Sailing on a rising tide of knowledge
Imagine for a moment a cannon positioned on the south coast of England, pointing at France. The artillery officers identify a target on the French coast and calculate exactly [...]
Philosophy of education
Within the philosophy of education I am primarily concerned with the relationship between academic disciplines and school subjects.
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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’ [...]
Stay in School: the importance of knowledge
You have probably now seen the “Don’t Stay in School” video by Boyinaband. The singer has received a lot of criticism for making the case that academic subjects in [...]
Reforming Ofsted: creating a slimmer inspectorate
Critiques of Ofsted are widespread and last year must rank as the toughest year the inspectorate has ever faced (see Andrew Old’s blog for commentary and Joe [...]
The merits of the academic disciplines
Following discussions last week and over the weekend, I’ve decided to write a few posts setting out in more detail the philosophy that underpins my approach to the [...]
A response to Debra regarding traditional subjects
The following is my comment on Debra Kidd’s blog (Hey you. Poor person. We’re here to make you just like us.) I have avoided copying comments from one blog into a [...]
Truth about and knowledge of the world: a fundamental right for children
Children, I would argue, have a right to know about the world in which they live. They have a right to be taught about the structures of reality at both cosmic and atomic [...]
Edu-babble: the language of the generic
I have argued in several posts now that teaching ought not to be understood in generic terms. I want to use this post to examine a little further some of the problems generic [...]
