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principle of charity

Good intentions are not good enough

2018-01-23T17:04:18+00:00January 23rd, 2018|Featured|

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 whom we disagree the enemy. This makes a certain kind of sense. If someone dissents from our well-considered opinion about how children ought to be educated we're prone to engaging in [...]

Seven tools for thinking #2: The principle of charity

2017-09-12T20:41:49+01:00June 5th, 2016|Featured|

Ah! What a divine religion might be found if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith! - Percy Bysshe Shelley A few weeks ago I wrote about the philosopher, Daniel Dennett's recommendation that we value our mistakes, learn from them, and never make the same mistake again. The second of Dennett's seven tools for thinking from Intuition Pumps is to respect your opponent. This is something I really struggle with. Debate in education is as ideologically riven as any other field where there are few certainties and no absolutes; evidence is nearly always contingent. But you'd never know. The [...]

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