Archive

The nail in Growth Mindset's coffin?

Mar 06, 2018 | Category: psychology

As I'm sure everybody already knows, mind sets are beliefs about the nature of characteristics like intelligence. The theory is that students with growth mindsets believe their ability can be changed...

#Carol Dweck #Growth mindset #Timothy Bates

The problem with 'unconditional positive regard'

Feb 27, 2018 | Category: behaviour

If you're a parent and your child misbehaves in public, what do you do? If you're not a parent, and someone else's child misbehaves in public, what would you like the parents to do? Adults are predisp...

#Carl Rogers #Unconditional positive regard

Lessons from the dojo

May 06, 2018 | Category: learning

Struck with the inescapable knowledge that I'm not getting younger and, therefore, am unlikely to stay fit and healthy without some investment in exercise, I've struggled over the past few years to fi...

#karate

A broad and balanced approach to English teaching and the curriculum

Jun 29, 2018 | Category: English

Having launched a stream of invective against the use of 'balance' as a weasel word in my last post, I want to offer a more nuanced take on what I think balance ought to mean.I see the purpose of a cu...

#curriculum #instruction #powerful knowledge #Richard Clark

When "balance" goes bad

Jun 28, 2018 | Category: Featured

Balance is an obviously good thing, isn't it? After all, who wants to be unbalanced? "What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration?" asked the mathematicia...

Are the new GCSE exams causing mental health problems?

Jun 24, 2018 | Category: Featured

Sitting an exam is, for most people, an inherently stressful situation. People have been sitting exams since at least the Sui dynasty in China (581-618 CE) when prospective entrants to the Imperial ci...

#stress #Exams #Kathryn Ecclestone #therapeutic education #tests #Kelly McGonigal

Teaching knowledge is teaching skill

Jun 17, 2018 | Category: curriculum

We can call everything stored in our long-term memories knowledge. All knowledge is biological - stored in the organic substance of our brains - and everything stored biologically is knowledge. If you...

The trouble with troublesome knowledge

Jun 16, 2018 | Category: Featured

A recent blog post made some interesting assertions about knowledge. In doing so it presented a series of opinions as facts. That is not a criticism - we all have a tendency to do this. But in order t...

#Daniel Willingham #Bryan Caplan #Douglas Detterman #Jerome Bruner #Lindsay Johns

The problem with dead white men - a reply to Mary Bousted

Jun 09, 2018 | Category: Featured

Apparently, Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union has announced that England is “hurtling forward to a rosy past” with its emphasis on knowledge.She is reported as having sai...

#English literature #Shakespeare #broad and balanced curriculum #powerful knowledge #Christopher Hitchens #Mary Bousted

The illusion of leadership

Jun 08, 2018 | Category: Featured

Everyone knows what's needed to turn around a struggling school: strong leadership. In order for it to be deemed necessary for school to be consigned to 'special measures,' something has to have gone...

#school leadership #Anna Karenina Principle #Matt Ridley