I have had three pieces published recently. On woke private schools for The Critic: In Praise of Post-Liberalism. On elite schools: a study of the schools of those in Who’s Who on the Keystone blog. On flipped classrooms for the Eton journal for research in education: It’s time to rescue the flipped classroom.
Category Archives: 21st Century Learning
We should celebrate, not mourn, the cancellation of exams
“Surely now is the golden opportunity for schools, untrammelled by all that gruesome nomenclature of ‘exam specification’, ‘assessment objective’, ‘rubrics’ and so on, to set their pupils’ ‘love of learning’ truly ablaze.” Full piece published on Medium here.
21st Century Learning’s “thought-cliches”
Jacques Barzun’s portrait of John Comenius (1592 – 1670) shows that many of the educational nostrums of our day are in fact centuries old.
Knowledge is the road to joy
It is understandable that, in the fierce heat of contemporary squabbles, heads and educationalists prefer to talk up the more empirical benefits of a knowledge approach; but, by doing so, they leave the implementation of a knowledge-based approach open to those who would happily squander its joy for its effectiveness. I was really delighted to …
Episode #5 – Jason Fletcher, founding Headmaster of Heritage School Cambridge
In this interview, I talk with Jason Fletcher, founding Headmaster of Heritage School in Cambridge. Heritage is the only school I am aware of that is committed to (and actively promotes) a Charlotte Mason education in the UK. In our conversation, Jason explains its unique pertinence to the educational priorities of our times. Listen on …
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Charlotte Mason – who was she, and what is her relevance?
Who was Charlotte Mason? Charlotte Mason (1842 – 1923) was a teacher and educational writer who lived and worked all over the UK. Orphaned at 16, she taught both as a governess and as a classroom teacher. Despite suffering ill health for much of her life, she founded a teacher training college at Ambleside for …
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Education Philosophy – 3 FAQ
(First published on the Keystone blog here.) Parents today take a more active interest in their children’s education than the generation or two that preceded them, so that it’s not unusual for those of us working in education to be asked our views on a “growth mindset” one day or the “outdatedness of the 19th …
Don’t blame “factory education”
[P]hrases like “the industrial model of education,” “the factory model of education,” and “the Prussian model of education” are used as a “rhetorical foil” in order make a particular political point – not so much to explain the history of education, as to try to shape its future. Much enjoyed this revisionist piece on the …
History of Prep Education Podcast # 3 – Interview with Mark Johnson
In Episode 3 of my History of Prep Education project, I interview Mark Johnson. Mark (known to all his pupils as MRJ) attended prep boarding school himself aged 6 (!). As a teacher, he taught at Summer Fields for 17 years, becoming Deputy Headmaster, before becoming Headmaster of Cheam in 1998 – a post he …
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Children and the Use of Technology
(I published this piece on the Keystone blog a few months ago, and reprint it below.) One topic often discussed in my conversations with parents is the impact of technology on family life. Context – how common is technology in children’s lives? The pervasiveness of technology in children’s lives is undisputed. The Connected Kids Report …
Will Orr-Ewing 