Today’s identity politics has another interesting feature: it teaches students to think in a way antithetical to what a liberal arts education should do. When I was at Yale in the 1980s, I was given so many tools for understanding the world. By the time I graduated, I could think about things as a Utilitarian … More The Narrowing Curriculum
Here are the slides in PDF format from my talk at ResearchEd Rugby on July 1st 2017: The Conversational Classroom #rEDRugby
In her first major speech as the new HMCI Amanda Spielman said: And that is why I’m announcing today that I have chosen the curriculum to be the focus of the first big thematic Ofsted review of my tenure. From early years, through to primary, secondary, sixth form and FE colleges, this will explore the … More Ofsted and the Development of a Rich Curriculum
Lord Nash, speaking at the Challenge Partnership national conference, titled his talk: ‘what is relevant in business to education?’ According to the TES, he said that: “…too often teachers have confused their individuality with their professionalism… Being a professional means embracing accountability, standardisation and consistency, although of course we want our teachers to be inspiring.” He went … More Schools Are Not Businesses. A Message to Lord Nash.
AQA state that: A-level Government and Politics enables students to develop their critical thinking skills and enhance their ability to interpret, evaluate and comment on the nature of politics. For a teacher this is quite a challenge, especially in ‘politically charged’ days like these. Days in which the ‘politically impartial’ speaker of the House of … More Katie Hopkins, Denial, and Teaching ‘Critical Thinking’
Mortimer J Adler’s and Charles Van Doren’s How to Read a Book sets out to assist readers who want to read well. Our subject, then, is the art of reading good books when understanding is the aim you have in view In order to help the reader to do this the authors compare teaching to reading. When … More Discovery Learning and the Art of Reading
Creating a culture of speech in your classroom means having everyone doing it, not simply those that are willing – do not let students ‘hide’. Andrew Fitch, from the book: Trivium in Practice In a piece for the TES, Jonathan Simons, head of Education for Policy Exchange, wrote about the importance of debating: To debate, participants … More The Importance of Debate in Schools
I was running late, grabbed some toast, said goodbye “good luck!” came the reply and with that I set off, no worries I thought, the school will offer me coffee… I arrived at the school on a drizzly summer day and pressed the buzzer, the door opened and in I went. Reception was packed with … More My Worst Job Interview
My lesson plan for the teaching of Rhetoric continues to be used by many teachers and schools yet it is not the end of the story by any means. Once a student orator has got a handle on the basic outline of speech making you can begin to teach him or her about little tricks they can use … More Teaching The Trivium. Rhetoric A-Z: A
As a teacher I wanted students to remember certain things and to be able to recall them when needed. DT Willingham wrote in his book Why Don’t Kids Like School: “Whatever students think about is what they will remember… Memory is the residue of thought.” To Aeschylus “Memory is the mother of all reason…” Thought … More Memory
Trivium 21c 