Alan Thompson - Thoughts on Education

Social media would have us believe that, as we reach a certain age, the world around us begins looking disjointed and broken, while the world behind us is remembered as  reassuring and predictable - the nostalgically secure 'good old days'. Of course, a lifetime is a journey not defined by past or future - it is shaped by the incremental decisions that we make in the present. To allow oneself to be imprisoned by some form of generational label is self-debilitating. Similarly, to live in perpetual hope of a brighter future (or in fear of a worse one) robs us of the present. The present is all that we can control, and the incremental gains (or losses) that we realise in the present shape the future, pixel by pixel, until the picture is complete.   Our life journey, then, is largely shaped by the accumulation of incremental gains and losses, but there can be no denying that there are monumental events that come around to throw the entire equilibrium out of balance. There is ...

We're born with millions Of little lights shining in the dark And they show us the way One lights up, every time you feel love in your heart One dies when it moves away   Passenger - All the little lights (2012)   I find it really interesting that as educators we invest so much effort into our own academic degrees and focus so hard on teaching our subjects, and yet at times we forget that the most significant role that we play is in the formation of character and the nurturing of the human spirit. We teach people, not subjects - as the old saying goes. As much as a pupil in my Mathematics class may be learning about geometry (I hope), they are learning much more from my humanity in the way that I engage, they are developing self-esteem through the ways in which I recognise their unique self, and they build a picture of the world through the emphasis that I share.   That is not an over-estimation of our own importance - if one calculates the amount to time a child spends i...