This is who I am
This post was written at the behest of Rory Gallagher (@EddieKayshun) who assured me that some people might find it interesting to know a little more about my background. He has persuaded all sorts of fascinating teachers to share their stories on his marvellous Who I Am, What I Do site. I recommend you check it out. My experience of school was troubled. It took me a long time to [...]
Some pictures and reviews of #litbook
Many thanks to all the people who have kindly been in touch to tell me their long-awaited copies of The Secret of Literacy have arrived; I hope you find it useful and enjoyable. If you do like it, please don't underestimate how grateful I'll be for a positive review on Amazon (Many thanks to D Hewitson for the first 5 star review.) If you'd like to send me a picture of [...]
This is what I think
I love a good aphorism, and I also like lists. I keep being asked what I think about stuff so, in the spirit of clarity, here's a list of some of the things I think about education: Behaviour Getting behaviour right is the top priority for schools; when that's cracked everything else will be possible. Until it's cracked, nothing will work well. Blaming teachers for the failure of a school to [...]
Squaring the circle: can learning be easy and hard?
Regular readers will know I've been ploughing a furrow on this question for quite a while now. Last June I synthesised my thinking in this post: Deliberately difficult – why it’s better to make learning harder. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the arguments, I'll summarise them briefly: - Learning is different from performance (the definition of learning I'm using here is the long-term retention and transfer of knowledge and [...]
3 reasons why you should read The Secret of Literacy
This is, unashamedly, a sales pitch for my new book, The Secret of Literacy: making the implicit explicit which should be available in the next few days. Apologies if such blatant self-promotion offends your sensibilities, but do bear with me; it won't be a hard sell. Who's the book for? Teachers. All teachers. It's definitely not aimed at English teachers, although I would hope they'll find it useful. Neither is it aimed at [...]
Intuition vs evidence: the power of prediction
I wrote earlier in the week about why, despite it's limitations, research is better than a hunch. Since then, I've been reading Daniel Willingham's article on Real Clear Education; he says that it's not that people are stupid but that science is hard. He refers to the nobel prize winning physicist Carl Weiman whose interest in science education came from many years of working closely with physics undergraduates and observing that "their success in [...]
What works is a lot better than what doesn't
Teachers often talk about the vital nature of their work and the fact that for the young people we teach there are no second chances. I've heard teaching compared to air traffic control and the risks in the classroom compared to the risk involved in miscalculating the landing of a plane. These kinds of comparison are made to alert us to the importance of what we do, but clearly they're [...]
Some nice things people have said about my new book
After months of frustrating delay (don't ask!), The Secret of Literacy has finally been printed! It will, I'm assured, be available for 15th May. I hope it's worth the wait. To whet your appetite, here are some of the charming things said by some of the people I admire most in education: David Didau’s book is everything a book about the work of teaching should be: clear-eyed, lively, wise, and [...]
On compromise
The right of thinking freely and acting independently, of using our minds without excessive awe of authority, and shaping our lives without unquestioning obedience to custom, is now a finally accepted principle in some sense or other with every school of thought that has the smallest chance of commanding the future. Under what circumstances does the exercise and vindication of the right, thus conceded in theory, become a positive duty [...]
The AfL debate: does it matter who's right?
If you're not already aware of my critique and Dylan Wiliam's defence of formative assessment I do recommending getting up to speed before reading this post. Dylan's defence rests on the idea that although we can never be sure what's going on in a child's mind, "teaching will be better if the teacher bases their decisions about what to do next on a reasonably accurate model of the students’ thinking." He makes a [...]
Progressively Worse: a summary and a review
I’ve just finished reading Robert Peal’s blistering polemical attack on progressive education in England, Progressively Worse, the burden of bad ideas in British schools, and, while it clearly has an agenda and an axe to grind, it’s a book I hope everyone involved in teaching spares the time to read and absorb. Doubtless, it’s intrinsically biased nature will ensure that many readers will find it easy to dismiss as ‘prog [...]
Making Meaning in English
Learning Spy CPD
*NEW* Intelligent Accountability
#Cleverer
#PsychBook
#WrongBook
The Secret of Literacy
The Perfect English Lesson
Join Over 10,000 Subscribers Learning from David Didau
Become Part of David Didau’s Network and Further Your Teaching Career.
