Digital pedagogy takes it for granted that we live in an era of knowledge abundance. Part of the revolutionary character of digital has been its making available an abundance of knowledge for those fortunate enough to be on the right …
In a recent blog post Autumm Caines sketches a very brief, but telling, distinction between education and indoctrination: What is the difference between education and indoctrination?…What sets them apart from one another? Could it be the role of power, teacher, …
[Below is the full text of Hannah Arendt’s essay on the crisis in education, published in 1954. We put it online here in the firm belief that it remains – in the 21st century – required reading for all those …
The Bowie phenomenon is not without its implications for pedagogy – especially for a pedagogy that frames the teacher as the great threat to the spontaneous self-reliance of the child, whose instinct, were it not thwarted by those sages on …
“Whose side are you on?” asks the critical pedagogue as he declares emphatically that he is on the side of the students. It sounds as if something like a civil war has broken out in education – a pedagogic equivalent …
1. Learning must be active, they say. The children must become what they are: Agents of their destiny. They are neither vassals to be ordered around, nor vessels that must wait to be filled. They are agents able to choose …
Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed remains an inspiring work. The banking model of education he set himself against is now being replaced by an online shopping model of education (learning as the active, personal acquisition of disposable stuff you …
The EdTech discourse still hasn’t faced up to the demise of the individual. The technophiles talk as if technological “progress” along current lines is liberating and empowering individuals now able, for instance, to get direct access to the colossal warehouse …
Sir Ken Robinson has something of the Luddite* about him. He refuses the industrial order, which the Luddites also refused back at the beginning of the 19th century, when they declared it to be a new form of tyranny. He …
Are lessons in digital citizenship a good thing? Surely when it comes to digital citizenship there is something that even Luddite-sympathising, politically-minded #edtech sceptics can affirm. There is something here to be positive about, isn’t there? Well, yes and no. …
Professor Sugata Mitra is one of the great spokespeople for the strange movement in education that is hostile to the very notion of teaching. Education is good. Learning is fantastic, especially when it involves individuals and small groups pursuing their …
We live in an age which, for some odd reason, needs desperately to believe that it is continually being born anew – that its essence is something utterly different from the past, and so the old idea of trying to …
By some strange synergy, the rise of EdTech – that product of a supposedly post-industrial industry – has gone hand in hand with the rise of what might be called a horticultural model of education. This is the model explicity …
According to 21st century pedagogic sagacity, there is one overriding imperative for teachers: Don’t be the sage on the stage; be instead the guide at the side of your pupils. Instead of towering over their students like Platonic philosopher kings …
If Sugata Mitra thinks of himself as basically a humble scientist investigating the benefits of educational technology, he is deceiving himself. His appeal – the crucial factor explaining his rise to fame – lies not in the scientific rigor of …
The RSA animation team came up with the following caricature of a teacher to illustrate Sir Ken Robinson’s talk about the need for a change of paradigm in education. In a different context such a depiction of a teacher would …
A disturbing number of people are still talking about personalising education – making it person-centred. Often, this talk about the student as person is little more than snappy advertising copy that is left deliberately vague so that it can mean …
In glowing reports of the new digital technology written by educationalists, one of the most prominent buzzwords is: autonomy. Digital technology is great for learner autonomy, we hear. But is it? Of course, there are a thousand and one new …
Anyone using Google on November the 2nd saw this: How many different ways can you read that? Surely it cannot simply be read as an honour paid by the largest internet corporation to a winner of a Nobel prize. Can …
This is our response to a question posed by the TESOL Greece blog: ”During an economic crisis, resources (books, budgets, infrastructure) are limited but high standards and qualifications are required so that learners can survive on the job market. Can …
Hannah Arendt’s “The Crisis of Education” (published in 1954) continues to be massively relevant to the ongoing conversation about education. Were we to bring her back, she would doubtless waste no time writing a sequel to “The Crisis in Education” …
Watching a ballet performance last night at a school, we were moved to see the children evidently enjoying the discipline and the high standards required by the art of ballet. Suddenly we wondered: What if pedagogy took as its starting …