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The myth of progress

2015-05-10T14:25:04+01:00May 7th, 2015|Featured|

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. C. S. Lewis We tend to believe that things are getting better, that mankind is on a journey to some perfect state in which irrationality will be banished. This belief shapes and distorts our thinking. Darwin’s evolutionary theory of natural selection is often interpreted as meaning that random biological mutations, which are then inherited and selected as being most fit for the context in which [...]

Endorsements – what are they worth?

2015-05-10T14:28:35+01:00May 5th, 2015|Featured|

What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise — although the philosophers generally call it “recognition”! William James You might not have noticed (I've been the very soul of subtlety!) but I've got a new book out in June. This is my third book, and I have to say I love the process of assembling ideas, crafting them into some semblance of meaning, rethinking, redrafting, editing, proofreading. Writing is so much more than I ever thought it was before establishing a foothold in the publishing industry and I pretty much enjoy it all. The bit that terrifies [...]

What should written feedback look like?

2015-05-10T14:30:56+01:00May 4th, 2015|Featured|

To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away. Arthur Schopenhauer In response to my last post, Cristina Milos pointed out that I use the term 'feedback' without providing any further clarification as to what I mean. She challenged me to explain exactly how I envisioned the feedback process taking place and to be clear about what, specifically, it ought to contain. Now of course feedback can take various different forms, but seeing as I've been exploring ways to reduce teachers' marking load, it's probably apposite to address what written feedback might look like. But, first some ground [...]

April on The Learning Spy

2015-05-10T14:35:30+01:00May 1st, 2015|Featured|

A few readers kindly got in touch over the last week or so to complain I was writing too much and that they couldn't keep up. Instead of shutting me up, this merely served to start me wondering about producing a digest of the month's posts to make my output easier to swallow. And here, in all its relative glory, it is: 1st April - Dipsticks: It all depends on what you mean by ‘engagement’ This was both a response to comment and criticism of an earlier post which questioned the importance of students being engaged in lessons. In this post I [...]

A review of The Beautiful Risk of Education by Harry Webb

2015-05-10T14:44:33+01:00April 26th, 2015|Featured|

I blundered into a discussion of Gert Biesta's The Beautiful Risk of Education yesterday and was asked to justify my view that it's 'a bit silly'. Rather than do the hard work of writing my own critique, I have chosen the more indolent route of posting our dear departed Harry Webb's review as his Webs of Substance blog is now sadly defunct. Creation Myths The Beautiful Risk of Education doesn’t start well, but in its opening chapter it does detail an interesting elaboration of one of the central ideas of progressive education. And it details it at some length. I therefore think it is [...]

Chicken or egg? Thoughts about thinking

2015-04-24T19:08:55+01:00April 24th, 2015|Featured|

Which comes first? The chicken of knowledge or the egg of thinking? Over the past few years I have been advocating the view that thinking is a very shallow experience without knowledge. It seems self-evident that you can't think about something you don't yet know. Give it a go... tricky, isn't it? But not only that, the more you know the better you can think about it. If I ask you to think about, say quantum physics, unless you know something about it you'll probably be reduced to "What's quantum physics?" or repeating quantum physics, quantum physics over and over again. [...]

Whose research is it anyway?

2015-04-22T22:01:04+01:00April 22nd, 2015|Featured|

The TES reports today that Professor Hattie, the crown prince of education research, isn't much keen on teachers conducting research in their classrooms. Apparently he thinks we should leave education research in the hands of academics. Because, I assume, they know best. Now I'm certain TES journos have rubbed this particular story vigorously on the crotch of their cricket whites, the better to produce a savage topspin in the hope of enraging the new breed of research literate teachers, but Hattie is quoted as saying, Researching is a particular skill. Some of us took years to gain that skill. Asking teachers [...]

Is education a zero-sum game?

2017-01-18T18:29:48+00:00April 18th, 2015|Featured|

Opportunity makes a thief. Francis Bacon A zero-sum game is one in which there is a winner and a loser; if you haven't won, you've lost. The term derives from game theory and economics and describes a situation in which one person's gain utility (the ability to satisfy his or wants) is exactly balanced by another's loss of utility. In The Uses of Pessimism, Scruton points out that much wrong-heading thinking and behaviour derives from what he calls the 'zero-sum fallacy' where all gains are paid for by the losers. Society therefore is a zero-sum game, in which costs and benefits balance out, and [...]

Curiosity: the knowledge gap

2015-04-13T18:05:38+01:00April 13th, 2015|Featured|

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Samuel Johnson We're all, to some extent, naturally curious - we long to unpick out that which is mysterious, troublesome and uncertain. That's not to say we're all equally curious about everything. We tend to be particularly incurious about what is settled, quotidian and neatly tied off. The novelist, Anatole France thought that, "The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards." I think this is broadly true. A teacher unable to awaken [...]

Back to school

2015-03-28T13:06:59+00:00March 28th, 2015|Featured|

In December 2013 I left the classroom for a life of swashbuckling and adventure. There were as many push factors as there were pull and I was very nervous about whether I'd be able to make a living - after all, I'm just a teacher with a big gob. I needn't have worried. It's been the most marvellous adventure. I've been able to travel the length and breadth of the country (and even get in a few visits overseas) visiting schools, talking to teachers and casting my pearls of wisdom before all comers. I've also had the luxury of time to read and [...]

NEW BOOK: Foreword by Robert A Bjork

2015-04-03T11:04:15+01:00March 25th, 2015|Featured|

As some readers will no doubt be aware, I've written a new book. I've been fascinated by Robert Bjork's research into learning and memory ever since first encountering it back in February 2013, so of course, when I began the process back of writing this book I wrote to Professor Bjork to let him know I intended to cannibalise his work in order to make various points about what teachers ought to do. My reason for writing was both to ask for his blessing and to see whether he would be prepared to offer feedback (suitably summarised and delayed of course) on [...]

How could we improve accountability?

2015-03-23T20:02:54+00:00March 23rd, 2015|Featured|

If accountability is the solution, what's the problem? It's become axiomatic that you can't remove accountability from education and that teachers must always be held to account. Why? Because they're feckless scoundrels and can't be trusted further than you can throw an interactive whiteboard. Education has been reduced to teachers vs. the rest of the world. Here's how some of those struggles play out: Teachers vs. government - Education policy is predicated on the assumption that everything would be fine if only teachers were prepared to work a bit harder. Like a giant set of human whack-a-mole, as soon as a new [...]

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