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Recent Posts
- 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
- French elections 2022 January 29, 2022
- Zola’s ‘Money’ January 23, 2022
- Overcoming the barriers to learning January 7, 2022
- Finding our voice in a crisis. January 1, 2022
- Stupid gene. December 30, 2021
- Learning from Utopia December 28, 2021
- Resisting classification December 23, 2021
- ‘Bewilderment’ by Richard Powers November 22, 2021
- “You either bend the arc or it bends you” September 12, 2021
- A manifesto to end educational inequality? September 9, 2021
- ‘Light Perpetual’ by Francis Spufford May 15, 2021
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Tag Archives: Education
Finding our voice in a crisis.
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
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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Learning from Utopia
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
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A manifesto to end educational inequality?
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
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Freire for today
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
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Learning, earning and the death of human capital.
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
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Exam results – what just happened?
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
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Starting to rethink education.
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
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Knowledge and education for the future.
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
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The promise of a National Education Service
The proposed creation of a National Education Service (NES) for England offers us the possibility of a decisive break with the market model, where education is treated as a commodity and where individual and institutional competition are regarded as the … Continue reading
Creating the conditions for a successful FE system
This week saw the launch of The FE and Skills System, a study by The Policy Consortium. Subtitled ‘The consequences of policy decisions – lessons for policymakers and stakeholders’, this thorough survey reaches deep into the heart of FE; drawing … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged Colleges, Education, further education, policy, Policy Consortium, policy volatility, Tony Davis
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Sixth form hopes for 2018.
I’ve been posting new year’s wishes for sixth form education since January 2015. This started with 5 ‘modest, realistic and realisable’ hopes. By 2016 the list had been cut to 4 and was then further reduced to 3 a year … Continue reading
The narrative of the ‘poor bright child’.
The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. Jane Addams. Earlier this month the government announced a £23m ‘future talent fund’ targeted at ‘bright’ … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged Education, Equality, Future Talent Fund, high, NewVIc, selection, Social mobility, university progression
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Education is a human right
We mark Human Rights Day on December 10th and this year it is 69 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted in Paris at a United Nations (UN) General Assembly in a post-conflict spirit of international … 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
Eddie Playfair 