What every teacher needs to know about teaching for social justice
The marvellous Teach Secondary magazine continue to publish my articles on a regular basis but don't hold that against them; there are loads of other excellent reasons for reading. Here's a link to my latest. The world is not a fair place. Some children are born into advantage; others are not. Many children in many schools have been raised in an environment where there is access to books, where their [...]
12 Rules for Schools – Rule 5 Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
Welcome to the fifth installment in a series of posts adapting Jordan Peterson’s book, 12 Rules of Life to the context of eduction. All the posts in this series are collected here. This is not intended to be an accurate summary of Peterson’s views, it is merely what I reckon. Navigating the world is tough enough when people like you. It's nigh on impossible if everyone dislikes you. Peterson explains that not teaching [...]
12 Rules for schools – Rule 4 Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
This is the fourth in a series of posts adapting Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life to the context of eduction. All the posts in this series are collected here. This is not intended as an accurate summary of Peterson’s views, it is merely what I reckon. The idea that we should only compare ourselves against a personal yardstick is good advice. As Max Ehrmann says in Disiderata, "If you compare yourself with [...]
12 Rules for schools – Rule 3 Make friends with people who want the best for you
This is the third in a series of posts adapting Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life to the context of eduction. I'm linking all the posts in this series here. This is not intended as an accurate summary of Peterson's views, it is merely my hot take. Not everyone is well disposed towards us. The higher you strive, the more you seek to put your stamp upon the world, the more likely you [...]
Good intentions are not good enough
I genuinely believe that everyone involved in education is well-intentioned. If making money was the prime motivation I'm sure we could find other, more profitable areas to operate in. Like international arms trading. Everyone wants the best for young people, but, of course, there's little agreement on what this should look like. Human beings are tribal. We band together with those who share our ideological preferences and make those with [...]
12 rules for schools – Rule 2 Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
This is the second in a series of posts adapting Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules of Life to the context of eduction. You can find my thoughts on Rule 1 here. Please note, Peterson talks about a lot of other stuff - much of it religious - which I'm largely ignoring. This is just my partial take. According to this study, one third of every prescription a doctor writes goes unfilled, and, over [...]
12 Rules for schools – Rule 1 Stand up straight with your shoulders back
I've just finished the Canadian academic and controversialist, Jordan Peterson's book, 12 Rules of Life: An antidote to chaos and my over-riding impression is that it's an important, erudite and thoughtful addition to the library of anyone interested in philosophy, ethics, religion, literature, psychology and the history of thought. But it's an often challenging and occasionally irritating at times. I guarantee that Peterson will say things which will annoy you. Don't [...]
Can we develop a ‘love of learning’?
The scholar and the world! The endless strife, The discord in the harmonies of life! The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books; The market-place, the eager love of gain, Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain! Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus Why are some people healthier than others? This might sound like a bit of silly question. The answer is surely obvious: some people eat better and exercise more than others. But is that all there is to it? Couldn't 'healthiness' be attributed, at least in part, to our genes? Might some of us be born with a greater capacity for health [...]
Getting culture right Part 2: Understanding group psychology
This is the second post on getting cultures right in schools. You can find Part 1, on social norms and using normative messages, here. We are essentially social animals and have evolved to thrive in groups. Although we tend to be disposed to share resources and cooperate with those we perceive as belonging to our group, we are worryingly ready to discriminate against anyone we see as an outsider. Creating a [...]
Teaching to make children cleverer – Part 3
As discussed in Part 1 of this series of posts, it seems probable that the best way to use education to increase children's cognitive capacities is to increase the quantity and the quality of what they know. In Part 2 I discussed ways we might increase the quantity of what of what children know about the world, and in this post I want to explore how we might go about selecting what [...]
Teaching to make children cleverer – Part 2
In my last post I reviewed those aspects on intelligence which are likely to be most malleable by teachers. Briefly, research into individual differences suggests that intelligence is fairly stable and that environmental factors - parenting and teaching - seem to wear off over time. At the same time, research into social attitudes (the rise in IQ scores over that last century) clearly demonstrates that something really is changing and [...]
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