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ED Hirsch

Hirsch vs Engelmann: “No scientific basis for Direct Instruction”?

2018-09-25T12:59:56+01:00December 2nd, 2016|research|

No one seems clear who first said it, but it's become an abiding truth of journalism that, "If a dog bites a man, that is not news. But if a man bites a dog that is news." To publish an article in which an octogenarian educationalist says basically what he's been saying for the last few decades would not be news. But if said educationalist were to bite another well-known bastion of traditional education? Publish and be damned! So, in a recent article about the nonsense of selecting what to teach based on whether material is cognitively 'age appropriate', ED Hirsch Jr [...]

Is it just me or is Sugata Mitra an irresponsible charlatan?

2016-09-28T17:57:14+01:00November 23rd, 2015|myths|

Knowledge comes by eyes always open and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power. Ralph Waldo Emerson When I first saw physicist, Sugata Mitra speak about his Hole in the Wall experiments in India I was astonished. Not only was he as  self-deprecatingly warm and funny as Sir Ken Robinson on a major charm offensive, the content of what he was saying blew any of SKR's woolly rhetoric out of the water. Basically, his claim was, is, that children can teach themselves anything. All they need is access to the internet and teachers to stay the heck away [...]

Heads I’m right, tails I’m not wrong

2020-08-08T17:58:15+01:00October 12th, 2015|reflection|

The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs. Self-conceit often regards it as a sign of weakness to admit that a belief to which we have once committed ourselves is wrong. We get so identified with an idea that it is literally a “pet” notion and we rise to its defense and stop our eyes and ears to anything different. John Dewey* Let me start by being really clear: I am very much in favour of conducting research into the merits of educational claims. [...]

Knowledge is power

2013-09-25T21:14:34+01:00October 21st, 2012|learning, myths, SOLO|

I've been having a bit of think this week. Firstly I read Daisy Christodoulou's post on Hirsch's Core Knowledge curriculum. She points out that Hirsch, oft-condemned for being the darling of ideologues like Mickey Gove is, in his own words 'a quasi socialist' and big mates with Diane Ravitch (who is nobody's fool.) Then I listened to the hugely entertaining Jonathan Lear give an excellent presentation at Independent Thinking's Big Day Out in Bristol on Friday and like any speaker worth their salt he got me thinking. His point, if I may make so bold as to attempt a precis, is that [...]

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