Alan Thompson - Thoughts on Education

Parenting is - even at its least complicated - a really tough job. And while we celebrate the unique individuality of each child,  that very uniqueness does mean that there is no guide book for parenting - what works for one can be disastrous for another (even when the apparent circumstances seem identical).     In addition to there being no ‘one-size-fits-all’ set of rules for parenting, we each take into our parenting roles all sorts of learned behaviours that are informed by our own childhood experiences, traumas, and psychologies. On top of that still is the fact that our parenting is only one voice in a situational chorus of influences from peers, society at large, and social media. Many of these voices are more influential and exciting than the humdrum parenting voice – they inform the exciting while our voice informs the necessary.    There are all sorts of traps that well-intentioned parents can fall into – living vicariously through our childr...

Have you noticed how hard the world tries to make us think in binary choices? I marvel at how, what should be deeply nuanced conversations are distilled into straight choices between, for example, Democrat or Republican, Conservative or Labour,  when in fact, on deeper analysis, there is little fundamental difference upon which to differentiate between them. While the personalities involved are projected as stark choices, beyond the labels there is much more in common between them than one would initially think.    Indeed, the think-tank, focus-group mumbo-jumbo that passes for contemporary global political discourse marks a low-point in our democratic progression, not least because much of it is manipulated by third parties to cynically influence social media trends.    And it is not just politics. How often do we fall into the (intellectual) trap of declaring undying love for one product, and denigrating its obvious (constructed) rival? I am a Land-Rover ...

  Once, when travelling, I stayed overnight at a beautiful B&B.  It was a work trip, though, and I was not in the mood for socializing. How irritating, then, when I realized it was one of these ‘shared table’ breakfast arrangements where I would have to earn my bacon and eggs by sitting opposite a complete stranger - themselves chagrined by the set-up - and make small talk prefaced by the dreadfully inane ‘so what do you do’?   It turns out that he actually had a most unusual job. He was an engineer who travelled the world commissioning robots. Not just any old robots, though. This engineer’s life work (for the moment at least) was commissioning robots that would then go on to commission robots without the help of humans. Apart from being complicit in his own redundancy, he was a fascinating breakfast partner as he explained the future of machines, robotics, machine learning, and AI. Far from being worried that these things were threatening his future, he was, in...

“Monseigneur Bienvenu had been formerly, according to the accounts of his youth and even of his early manhood, a passionate, perhaps a violent man. His universal tenderness was less an instinct of nature than the result of a strong conviction filtered through life into his heart, slowly dropping in upon him, thought by thought; for a character, as well as a rock, may be worn into by drops of water.”     ―   Victor Hugo,   Les Misérables   I hate generation theory. The very idea that a generation’s worth of unique souls can be pigeon-holed (and often caricatured) irritates me. It is an intellectual shortcut to generalize at such scale, and I do my best not to do it. That said, there are certainly significant differences in the way that I (and my generation) grew up compared to how a child would experience the world today.   And as tempting it is to get all curmudgeonly and reflect on the ‘good old days’ in a Gen-X kind of way, that is not the point of t...

As a young teacher who had dabbled in 'programming' - harbouring an obsession with evolving computer technologies (that persists still) - I have always been an early adopter of technology. Coming from an era when my first dissertation was researched in a library using microfiche, when my first school reports were type written (on an actual typewriter!) with comments written in black fountain pen - when tablet technology and ubiquitous connectivity emerged in the market place, I (and many others like me) recognised this as a pivotal moment in education. A moment where technology transformed the classroom through connectivity, clever Apps, online interaction, AI, ubiquitous knowledge, and gamification.    Classrooms were transformed into connected places where device use was commonplace, and a whole pedagogy emerged to harness the incredible new tools that we had at our disposal. And it was good - the notoriously slow evolution of teaching and learning took a quantum leap f...

"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 "             All the Little Lights -  Passenger   ( All The Little Lights lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC )   What an incredible gift children are. From the excitement at the first news of conception, the journey of raising children can and should be a wonderful adventure for parent and child. How fantastic the miracle of creating new life, and how awesome the responsibility of creating an environment where children can flourish.    I have a vision of childhood as a sacred, sanctified space. A place where children can feel safe, loved, and capable, and where they can confidently seek out and develop their own unique giftedness. A place where learning is seen as worthwhile, rather than an instrumental means to an end, and where adults and parents, each w...

As a naturalised 'Eastern-Caper', one of my favourite drives is the route from Graaf-Reinet to Bedford. It is there that I feel that I am in the absolute heart of the Eastern Cape. I am struck by its vastness, its beautiful vistas of quintessential terrain. Aloe-dotted rolling hills of incredible biodiversity provide a multitude of changing vistas as one transitions from the dusty Karoo towards Bedford, and then on to the pristine coastline. Most striking of all for me are the big skies and wide open spaces.   How odd that when we think of landscapes we tend to imagine them as places of nothingness, as if the richness of nature and the beauty of  creation has no meaning without clustered humanity being the centre of attention.    Timothy Ingold, professor of Social Anthropology at  the University of Aberdeen   once expressed it thus:  “the landscape tells - or rather is - a story. It enfolds the lives and times of predecessors who, over the genera...

    Education - and the road to leadership in education - is notable for how little attention is paid to developing educators as they advance through the leadership 'ranks'. This is a leadership pathway that is defined more by academic subject expertise (study an academic degree, be a superb teacher, become a head of department, join the management team) than it is by any intentional leadership development. An even shakier leadership progression in schools is the route to leadership via the sporting or pastoral pathway. Here, progression is driven by a passion area (say, sport) which progresses to sport administration and then management and leadership.   Both of these pathways, although common, are deeply flawed. They assume that passion and expertise readily translate into vison, communication, and decision-making skills (which are just some of the demands on leaders) and to a large extent reward simply 'being there' at the time of need. neither really require of us w...

Of all of the oddities that school leaders will encounter in their tenure, the concept of tradition in schools is one of the most unhelpful and divisive. It creates a completely false dichotomy (you are either a 'traditionalist' or 'a modern thinker') that hardens opinions and stifles discussion. Tradition is used to justify all manner of things that cannot stand on their own justificatory feet (beyond the 'it is tradition' argument), and can cast its cloak of mystery over practices and rituals that, in the cold light of day, are unjustifiably daft, or worse - damaging.     One of the strangest aspects of tradition is that it is so resistant to examination. It exists in the lore of schools as that untouchable truth which defies scrutiny - we dance around in almost biblical reverence, terrified of falling foul of the great gods of tradition - alumni and parents.   That is not to say that there is no place for beautiful ceremony, quaint practices, and meaningful r...

It is easy to criticise, isn't it? And how often are leaders subjected to criticism and comments that pick up on the negative without offering any wisdom or solutions? Like the food critic offering scathing critique of the balance of the  jus  in relation to the  sous-vide ruby trout  - it is much easier criticise than it is to actually  do . I don't have all of the answers, but as I have been thinking about prefect systems and their fitness for purpose (or lack thereof), I have given much thought as to what I would do if I had the luxury to re-design the system.    Firstly, we need to address the fundamental question as to whether we want enforcers, portfolio secretaries, or actual leaders. I think that we want the latter, and so we then need to ask the question as to what investment in time and effort is needed - so that by the time we are seeking leaders we have provided the skills and training to set them up for success. Look outside of school for ...

I often wonder what historians will write when they reflect on global events of the past twenty years, sometime in the future. For I have a sense that we are living in a time of extraordinary social, political, and environmental change. It will be known as the era where global politics lost innocence (or at least stopped pretending), hitherto unassailable empires crumbled (and new ones formed), and corruption, voter manipulation, self-interest, and extremism intersected on a massive scale. And if we are indeed living through a crisis in global politics,  there can be no doubt that this is symptomatic of  a deeper malaise - corporate and civic governance, law and order - the basic tennets of society - face a crisis of leadership - visionary, principled, ethical servant leadership.   As school leaders we have a duty to our learners to prepare them for this complex world that provides few ethical markers of its own. Sometimes our efforts manifest in overt leadershi...

As an educator and leader of schools, I have spent a lot of time thinking about 'success'. The more one thinks about success the harder it becomes to define, and we often confuse accomplishments and accolades with success. Writing about success is difficult. It is a bit like writing about love - love is such a strange concept - you can put it into words but they can't really capture that strange feeling, that odd sensation so powerful that it can drive people to madness but defies our ability to describe it.   I turned to the Concise Oxford dictionary for definitional help. Turns out that their definition of success is not as helpful as one would hope in the context of explaining a term relevant to growing youngsters to be their best selves. The dictionary describes success as "the accomplishment of an aim" which no doubt is technically correct, but fails to take into account that our context the accomplishment of a non-aspirational aim leads to mediocrity. There ...

Although the basic forms and structures of modern schooling have a seemingly timeless quality to them (even in the most modern and progressive schools there remain echoes of Tom Brown's schooldays), this generation of school leaders has presided over (or lived through) some really significant changes in educational practice and societal thinking.  And because society changes us as it changes itself (us being it, so to speak), sometimes we don't even notice it.    A significant (although largely un-noticed) change has been the notion of  substantive justification -  and more specifically, how we go about accepting truth. I know that in my own days as a scholar it was simple - we accepted things as truth simply because they  were  - if the teacher said it was so, if a deity could be invoked, or parents or the government said so, it just was. We accepted as truth something on the basis of it being anchored to an already held belief, and our acceptanc...

We are at that critical moment when final Matric results for 2023 are about to be released. This can be considered a life changing moment for the young people exiting the formal schooling system, as it can be defining of their future life opportunities, so it is an important moment for them - twelve years of schooling culminate in a single set of results which can act as a very powerful gatekeeper.    It is an important moment for schools too, as heads analyse and compare the individuals within the school, and also the performance of the school compared to peer schools. Many will consider how they will communicate the trends to stakeholders, and marketing departments consider their expression of the achievement of the school as a whole. It often, incorrectly, ends up being reduced to pass rates and distinction counts, and can end up reducing young people into units of intra and inter-school one-upmanship - and worse than that, incredible achievements, growth, and grade-shifts ...