Alan Thompson - Thoughts on Education

As a child, I once sat through a prize giving speech that was for me at the time novel and exciting - but in the years since I have heard a thousand times in various guises. It is the old "if you can dream it you can do it" theme, which, while exciting (and backed up by countless examples of people who have dreamed of being champions in some discipline or another and then triumphed) fails to take into account the fact that life is unpredictable, unfair, unjust, and sometimes just does not go to plan. Sometimes, despite doing everything right (or trying to) bad things simply happen to good people.   And when they do, it can shake our psychology, our belief systems (If [ insert deity of choice ] is so powerful, why does this happen?), and impact negatively on our wellbeing. We're sort of hard-wired to be negative, and so a whole range of cognitive distortions (these are natural biases or irrational thoughts that come into play in our thinking) can reinforce a spiral of nega...

As much as we like to think of education as a forward-looking embrace of the future, much of our educational practice (even in the best resourced, most progressive schools) would be easily recognised by a teacher or pupil from a hundred years ago. We're more conservative than we think we are, and, in fact, so are our pupils.    The introduction of technology into schools has been a real exception to this pattern of behaviour, and schools have, since the development of the internet and the commodification of hardware in the 1980's, been in a constant state of adoption and exploration of various technologies and models of implementation. From the early days of laptops to iPads and other technologies, it has been a given that these devices are 'revolutionising' education, and the ubiquity of devices is of educational benefit.   But something else has been in constant change since the 1980s. While measures of living standards have gone up in this time, measures of the wellb...

There are times as we are attempting to motivate our students that we over-emphasize the instrumental value of education. "Be good at school" we say, "and you will get a good job". By "good job" we imply the trappings of a "good life" - house, car, and happy family, and such like. There are many flawed assumptions in all of that, but most importantly, the "capitalist dream" model that we use (explicitly or implicitly) relegates much more important educational outcomes - emotional intelligence, gratitude, self-control, creativity, flow, and decision making (among a host of other key, life-determining elements) -  to a lesser position in the thinking hierarchy.   Good manners are regarded as quaint, kindness as soft, and selflessness is kept a record of to tick the 'service' box on a CV.    There is something much deeper in each of these things that goes way beyond social constructs.    Good manners are carefully constructed socia...

There is a common misconception that parenting a teenager is a wholly negative experience. To be sure, it is complicated - the journey from childhood dependance to young adult independence is by no means easy. Throw in hormone and relational ups and downs, and one certainly has a heady brew to deal with. 'Entering the tunnel' is one description of this journey, 'they will come out eventually' it goes on.    And don't we 'normal' parents secretly envy those parents whose teenage children are (over) dedicated to their studies and thriving in 'success'. We use them as a benchmark to calibrate our own perceived 'failures'!   To consider such a beautiful journey - that from childhood to maturity (which, as I will discuss later, is different to 'mere' adulthood) - as a 'going away', or 'entering a tunnel' robs us as parents of one of our most significant parenting acts. For in a young child our key role is one of nurturing g...

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 ...