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The tension between 'what is' and 'what ought to be'

Aug 24, 2017 | Category: Featured

One of the great problems of philosophy, is the relationship between the realm of knowledge and the realm of values. Knowledge is what is; values are what ought to be. I would say that all traditiona...

#Jacques Monod #Rapoport's Rules

Larkin was wrong: parenting makes less difference than we think

Aug 11, 2017 | Category: Featured

Being a parent is a terrifying responsibility. The message of Larkin's poem, ‘This Be The Verse’, is that parents cannot help but pass on their failings to their children, and that the reason we...

#Judith RIch Harris #heritability #parenting

How to be an English teacher: designing an English PGCE

Jul 22, 2017 | Category: Featured

From September I will be teaching a small group of prospective English teachers what I think they need to know in order to do a decent job as part of the new BPP University PGCE course. I was very fla...

How not to disagree: Swearing & insults

May 30, 2017 | Category: Featured

If you don't like swearing this post's probably not for you. I'm a big fan of profanity and, much to the chagrin of my family, I swear immoderately. There are times when nothing else quite expresses t...

Reframing the debate: It's not what you do, it's why you do it

May 23, 2017 | Category: Featured

For the past few years I've regularly railed against anyone who claims that either there is no debate about the best way to teach, or that said debate isn't worth having because the vast majority of t...

#debate #Kathryn Ecclestone #therapeutic education

Conscious and unconscious minds: Implications for teaching and learning literacy

Jul 15, 2017 | Category: Featured

This is a guest post by Hugo Kerr who got in touch with the offer that this appear first on the blog. What Hugo refers to as the 'unconscious mind' is, I think, largely analogous with my interpretatio...

Beware the nuance trap

Jul 15, 2017 | Category: Featured

In possibly the best titled academic paper of the year, Kieran Healy argues that nuance is, contrary to popular belief, a bad thing. He makes it clear he's not arguing against nuance per se, but again...

#Kieran Healy #nuance

If not knowledge, what?

Jul 14, 2017 | Category: Featured

knowledge /ˈnɒlɪdʒ/ noun facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. "a thirst for knowledge" awareness...

#knowledge #Aristotle

Whatever the question is, intelligence is the answer

Jun 25, 2017 | Category: Featured

Here are the slides I used in the talk I gave at this year's Education Festival: Whatever the question is, intelligence is the answer from David Didau The antipathy of very many otherwise sensible...

#intelligence #IQ

Ability is the consequence not the cause of what children learn

Jun 13, 2017 | Category: Featured

The evidence on ability grouping appears relatively well-known. The EEF Toolkit summarise the research findings thus: Overall, setting or streaming appears to benefit higher attaining pupils and be de...

#Dylan Wiliam #setting #EEF Toolkit