Category: education
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Tired teachers can’t teach
Teachers should teach. That should be the main thing they do. They should ‘make kids cleverer’ – to quote David Didau. They should make sure the learners in their charge build the knowledge and skills associated with their subject area. The best learning happens in the classroom, under the supervision of the subject expert who…
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How to Teach Brazilian JiuJitsu (or anything else)
I’ve been an English teacher and a martial arts teacher for a long time. Early on, I realised the similarities between my two modes of instruction, despite the fact that one of my subjects was entirely cerebral and the other intensely physical. Recently, having learnt a little about the cognitive science that underpins evidence informed…
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The Pygmalion Effect
I first heard about the Pygmalion Effect about ten years ago, teaching at a successful school. I love a bit of Greek mythology, so this idea was always going to stick with me. Sculptor-king Pygmalion sculpts his ideal version of womanhood from ivory. He falls in love with his statue and prays to the goddess…
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A little bit of something is better than a whole load of nothing
I have sometimes been frustrated by my eldest son’s primary school experience. He’s in Year 6 now. I’ll start by giving an example of fantastic success in his primary education. My son is the second fastest student in his school at answering times tables and division questions, using a popular education app. He has been…
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Notes aren’t knowledge
During my time as head of sixth form, I noticed a phenomenon. In subjects that are text heavy, where sources or novels or social theories need to be studied in detail, some students made extensive, copious and beautifully presented notes in every lesson. Their folders became artefacts – precious receptacles of the knowledge that was…
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“Knowing is not enough; we must apply” – Bruce Lee
Children need to know things. The knowledge rich curriculum has been a sensible and noble aspiration for many schools over the last few years. Knowledge is not a snobbish, ugly thing. It is not the enemy of creativity (in fact, you cannot be creative in any field without expansive knowledge of what has already been…
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Normalise hard work
At the end of term, especially before the Christmas break or the summer holidays, schools can experience a terrible plague. If not prevented, it spreads throughout lessons like a roaring forest fire, destroying all learning. As one classroom burns, a single ember jumps to the next room, igniting the destructive flame: the ruiner of rigour,…
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Oppressive silence and productive silence
Children need silence. They need silence to think. They need to be able to subvocalise before they put words onto the page or before they share them in a discussion. They need their peers to be silent so they can hear and focus on the voice of the teacher – the voice of the expert…
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Shouting into the wind
“That lesson must have been the same every time, every week: a cacophony of teenage voices, talking about anything but the topic of the lesson.” Before I could start my teacher training, I had to spend a week observing lessons in a school. I went back to the secondary school I attended, and they…
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Do you have any idea what you look like?
Film yourself teaching. Set up your phone, on a tripod, at the back of one of your lessons and leave it there. Film yourself for the whole lesson. Leave it for a few days, so your subjective notions about the lesson begin to fade. Then watch it back (and I suggest you do this alone!)…
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Are you sure about this?
“An instructor should exemplify the things he seeks to teach. It will be of great advantage if you yourself can do all you ask of your students and more.” – Bruce Lee You better be ready. You are going to stand in front of a class of 30 children. You might teach 5 classes a…
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Reading, listening, thinking, talking, writing
Words go in; words come out. Words are the vehicles that transfer knowledge and ideas into the minds of learners. When we are reading or listening, words go in. We are consumers of words and the meanings that they contain. At a more advanced level, we must be critical of these ideas, and consider whether…
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Your subject is made of words
Scientists, your subject isn’t made of Bunsen burners, tripods and test tubes. Geographers, your field trips are brilliant, but geography isn’t made of sand dunes, isobars or population surveys. Business studies teachers, hiring, firing, delegation and direction are not at the centre of your subject. Whatever you teach, your subject is primarily made of words.…
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The Power of Precision
Consider the following sentence: The food dye will eventually turn all of the water blue because the fluid molecules will continually move from areas of high concentration to areas of lower concentration across the concentration gradient until the fluid molecules are evenly distributed across the body of water. And now consider: Through the process…
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A picture doesn’t paint a thousand words
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is…
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Qualifications are the currency of success
When our students come to the end of their formal education in our subjects, we make a value judgement about their ability and achievement. In each subject, students are awarded a grade – usually via external examination, but sometimes via internal assessment. These grades are the currency that students need to buy their way into…
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A wide base – becoming a generalist before becoming a specialist
My P.E teacher, Mr Smith, used to say something to all the boys in my year group that has always stuck with me. We were a good year group for sports. Two of my friends were gigantic physical specimens, and as a result we dominated most teams in the local district leagues in basketball, rugby…
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Genuine fascination trumps gimmickry – your subject is enough
Don’t compel your class to create a dramatic tableau representing the functions of the heart and circulatory system. Don’t ask your students to write a narrative poem from the perspective of a single raindrop moving through the water cycle. Don’t require your students to craft plasticine models of all of the characters in Macbeth and…
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Why should I bother with your subject?
You love your subject, don’t you? All the evidence seems to indicate that you do. You chose to pursue your academic discipline to university level. You spent three years (at least) immersing yourself in this one area of specialism, forsaking all others – and there were so many other subjects you could have pursued. You…
Ten Rules for Teaching 