I’ve recently read Daniel Coyle’s ‘The Culture Code‘ and it really gets you thinking about ‘belonging’, which is the special sauce that a lot of schools are looking for. Here is my take on the book and how it can be potentially applied to schools. According to Coyle all successful groups develop three “skills” or …
Tag Archives: teaching
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
(WHY WE’RE ALL ELLIOT MOORE WHEN IT COMES TO EXAM ANALYSIS) Recently I’ve decided to watch more films by the director M. Night Shyamalan. Obviously I have watched Sixth Sense and thoroughly enjoyed the Unbreakable/Split/Glass trilogy but what encouraged me to go further into his filmography was his recent adaptation of a graphic novel called …
HOW TO BE INTERESTING ABOUT SCHOOLS
At the beginning of the year, I started reading a book called ‘How To Be Interesting’ by Edward de Bono. The author is best known for creating the term ‘lateral thinking’ and wrote a very influential book on decision making called ‘Six Thinking Hats’. I’m not sure whether the book has made me more interesting …
STRESSED, NOT STRESSED
For months I’ve had a pain in my stomach. It comes and goes but generally it stays…just there, like an unwanted visitor, disrupting my life, like the Tiger That Came To Tea or more like the Gerbil That Came For A Snack. Every now and then it will get so bad in class, that I …
THE JOY OF SCHOOL – #LOVEWHEREYOUTEACH
When you’ve been teaching for over 25 years, it’s very easy to lose your mojo when it comes to school life. I think it can happen anytime in your career but I was definitely struggling just before Covid struck and since then, there hasn’t been any sort of rebound. It’s never about the classroom though. …
HOW TO GET ‘INTEREST’ IN YOUR SUBJECT TO BOOST LEARNING
In Michael Lewis’ latest book ‘The Premonition: A Pandemic Story’, one of the chief protagonists, Carter Mecher, points out that people don’t learn what is imposed upon them but rather what they freely seek, out of desire or need. For people to learn, they need to want to learn. He uses a really interesting example …
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WANT TO KNOW THE SECRET OF NATURAL TALENT? SHHHH…MUM’S THE WORD!
I’ve recently been reading Edith Kuiper’s book called ‘A Herstory of Economics’ and it has got me thinking…a lot. In particular I’ve been thinking about talent and where it comes from. Most of the time, when we think about talent, we describe it as being something quite natural. They are a natural at Economics or …
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IN DEFENCE OF EDUMYTHS
Over the past decade or so, we have seen a number of takedowns of particular ‘edumyths’ thanks to a rise in awareness of the evidence in education and how learning happens. As teachers, we can all reel off our favourite ‘edumyths’ – VAK and learning styles, ‘brain gym’, the learning pyramid, the right and left …
Human Development Index for Pupils – Reach for the STARS!
There is a continual discussion in education about the purpose of exams and how it will often under-value or over-value students in terms of their value to the world. For example, we probably know many students who are very good at passing exams but are incredibly rude and have very little empathy. On the other …
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HOW SUBTRACTING CAN ADD TO YOUR SCHOOL PERFORMANCE.
In a recent book called ‘Subtract – The Untapped Science of Less’, Leidy Klotz, a professor at the University of Virginia has looked at the ways that we often neglect thinking about subtracting as a way of solving problems. Normally when an issue arises, we often feel the need to add something, so in the …
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On Teaching... 