Speaking truth to power
I awoke this morning to see that Cambridge Professor Mary Beard had been in an argument on Twitter with UKIP donor Arron Banks. Banks had claimed that immigration into [...]
Philosophy of education
Within the philosophy of education I am primarily concerned with the relationship between academic disciplines and school subjects.
How can supporters of grammar schools win the debate?
This might seem an odd blog title to be written by someone who disagrees with grammar schools. But, if the explosion of edu-blogging has done anything, then it has been to [...]
Genericism and the crisis of curriculum
What follows below is a talk I gave to the British Curriculum Forum event on Saturday 18th June 2016. Generally the talk was well-received, even amongst those who disagreed [...]
Pupil-led enquiry: the reading problem
It is widely known (and I think accepted?) that a person’s ability to comprehend something they read is closely tied to their prior knowledge of that subject. This creates [...]
Is ‘learning’ a noun or a verb?
This is in some ways a pointless question as it is of course both: the OED allows us both. I do however have significant concerns over how ‘learning’ gets used as [...]
Teaching facts
There are some words that bring people out in a rash in the contemporary world of education. ‘Memorisation’ is one of them. ‘Facts’ is another. There is something [...]
The problem with the grammar school debate
Grammar schools, those schools in England that select pupils on ability at the age of 11, are once again in the news due to the government allowing an existing grammar school [...]
Are all classrooms unique?
The following two statements have become something of an orthodoxy in education in recent years. (View 1) Pupils are unique and classroom contexts are unique – this means [...]
An apology from a traditional teacher
This is a rather unusual post from me, but it follows on the back of a nagging feeling that, too frequently, it is implied that if you advocate a traditional education for [...]
Is ‘understanding’ a thing?
We hear a lot about ‘understanding’ in education: it is a common curriculum and assessment term, particularly in ‘generic’ models such as Bloom’s Taxonomy. It is [...]
Why does truth matter in teaching?
Consider the following propositions, all of which are ones that pupils in school are likely to encounter in their futures: (1) Homeopathy is an effective treatment for a [...]
“I’m a teacher, not a…”: the problem of mission creep in schools
It is a well-known problem that schools suffer from ‘mission-creep’. It is common these days for just about every problem in society to be placed at the door of [...]
Preparing children for jobs that exist: the importance of vocational education
It might surprise some regular readers to see me writing a post under the title ‘the importance of vocational education’, not least because I have used this blog to [...]
The poverty of contemporary curriculum theory
I think that there is currently a poverty of curriculum theory in the overwhelming majority of secondary schools in England. I say this not to offend, though offend I no [...]
Education: what needs to be done?
Education policy matters and, as the electoral dust settles, our new government will have some vital issues to address, particularly regarding school funding and the training [...]
What are schools not responsible for?
At some point I shall get around to writing a more detailed critique of the British Educational Research Association’s manifesto for education. One of the biggest problems [...]
Should we teach useful knowledge? The poverty of a ‘useful’ curriculum
This question is doing the rounds a bit on Twitter at the moment with numerous people jumping in to claim that we should be teaching only those things that are ‘useful’ [...]
