Thinking Beyond The Curriculum
Read More“I have long been inspired by the teaching philosophies of bell hooks, and a core element to her ideas about both teaching to transgress and teaching community, is to “genuinely value everyone’s presence” in the classroom. to “have interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognising one another’s presence.““
Read More“We teachers are complicit in any increased “dumbness” our culture is showing because we are often the ones dumbing things down for the next generation.“
Read More“I pointed out that while their ‘evidence’ certainly seemed to point to the idea that none of them were being given gifts from Santa - at least not on the Christmases in question - it did not completely remove the possibility that Santa Claus might still exist…“
Read More“the conversation around VAT on independent schools being a conversation purely based around money, costs and affordability, instead of it being a serious public conversation around education and what a good education should look like is a conversation that fails to address what really ails the current state school system and what the advantages of going to, or working in, the independent sector actually are. “
Read More“in a world where there is a very real epistemological threat coming from falling down online rabbit-holes into algorithm-guided conspiracies, we teachers are spending a lot of our own free-time guided by those very same dangerous algorithms as we hunt and click for hours looking for the perfect clips for our students. We then normalise this behaviour to our students“
Read More“Any time we approach an area of education with an attitude of it being too difficult or even impossible for someone to do something, we make it so through a process of self-fulfilling-prophecy.“
Read More“When we refuse, as Rowley has, to acknowledge the institutional nature - the structural nature - of the racism (and misogyny and homophobia) that permeates an organisation we are refusing to fully grasp the nature of the problem, or fully see what such prejudice looks and feels like for those who experience it.“
Read More“It shouldn’t be surprising to realise that, for an animal which literally shuts completely down every night and knocks itself unconscious as a means of essential restoration, stopping is good for human beings.“
Read More“I wrote that phrase on the board: “Metaphysics of Mind”. I then made a lame philosophy joke: “let’s see if the innatists are right. You haven’t been taught any of next year’s content yet but do you already know what philosophy of mind is?”
The task they are then set is to simply “do philosophy” to try and work out what they think next year’s course will cover, simply from the phrase “Metaphysics of Mind”. I give them a blank sheet of A3 paper and ask them to fill it with all the questions, issues and answers they think they will be studying from September.“
Read More“I told my form on Friday that this would be my last year at the school. I hadn’t been keeping it a secret, but there also hadn’t really been a relevant opportunity to bring it up.“
Read More“Often we hear people say something that they didn’t think they said at all. They might accuse us of not listening, or being ignorant of certain things, but the fact remains that if you say X and I hear Y, then you did not communicate X to me, you communicated - whether intentionally or not - Y.“
Read More“If the relationship of knower to supposed transferee is asymmetrical and hierarchical, abuses can happen.“
Read More“And yet this post exists…”
Read More“As a philosopher it’s hard to follow the logic around Covid policy because in many cases there simply isn’t any. There is only the illusion of logic. A symbolic nod to a vague sense of health and safety which doesn’t dare follow its own argument to a conclusion for fear of what that conclusion might say.“
Read More“it is not enough to just not be racist (or sexist, or homophobic, or transphobic) in a world which has racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia built in to its very fabric. We have to do more.”
Read More“Sanctions, punishments, threats…these may bring some short term sense of comfort that justice is being done, but true justice comes when we no longer need such threats to ensure good behaviour. When the logic of the genuine consequences of an action is enough to make people make better choices. When police aren’t racists and politicians aren’t liars because the obvious wrongness of being a racist or a liar, and its logical consequence in the death and suffering of innocent people, is sufficient to not want to be racist or lie. “
Read More“In the name of public health, but also sense and logic, we must close all UK schools now.”
Read More“often neither students or teachers remember the justificatory roots for the powers, privileges and obligations which interplay within the classroom, and that this lack of awareness may well be the source of much student/teacher conflict at school.”
Read More“are those of us in society who chose to be teachers within the current education system actually demonstrating good enough character to be suitable character “role models” for the next generation?”
Read More“A teacher therefore has a duty to model democratic engagement to their students. A teacher not discussing an upcoming election or not having an opinion on the current political situation sends a negative message to their students that political engagement is not important.”