandish propositions we’re told that “the top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004” and that “we are [...]

2015-10-09T12:54:30+01:00October 9th, 2015|Featured|

Equality is unfair

Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality. Erich Fromm In my first post on Intelligent Accountability I suggested we shouldn't treat all teachers, or all schools, the same. This is advice that doesn't just apply to education. In the interests of egalitarianism, we might suggest mothers and fathers should be allowed to take the same amount of parental leave after the birth of a child. At first glance, this might even seem fair, but it doesn't take much to see that women go through far [...]

2015-10-08T21:23:57+01:00October 8th, 2015|leadership|

The melody of education: what should we be accountable for?

Not every end is a goal. The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its end, it would not have reached its goal. A parable. Nietzsche This is the third in a series of posts about what I'm calling Intelligent Accountability. Peter Blenkinsop pointed out that a problem with holding teachers to account for their professional judgments is that we may not all be playing the same melody. I've written before about the battleground that is the purpose of education. The problem with trusting schools and teachers to do what's right is that we [...]

2015-10-08T09:25:46+01:00October 6th, 2015|leadership|

#researchED comes to Swindon

London, Sydney, New York, Glasgow and now... Swindon. At long last Tom Bennett's moveable, grassroots, edu-research feast finally pitches up in the heart of Wiltshire and my new home from home, Swindon Academy. This time, the focus is specifically on how research might help secondary English teachers to be more critical, thoughtful and informed about the choices they make. We've arrayed a galaxy of some of the most stellar English teachery types out there as well as a few luminaries from academia, most notably our keynote speaker, professor Ray Land from Durham University. The programme, although subject to change, currently looks like [...]

2015-10-06T11:08:10+01:00October 6th, 2015|research|

What can education learn from aviation?

Certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we’re so fond of it. - George Eliot Flying is a dangerous business. All sorts of things can go wrong and any one of them could result in disaster. That said, it's become a cliché that flying is the safest way to travel. No other form of transportation is as scrutinized, investigated and monitored as commercial aviation. According to research into flight safety, over the fifteen years between 1975 and 1994, the death risk per flight was one in seven million. [...]

2015-10-05T19:34:44+01:00October 5th, 2015|leadership|

Intelligent Accountability

The history of human growth is at the same time the history of every new idea heralding the approach of a brighter dawn, and the brighter dawn has always been considered illegal, outside of the law. - Emma Goldman So many teachers I speak to are afraid to make nuanced professional judgements. When I make suggestions on how they could manage workload, organise classroom, speak to students, select curriculum content or plan lessons very often I'm confronted with,"That sounds like a great idea but I wouldn't be allowed to do it." Too many school systems have become blunt instruments used to [...]

2016-10-05T20:44:27+01:00October 4th, 2015|Featured, leadership|

September on The Learning Spy

Last month was a bit on the patchy side. I blogged like fury, then nothing for a week. Anyway, here's my output over the month including the last, dying days of August: Can we make learning permanent? 30th August - Revisiting my experiences of speeding school and musings on how learning might be made stickier. See it, own it: how to destroy a school 31st August - My despair at some of the stupider attempts to bring order to the chaos that is a secondary school. What I mean by ‘relevance’ 31st August - On the mistakes teachers make when thinking about what's relevant. [...]

2015-09-30T21:41:43+01:00September 30th, 2015|blogging|

The Science of Learning

Loyal readers may remember my attempts to wade through the Top 20 Principles of Psychology for Teaching & Learning report from the APA. If you haven't already read it, don't bother. This remarkably concise digest, produced by Deans for Impact does the job much better. Well-informed readers probably won't learn anything new, but I've not come across another document which presents the evidence so clearly and gives such unambiguous advice to teachers. Basically, a group of American independent school heads, ably supported by Daniel Willingham and Paul Bruno, have summarised pretty much everything a busy teacher ought to know about how children learn, remember, solve [...]

2015-09-30T19:02:36+01:00September 30th, 2015|psychology|

Could less marking mean more feedback?

Opportunity makes a thief. - Francis Bacon I wrote recently about the differences between marking and feedback. In brief, and contrary to popular wisdom, they are not the same thing; feedback is universally agreed to be a good bet in teachers' efforts to improve student outcomes whereas as marking appears to be almost entirely unsupported by evidence and neglected by researchers. Marking takes time Although there are some who dislike the use of the term opportunity cost being applied to education, there's no getting away from the fact that whilst we may be able to renew all sorts of resources, time is always finite. [...]

2015-09-27T18:32:36+01:00September 27th, 2015|Featured|

A decreased focus on facts & knowledge won't help either

Knowledge is that which, next to virtue, truly raises one person above another. - Joseph Addison The TES reports today that “A leading independent school headmaster has warned that the greater focus on facts and knowledge in reformed GCSEs and A-levels may fail to equip pupils for the modern world.” Well, duh. Anything may fail or succeed in its aims, but this statement sort of assumes that up until now GCSEs and A levels have been doing a bang up job of preparing students for the modern world. I have little doubt that some pupils will continue to be every bit [...]

2015-09-21T19:17:50+01:00September 21st, 2015|Featured|
Toggle Sliding Bar Area
Go to Top