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Recent Posts
- A broader view of skills? June 7, 2023
- In praise of ‘low value’ subjects. February 27, 2023
- Frigga Haug and the mystery of learning December 6, 2022
- Debating Growth. November 29, 2022
- Code red for human survival November 8, 2022
- The politics of silence. September 4, 2022
- Posts on Corsican themes. August 10, 2022
- When Corsica welcomed thousands of Serb refugees (1916) August 9, 2022
- Climate justice, heat justice and the politics of resilience August 5, 2022
- Nancy Fraser’s eco-socialist common sense. August 3, 2022
- Education, social justice and survival in a time of crisis. July 18, 2022
- A political education. May 10, 2022
- Redistribution and recognition should go hand in hand. April 17, 2022
- French presidential election: could Mélenchon make it? April 10, 2022
- Owning our crises March 26, 2022
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Category Archives: Teaching and learning
Frigga Haug and the mystery of learning
How does learning happen? What exactly is going on when we acquire knowledge or skill? When we consider our own education, it’s evident that over time we learn quite a lot – some of it may even overlap with what … Continue reading
A political education.
Why political literacy? Politics is about power and change, how we live our lives and what kind of world we want. The political is not a separate sphere of life, it’s embedded in our everyday experience, as are the ideologies … Continue reading
Stupid gene.
Simplex and Sapiens are discussing human stupidity. Simplex: We agree that people can do some pretty stupid things, yes? Sapiens: Of course. Simplex: And that some people have a tendency to do stupid things more often… Sapiens: I guess… Simplex: … Continue reading
Posted in Science, Teaching and learning
Tagged behavioural genetics, determinism, Education, intelligence, IQ test, Sapiens, stupidity, teaching
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Reading bell hooks.
‘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
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Seven ways to avoid a Frankenstein education.
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
England’s unexpected exam revolution.
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
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Decarbonising education.
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
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‘What if?’ – dystopias in fiction.
Fictional dystopias use the power of ‘what if?’ to change something or extrapolate particular social or technological trends and imagine the impact on people’s lives. The best ones are also good stories, well told, about people; their hopes, fears, feelings … Continue reading
Learning through conflict.
Education, like all human endeavour, requires conflict, struggle, challenge, disagreement, argument, difference, dialectic, dialogue. If we want to learn or make anything new, we need to reach towards what we don’t know, to seek out the unknown. Education, and life … Continue reading
Brecht’s radical Galileo
Brecht’s ‘Life of Galileo’ is a great piece of theatre with universal appeal. It’s also a particularly good one for science students because it brings the scientific method to life. Galileo’s struggle to get acceptance for the ‘Copernican’ heliocentric model … Continue reading
Design for Learning.
Newham Sixth Form College (NewVIc) celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and we are delighted to be unveiling a wonderful new building for our Silver Jubilee. In nearly a decade this is the only substantial new permanent addition to our … Continue reading
More fictional dystopias
Reading Dystopias offered an introduction to the genre of dystopian fiction through 4 classic dystopian novels. Here are four more which are also well worth reading. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953) [211 pages] Fahrenheit 451: The temperature at which … Continue reading
London’s francophone refugees
We are roughly at the mid point of our commemoration of the First World War. Let’s look back just over a hundred years. London before the outbreak of war in 1914 was the greatest industrial city in the world and … Continue reading
Posted in History, Learning resources, NewVIc
Tagged Anti-war, France, Goldsmiths University of London, Jean Jaurès, London, refugee, Romain Rolland, world war 1, xenophobia
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Thinking students and student research.
In his excellent book Think Again (2012), John Taylor makes a strong case for putting philosophy at the centre of our teaching in order to develop students’ ability to think. As he says in his introduction: “Education should be all about … Continue reading
Eddie Playfair 