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Where now for school improvement?

Jul 03, 2016 | Category: Featured

In the past, school improvement was easy. You could push pupils into taking BTECs or Diplomas (sometimes with 100% coursework) equivalent to multiple GCSEs; you could organise your curriculum to allow...

#Tom Sherrington #Robert Coe #Amanda Spielman #Jack Marwoood

Why I'm optimistic about the new Chief Inspector

Jun 14, 2016 | Category: Featured

Guardian journalist and ex-teacher, Michelle Hanson thinks education in the UK is "going down the pan". In this article she tells us the memory of working as a teacher still makes her "feel a bit quea...

#Ofsted #Amanda Spielman

Telling better stories

Jun 21, 2016 | Category: Featured

None of us know what made us what we are, and when we have to say something, we make up a good story. Steven Pinker, My Genome, My Self Stories are one of the most important ways we have of tryi...

#Barry Mashall #Daniel Boorstin #stories

The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education

Jun 17, 2016 | Category: Featured

Joyous distrust is a sign of health. Everything absolute belongs to pathology. Nietzsche Maybe those bored by debating the purpose of education feel the way they do because everyone keeps saying the...

#Dennis Hayes #Kathryn Ecclestone #therapeutic education

Seven tools for thinking #7: Beware of 'deepities'

Jun 11, 2016 | Category: Featured

This is the last of my posts on Daniel Dennett's tools for thinking outlined in Intuition Pumps. You can read the others here.Everyone wants to find meaning in their actions and the events which surro...

#Daniel Dennett #7 tools for thinking #Deepak Chopra #The Barnum effect

Seven tools for thinking #6 Don’t waste time on rubbish

Jun 09, 2016 | Category: Featured

Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.Paul Graham Science fiction writer and critic, Ted Sturgeon coined what's become known as Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crap." This is som...

#Daniel Dennett #Sturgeon's Law

Seven tools for thinking #5 Occam's razor

Jun 08, 2016 | Category: Featured

All things being equal, the simplest solution is usually the best one. William of Ockham You've probably heard the old adage that if you hear the pounding of hooves echoing through the Wiltshire cou...

#Daniel Dennett #Albert Einstein #Occam's razor

Seven tools for thinking #4: Answering rhetorical questions

Jun 07, 2016 | Category: Featured

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question. E. E. Cummings Everyone likes a rhetorical question, don't they? Do they? Think about it. Try answering it. Do you think everyone real...

#Daniel Dennett

Seven tools for thinking #3: The "surely" klaxon

Jun 06, 2016 | Category: Featured

Rumack: Can you fly this plane and land it? Striker: Surely you can't be serious? Rumack: I am serious. And don't call me Shirley. Airplane, 1980 It's natural to want to build consensus. We're all gui...

#Daniel Dennett #bullshit

Seven tools for thinking #2: The principle of charity

Jun 05, 2016 | Category: Featured

Ah! What a divine religion might be found if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith! - Percy Bysshe Shelley A few weeks ago I wrote about the philosopher, Daniel Dennett's recom...

#Daniel Dennett #Anatol Rapoport #principle of charity