Category Archives: Education

Overcoming the barriers to learning

Posted on January 7, 2022 by Eddie Playfair

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at WorldSkills November 2021 These are a few thoughts about how teachers can help learners overcome some of the barriers to their learning. This is not a comprehensive ‘how-to’ guide or a list of tips to … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Students, Teaching and learning | Tagged Antonio Machado, autonomy, barriers, engagement, Hannah Arendt, Knud Illeris, learning, Maya Angelou, motivation, National Union of Teachers, pedagogy, Student, teaching, WorldSkills | Leave a comment

Finding our voice in a crisis.

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Eddie Playfair

Blogging in the 2020s. It can be hard to write in a time of crisis. What can we possibly say that could be of any use to anyone? But when things are this bad, it’s also hard not to write. … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Education, Philosophy, Reviews | Tagged 2020s, Alternatives, blogging, complexity, crisis, Education, hope, Social change, utopianism | 1 Comment

Learning from Utopia

Posted on December 28, 2021 by Eddie Playfair

What is the function of alternative political and economic systems, whether actually existing or imaginary? Is it to offer hope that change is possible, or at least to provide some perspective on our own way of life?
Draws on ‘The Dispossessed’ by Ursula Le Guin. Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Education, Fiction, Reviews | Tagged Alternatives, Anarcho-syndicalism, Anarres, dystopia, Education, Equality, Science fiction, Urras, Ursula Le Guin, utopia, utopianism | Leave a comment

Resisting classification

Posted on December 23, 2021 by Eddie Playfair

The way we use categories doesn’t do justice to the multi-layered complexity of the world. It’s often a short cut to sweeping assumptions and flawed policy. Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Philosophy | Tagged agglomeration, categories, classification, complexity, disadvantage, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, inequality, Nick Sousanis, reality, reification, selection | Leave a comment

A manifesto to end educational inequality?

Posted on September 9, 2021 by Eddie Playfair

The challenge We urgently need to address inequality and the human damage it causes, in education and across society. So, any programme with the aim of ‘eliminating educational inequality’ merits serious consideration. The eleven proposals in the Teach First ‘manifesto … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Education policy | Tagged Education, Education policy, education system, Equality, Funding, inequality, schools, Teach First, young people | Leave a comment

Reading bell hooks.

Posted on April 5, 2021 by Eddie Playfair

‘Teaching to Transgress’ ‘Teaching to Transgress’ is as fresh and powerful in 2021 as when it was first published in 1994. Its messages about teaching as discovery, resistance and liberation are as vital today as ever. Reading bell hooks is … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Philosophy, Reviews, Teaching and learning | Tagged bell hooks, Equality, passion, pedagogy, teaching, Teaching to Transgress | 11 Comments

Freire for today

Posted on March 6, 2021 by Eddie Playfair

What can we learn from reading Freire today? The work of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was rooted in his adult literacy teaching among dispossessed and disempowered communities in Latin America and elsewhere and was influenced by both Marxism … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Philosophy | Tagged banking model of education, bell hooks, Education, Gert Biesta, liberation, oppression, Paulo Freire, pedagogy, Pedagogy of Hope, Pedagogy of Oppression, philosophy, philosophy of education, reading the world, teaching, Teaching to Transgress, The Beautiful Risk of Education, transmission model of learning | Leave a comment

Seven ways to avoid a Frankenstein education.

Posted on February 27, 2021 by Eddie Playfair

Seven ways to avoid a Frankenstein education – Philippe Meirieu. The French educationalist, Philippe Meirieu, in his 1996 book ‘Frankenstein Pedagogue’ reviews popular accounts of attempts to fashion a person to a maker’s design. Such fictional person-making often proves futile … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Education, Philosophy, Teaching and learning | Tagged autonomy, co-construction, co-production, Donna Haraway, Frankenstein, Frankenstein Pedagogue, Gert Biesta, learning, Mary Shelley, Philippe Meirieu, poiesis, praxis, sympoiesis, teaching | 2 Comments

Learning, earning and the death of human capital.

Posted on February 21, 2021 by Eddie Playfair

Is there a clear predictive relationship between the amount of education ‘received’, as measured by qualifications achieved, and future earnings? The idea is strongly held by many policymakers and it plays a part in the public debate about investment in … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Education policy, Reviews | Tagged Ann Pettifor, capital, earnings, Education, employment, Equality, Green New Deal, Guy Standing, Hugh Lauder, human capital, human capital theory, inequality, Phillip Brown, Sin Yi Cheng, Sustainability, sustainable development, The Death of Human Capital?, training | 1 Comment

Why the comprehensive college?

Posted on September 20, 2020 by Eddie Playfair

When we talk about education, we are talking about both the personal and the social – the ‘small’ and the ‘big’. As individuals, what we know and can do goes to the very heart of our identity. We are engaged … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Education policy, NewVIc | Tagged College, comprehensive college, comprehensive education, Horace Mann, Jane Addams, John Dewey, Newham, Newham Sixth Form College, selection, Waltham Forest | Leave a comment

Exam results – what just happened?

Posted on August 23, 2020 by Eddie Playfair

Most years, the national drama of A Level and GCSE results days in England plays out in two distinct but related acts one week apart, focusing on the performance of the education system and the young people navigating their way … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Education policy | Tagged A levels, Assessment, Centre assessed grades, complexity, Covid-19, Education, Education policy, England, exam results, Exams, GCSE | Leave a comment

Starting to rethink education.

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Eddie Playfair

There are different ways to think about life after a crisis. One is: ‘let’s try to get back to things as they were as quickly as possible’, another is: ‘we can’t go back to things as they were, this is … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Education Futures, Politics | Tagged ASCL Blueprint for a fairer education, Commission on the College of the Future, crisis, Education, Education policy, future, future education, hope, Hope in the Dark, politics, Rebecca Solnit, Thinking Global, transformation, UNESCO, UNESCO Futures of Education | 5 Comments

Knowledge and education for the future.

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Eddie Playfair

Edgar Morin’s seven lessons for the future. When the French sociologist Edgar Morin was asked by UNESCO for his thoughts on education for the future, he organised his proposals around seven key aspects of human knowledge and understanding. In his … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Education Futures | Tagged climate emergency, crisis, Edgar Morin, Education, emergence, error, ethics, future education, global citizenship, human condition, Human rights, purpose of education, reductionism, Science, Seven lessons for the future, Solidarity, UN, uncertainty, UNESCO | 1 Comment

England’s unexpected exam revolution.

Posted on May 5, 2020 by Eddie Playfair

One consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic is that we are embarking on an extraordinary national experiment in the way young people achieve their exam grades in England; switching from a heavy reliance on externally set and marked written exams towards … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Education policy, Teaching and learning | Tagged A levels, Assessment, Centre assessed grades, Colleges, Covid-19, Exams, GCSE, GCSE English, GCSE Maths, GCSE retakes, Ranking | Leave a comment

Decarbonising education.

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Eddie Playfair

The climate emergency is a global reality and the large scale catastrophic weather events we face on a regular basis remind us that it is affecting us in the here and now, while also threatening far more serious impacts in … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Education policy, Politics, Students, Teaching and learning | Tagged AoC, citizenship education, climate change, climate emergency, Climate Emergency Education Bill 2020, global citizenship, Nadia Whittome MP, NUS, student activism, Students Organising for Sustainability UK, Teach the Future, UK Student Climate Network | Leave a comment

	nivekd on Finding our voice in a cr…
	Naik on 20 questions to ask about a bo…
	Eddie Playfair on Reading bell hooks.
	Eddie Playfair on Reading bell hooks.
	Tim Brighouse on Reading bell hooks.