Exam Results, Systems and Events vs Behaviour
While I fully agree with the below, in the face of an event it is hard not to lose sight of the behavioural perspective. There are some interesting journalistic approaches to this – Slow Journalism and magazines like Delayed Gratification, for example, purposefully delay their publications so that the behavioural view is easier to...
Keeping Children Safe in Education Quiz (and how to make your own)
In September, which seems miles away now, the government’s Keeping Children Safe in Education Part 1 section was changed. It’s the sort of document I diligently read but then, when quizzed go blank. So to help me revise, so to speak, and make reading it into knowing it, I made a quick Google form and […]
Careful Documentation
This (thank you Cristina) is a great mini-documentary about the impact of documentation as used in the Reggio Emilia schools and with the Making Learning Visible project Documentation: Transforming Our Perspective from Melissa Rivard on Vimeo. Intuitively, I am wholeheartedly behind this sort of approach. Instinctively, too, I worry...
Using the social brain in schools
Thought this was interesting, via Annie Murphy Paul “Think about how amazing the brain is, and then consider that a huge portion of that amazing brain focuses on making us social. Yet, for a large part of our day, whether we are at work or at school, this extraordinary social machinery in our heads is […]
Exhilaration, Not Passion
Am enjoying Ricardo Semler’s Seven Day Weekend at the moment. He makes the point that a number of companies position themselves as warm, nurturing “families” and look for passionate employees while restricting much of what makes them thrive with overly stringent routines and top-heavy directives. The same insight...
Pete’s Wonderful Tube Idea
Pete Jones has a great idea for schools to use the London tube map. It’s: to create a set of resources to help schools connect with their local stations. To investigate and explore their local areas in a myriad of ways and then to create an online exhibition of their creative responses which reflect what […]
Drive RSA
Just finished Drive. This video is a typically good RSA summary from one of Dan Pink’s book talks. It’s fascinating stuff. Essentially, the science says carrot and stick only works for mechanical tasks. For any other tasks, carrot and stick actually damages motivation. Tricky one for schools and the gamification crowd, I...
Seldon & Character Building
Anthony Seldon has a curiously off-target piece in the Guardian. Character in public schools is formed far less from breeding and connections than by a whole variety of methods which should become available to all. It is built in ways that some on the left find distasteful, and they’d better get over it. Competitive sport […]
“Glob-bogeys” good for the brain
This [via @briankott] made me smile. “Chewing gum can and does help you focus and concentrate, not to mention relieve your boredom and tension. Hell, the military uses it to keep the soldiers sharp. It can also improve your memory for as much as 35 percent.“ Especially given this (not uncommon) view It’s repulsive stuff,...
Co-operative schools
Almost unnoticed, Co-ops are thought to have increased in number so they now make up the third largest association of schools in England, after those run by the Church of England and by the Roman Catholic church. They easily outstrip more publicised groups such as Ark Schools or the Harris academy chain. via guardian.co.uk . […]