It's Netter just talking to teachers talking to teachers about academic research and evidence-based practice with continuing professional development at PNA 1977 on Twitter. Just talking to teachers hello, and welcome to nail has Ngata and this week. I'm in conversation with educationist author writer consultant orator and liberal artist. Mr. Martin Robinson. Martin is a teacher with 20 years experience of working in state schools in London. And Martin was an advanced skills teacher had a department head of faculty and the assistant head teacher Martin is interested in developing teaching and learning by building on the tradition of grammar dialectic and rhetoric. So we are looking this week at what I consider to be an essential read namely Athena versus the machine and this book has fundamentally changed my views on the rationale for knowledge Rich curriculum molded my thinking on. extracurricular activities and engendered somewhat of a state of cognitive dissonance in me when Martin talks about educating for freedom and you'll know that I reviewed this book in last week's podcast pedagogy section of the show where we looked at multiple bits and curriculum Athena versus the machine and we talked about how it explores the educational value of a curriculum rooted in the pursuit of wisdom and Advocates the enshrinement of such a curriculum as a central concern of an academic institution and Martin argues that Teachers need to be liberated from policy LED prescription in order to design curricula which brings the subjects forward rather than the pursuit of outcomes. So before we get into a wide-ranging and fascinating chat with Martin, we have this week's tdt section and it's a little bit different this week. So we have some information from the one of the teacher development trusts schools in Blackpool and this is from South Shore Academy who are talking about a teachmeet that they're putting together as part of that project. It so Nikki Smith and Emma whole are in a Blackpool Studio to talk to this so over to you too. Hi Phil. Thanks for having us. I'm Nikki Smith, and I'm Emma Greenwood and we're here today to talk to you about a brand new South Shore Academy teach meet you need to save the date on the 16th of January and it's at four o'clock until six o'clock at South Shore Academy and Blackpool. So we wanted to talk about where we came up with the idea and what we're hoping to achieve it was a nice idea initially. We because we absolutely love the local research events. We've always gone too late and teach me we've been to research at Blackpool. We've always come away with excellent ideas. So we wanted to create something where we could share and celebrate the superb teaching and learning that's going on not just in our school, but across all the Blackpool skills. We're really excited because got a range of speakers discussing teaching and learning strategies Behavior ethos and well, Again, we're also hoping to have reps from companies like Geo assessment like Sonic teach first. We're hoping to have the alliance for teaching and PTI there so that as well as the sessions people can take away a variety of decent information that will help them in their practice. So we're going to have a keynote speaker. And the first person will be Steven Tierney and then we're going to have breakout sessions for you to choose from just as importantly as that are for our closing speech. There will be Be a raffle. So make sure you hang around for that too. Okay, so you need to get your tickets now, they are free. So come along you can get the tickets from Twitter. There will be on our school website or you can look out for the Flyers that should be dropping into all Blackpool schools. And in the Northwest soon, they're selling out fast. So make sure you get yours soon. We're really looking forward to seeing everybody there. Back to you Phil. Thanks for having us. This week on the podcast pedagogy section. I am reading talking to strangers by Malcolm Gladwell and have to admit a certain amount of bias before I start here. I am a huge fan of gladwell's work from his debut The Tipping Point which explored the science behind Viral Trends through blink outliers and David and Goliath and I'm also a regular listener to the revisionist History Podcast Malcolm's Journey Through the overlooked and misunderstood and in each episode Malcolm re-examine something from the past and event or an idea or even sometimes a song and asks, whether we got it right first time. So I was incredibly excited to receive this book and get stuck in and I've so far managed to read the first couple of chapters where Gladwell re-examines Neville Chamberlain He's famous World War. Well pre-World War II meeting with adult Hitler and history as not remembered Neville Chamberlain. Well portrayed as he is at best Global and at worst by Winston Churchill as guilty of making the worst decision ever Gladwell skillfully analyzes Chamberlain a businessman with limited real-world experience and like a vicar stumbling into a pub is one way of describing him in the book and his experience on the foreign stage made in much more likely to accept Hitler. His word it ain't contrast that with Lord Halifax who was Neville Chamberlain's for integrity at the time who despite vast experience in foreign affairs as Viceroy of India and a charismatic and experienced negotiator who are broken agreements with Camden on less. No less was equally filled by Hitler. So with Gladwell points out the only politicians who weren't fooled with those who'd never met Hitler and this seems to form the central theme of the book talking to strangers and it has the way that you look at strangers yourself and and your kind of role within the world and this is a research-based book which examines the varying ways in misinterpret or fail to communicate with each other and I really found it a brilliant page Turner and I recommend it to all alongside gladwell's back catalog and his revisionist History Podcast. So the book is available everywhere and whatever way that books are sold. And for those of you who enjoy an audiobook there, is that as well available everywhere. And no doubt narrated by the author. Ok, so hello, Martin and welcome to the podcast. Hello. Hello. How are you? Yes, very good. Thank you. Very good, especially a half term. So it's nice to be able to have a relaxing morning and and chatting about education what better way to spend your cup of coffee and put our feet up exactly. I actually have got one next to me. I can hear the channel. Okay, so we're gonna get into this sort of gentle introduction question so good. Tell listeners a little bit about your career to this point and what prompted you to write Athena versus the machine as a follow-up to Trivium right by that. I mean, I could start from a very young age at them. Don't work work my way through to the elderly gentleman you here before you now but my career in education started, I think basically when I left school at 16 having had a rather slit desolate experience of education and finding myself working in a market stall amongst other things in Oxford surrounded by students who obviously had a slightly different experience of Education than me and finally I find my way around to getting a degree thanks to the Polytechnic of North East London and then being open to students who had Life experiences and finding myself doing a degree there and finding the world of Education rather late, but in a very interested and interesting way in that it was quite a radical politics and quite a radical cause I was doing and engaged in the culture arguments and culture wars of the time because doing cultural studies. So I took it was probably a Marxist view on the world, you know. And that was my introduction to quite a few philosophers writers, etc. Etc. Who I had hardly any thing to do with when I was at school and finally after leaving that working in advertising for a bit, but for Marxism today as a communist newspaper communist magazine, I was selling advertising space has a rather odd thing to do it with a communist magazine or suppose. I found my way into teaching And I worked as a teacher for 20 just over 20 years in North East London State schools in North East London, and it's a Drama teacher and an English teacher and I even did media I think for for one year or so as well. And then that took me through to Senior Management and various other lofty positions, like being able to pump skills teaching and all those sorts of things that were around at the time. I'm and then I got a chance to talk to people via Twitter funny enough and that chance to write a book on the Trivium and that that sort of opened up a new world to me, which is the world down of consultancy and writing the follow-up to Trivium, which is seen the worst of the machine. So that kind of gets me to this point. That's it. And that is gonna be the focus of today's podcast. So in my view this Stan's intellectually Head and Shoulders above anything that I've read on the curriculum and it starts with and it's very true and it starts with if you haven't read it listeners. It starts with a quote from Lord Byron and moves into the Athena school. So how did you propose the inspiring figure of Athena can change what can be a mundane Narrative of too many of our schools? Well, it's it was asking really what is the inspiration for schooling at the moment and how do we judge whether a school as being successful or not? And whether had we judges parents because I'm a parent of course as well as well as a teacher as well as a student all the way back down whether we've had a successful education really and it was following that sort of questioning down the line. I came across from your Postman and he The to YouTube which turned out it was from one of his books the end of Education really 1996, I think and he talks about a God and the fact that we need a God to give us some sort of structure for meaning and as I get the quote here the God is in right away God in the sense. I'm using the word is the name as a great narrative one that has sufficient credibility complexity. Symbolic power so that is possible to organize one's life for one's learning around it without such a tense ascendance narrative life has no meaning without meaning learning has no purpose and that kind of summed up for me quite a lot of what was missing from a lot of the approaches to education that we're seeing around us. And which God could it be I thought and in it because I'm not a believer in there. Christian God for instance looks rather God so I thought well, I think that goddess of wisdom could perhaps give us a mass miss that we can structure meaning around and idea of a pursuit of something other than just grades and jobs and careers and all the other things that come through a more mechanistic way of approaching education. So something Transcendent gives us purpose. It's listening and then you go on to contrast the wisdom of Athena with the machine. So can you outline what you mean by the machine in an educational setting? Right. Well, that is I suppose people call it Factory schools. I think that's that's kind of perhaps where the analogy can fit in but it's mechanistic thinking machine analogies that go throughout schools as well things like flight paths, you know, we are sort of M curve and we're going to wind up here targeting input-output all the things that sort of The systems that we put in place which seemed quite mechanical and almost to the point where the mechanism takes over from the educative value of something you're studying. So even with conversations with students, they're looking for how to get the grade rather than how to understand the thing you're teaching. So it's all means to an end. It's all target driven. It's all about clanking them through some sort of mechanistic movement that takes them through and and the IT Isabel well-used idea and to me it takes the human out of it the human becomes secondary and the human what I mean by the human is someone who engages with the learning the person who comes through who's actually looking at stuff thinking about stuff and engaging with the stuff that you're teaching and trying to get that relationship back to the center rather than right. How do I get this grade Hardware to dance Target and all the other things we put in the place of that Central relationship the human and the knowledge and moving into the curriculum. We hear much about, you know, superficial talk about knowledge. Rich and Broad and balanced in the discourse on curriculum, but knowledge is a means to an end in itself is not enough. So how can we go about designing curriculum to make inroads into people's minds rather? And treat them as empty vessels to be filled, right? So this this comes down to where I got with wisdom. So if you look up wisdom and it has in the Oxford English Dictionary, they can't put it into three major parts that make up wisdom and that he's the idea of knowledge being Central and experience. And judgment and so if we have those three things knowledge experience and judgment and we're saying that these are the central things call an education in the pursuit of wisdom then how do we bring in a child's experience and also experiences? So this is you know, they're going to be experiencing as they go through schooling as well and on the outside of school and also the importance of judgment allowing them to make It's to have choices to come into the conversation and to say I think if we talk about the best and and perhaps this is something that is quite at here because in the National curriculum, it asks us to teach the best as being thought instead and that course comes from Matthew Arnold as idea of back culture. The best has been thought and said, well, I'm sort of saying here will actually know you. You can't teach them the best because that bypasses they're making a judgment about what the best might be and also they might of course because of their experiences and because of their way of engaging with the world not agree with you that something is the best. And so therefore we have a conversation about bringing them into that idea of judgment, but that judgment needs to be educated as well. It needs to be developed in some ways as an as an art teacher. This is Close to my heart because we would make new art we've be creating theater and students had to learn how to judge whether something new that's never been seen before that. They were creating was good or not good so they had to develop a palate a way of seeing the world that they can make judgments about what they're doing and what they're bringing to it as well as when they go to the theater themselves to see things to make judgments about those things all these add up because of Use because of the way that they think things are important or not important add up to the conversation that we have about what's good and what might not be so good. So the best is not something you can teach but it's something that becomes part of the conversation about what the best might be. Absolutely and we talked about, you know, knowledge Rich curriculum. We often linked this to social mobility and I got into some trouble with Professor Michael Young And when discussing social mobility and he stopped me mid-sentence and said For people to be socially mobile. We need people to be moving down as well as up and he said that just isn't happening. So I guess the question I'll go around to is should we stop talking about social Mobility as justification for these hoop jumping assessments and micromanagement and not having qualifications as a means to an end that they're not shaping our lives without the sort of the values ideas and meanings that need to sit behind them. Yeah, and I agree with what likely younger said. They're absolutely the problem with social Mobility is like you say in order if depending on the society, which means of course that particular time but if you want this if what was the top job queen queen is the top. Well, you know Charles wants to be when he comes in would be Queen was be Kingdom they but in order for him to become king it. Queen has to die even so in the end there's some sort of is there room at the top for us all week. It becomes a thing but also all the way through that education is not about just having the top jobs everyone. It has a right to an education education can provide Solace tools can provide meaningful or said no matter where we are in the world, you know, whether we have a top job or non top job. You know what? What do you call the job of a nurse of a school crossing person of somebody who's you know, tomorrow is Dustbin day here for me. You know what what are all these jobs that we say? This is the detritus of failed education around us or these people absolutely right Cloud a good education as well because education is not just about a means to an end. It's an end in itself. We say that his knowledge for all you here's some Thinking for you to get engaged them to think about the world in which you're into I'm here, you know, if even if you go to the most important occasions of life, whether it be the birth marriage and death perhaps to to give us or traditional view on these things, but we're what poem do you read at these moments what poem do you read ads but you know if you're at someone's funeral do which one do you choose to? Some up alive or to bring meaning which songs do you sing at the karaoke which which which novel do you take on holiday? All these things are cultural judgments that you're making in your life about the things that you value the things that you care about education helps us in these things all of these things. It's a whole life not just about jobs. And yes, of course, they're important things you learn at school which can help in the world of work, but that should not be the justification. So having them in the curriculum the world of work should be taking on the schooling. We gave us full human beings and saying well, here's the world of work. And this is how we bring him these into our world work he does. So if you've got a job in banking or something like that, and of course mathematics has helped you get that job, but mathematics is so much more than just the job of banking. Absolutely. I think about that in terms of the context see where I work. So I Working at you know, a mix kind of area in terms of you know, advantage or disadvantage in an economic sense. But we look at sometimes we talk about knowledge as a means to an end so that you can be socially mobile which seems to naturally assume that you will move out of the area and take it all of that with you. So actually what I liked about what you were talking about was that the knowledge not as a means to an end, but to allow you freedom of thoughts to be able to make your own choices and really enhance the area in which Hu you live and serve. Yeah, and if there's a lovely play called the Pitman painters, which talks about the miners the ashington Collier E before the war and about how they had this trouble one of them particularly had a choice of moving away from the canary and becoming a painter and being a full-time painter rather than the miners and Pates. And there's this wonderful moment where he has the choice to live a life away from his family and friends if you like and he says no because it would take away who he is as a person and so he carried on as a minor who painted rather than becoming a painter who used to be a miner and that that such a Crucial Conflict and I think it is a comforter. I think it's irresolvable because you know, some people do want to move away and some people want to stay and some people when they Move away move to the big city or to somewhere else which is culturally vibrant apparently at the time and those who stay behind it therefore and Lawn culturally vibrant and I think that's wrong. I think home and away two very different worlds if you like, but both of them are equal in court we have to enrich and where we're from as well as where we go to as well and both those things become important part of education and culture is all around us wherever we are. It's hugely available to us and it's our ugly day. And it's to to say and celebrate your black pulled out. The only black people has such a vibrant culture at the that we all know about, you know, and some people might look down on aspects of it. But I know you'll notice it's strictly go there every year don't they enter the to the board and that's such a rich environment and that dancing that we see on the television. Human black pull down that history that goes with that that tradition is an important part of an education, you know, which is why dance should be in the curriculum, but she's why the Performing Arts are so important, you know, because there's more than one way of making meaning in this world and the Arts are a very important part of it. You know, should we go to Blackpool rock as well? I don't know you tell me we should always go to Blackpool for every kind of Rich diverse cultural experience that anybody could wish for definitely definitely my combat and social Mobility that mean the other point is social Mobility. Is it to some extent it's a myth but anyone can sort of be educated and then reach the top and it's as easy as that. I mean, there are there are interesting. There's interesting Research into this and I think they've done a surname studies right back to the Norman Conquest. In this country and also come up with sort of some sort of algorithms or whatever have worked out that this being hardly any social mobility in this country since the Norman Conquest. So we're pretty much in the same sort of order. We might be slightly better awesome used to be the but in the same order, you know, the the same surnames are at the top and the same surnames are towards the lower end. Should we say, you know, so us Robinsons They probably aren't at the top so much as certain names that we appear reappear over time. I can't think of you know, which ones. Makes the University California. He's done some work on this and he's come up with bleep idea. Pretty much we do not change the rate of social mobility. And we answer the social Mobility is still at its pre-industrial place. Even after the Industrial Revolution. The only time that there was any particular change was just after the second world war which was to to the changing jobs Market not going to educate. Ation, and the changing jobs Market. There was the big change in technology and also that there was after two world wars. They've been a bit of churn about it's only the male population and what happened to Mobility there was moving from industrial work to more office work that still we hierarchy remains in place, you know, we're in the same order, but we're doing slightly different work in that that's Be much what came out of it? Okay, so moving on to cognitive science. So we talked about the machine before so did developments in cognitive science leads naturally to an input output brain is a computer style curriculum planning. And why do you argue that the mind is not a machine right? Well, this is to lovely little quotes here from Raymond caliph who really helped me into thinking about this. the idea that the mind is a machine inside at use a quote from Richard Dawkins who talks about us. We're basically robots and and to some extent you can see that we have a sort of robotic life in somewhere. We Gene machines. I think he calls them as well Raymond Palace sort of comes in with an idea about how the input output and there's a problem with a causal connection the sudden put output and actually there is something else going on here. That is we could understand how stuff goes in is retained and then comes out in the we say things you know, so we can you can teach me something it can be retained. And then later on I could we call it what we don't understand. So well scientifically is how when I'm teaching that to somebody they look back at me and they're looking out at me and start and they're having their own thoughts and their own think that they are conscious of me and they're conscious of what I'm saying the making little judgments about what I'm saying as a teacher when when this is going on and the scientific World finds it very difficult at the moment to decide what Consciousness is and also about Freewill about having the choices that we have about whether we have symbol and this becomes an important thing to me is that the child looks at us and we look at them and we look at Things we're talking about it as well that the things we're teaching and that relationship to me becomes very important, which is not a purely causal one. I cannot say here are something it's the best. There. It is. Here's the best. I don't know is the best play here. The best piece of music is the best poem. Here's the best cup of tea. I don't know and they will not just accept it. They have their own version of this. So generally, it's we're done. The human being hit in which is the person who looks out looks like at the world around them and where does the human being sitting as well as the person who then has their own judgments to make a land their own free will within huge constraints, of course as the culture of time of their own genes, etc. Etc. Etc. That's still within that the human being is the thing that becomes important to me and When we educate for the human being we educate slightly differently than we do for something. That's just a machine is he like a machine that comes out with a grade at the end when the human being in and suddenly we have to see that we have to deal with this in a slightly different way subtly perhaps a points that we have to bring them into the conversation. We can't just Come to learn that stuff bring it. I to make them and then end up with socially mobile to the end of it that makes it clear. It does make it clear and I just think about conversations in the classroom with you know, why are we doing this so of conversations and then you know, you do find yourself trying out things of well, it'll be on the exam and you think I'll actually well. Yes that will help you to then get a better job and it's also a linear you mention fly past progression between I teach you you recall you Trot out. An exam you get good job, you leave area of social disadvantage. You become human at the end of it, but actually becoming human is part of the process all the way through it's not something that you achieve at the end of it. That's a human right in front of you. He came to see my first. Class my first class I ever told and he got a lump on his neck and it grew and grew and grew and it turned out to be inoperable cancer. And what what do you say to him? And he came to school every day. I was sick. He was he stayed from sixth form to 6. Ohm and he got all the way through to your so clean. He did agree levels and it was about six months after that. He died. And Lester stay with me forever really big because know what is he doing there? Like lastly? It's not about the future. It's about the mayor and and teaching him was a joy, but, you know a heartache of a story that goes through it and and he told me the rest of that that lesson to teach for meaning as well as the future of making sense of the past all these things come together, and it's so important that we deal with the people in front of us in that way. No, no, absolutely. Okay, so just may be onto the chapter on science. And st. ISM this really changed my thinking I'm a hesitate to call myself a scientist. I do teach science Our Best Bets and what has worked valuable starting points for a curriculum. You think I think yes, I mean. the if we say things like work with them William What would be okay such as such I think it's very important science is extraordinary and cognitive science her extraordinary important role to play in terms of psychology really important roles to play in how we educate our home. We think about the world and the world of Education. What what what I'm arguing for is that there are other things as well and science I think science can explain Wishing in the world to us, but I don't think that would be enough and I we think I'll hold on to is this Douglas Adams point of when deep thought he's asked about the answer to the great question of life the universe and everything and deep salt causes and then comes up with the the answer 40-point, you know science can take us to a point and say well here's the answer. This is it and everything else and then we sort of look at that. It's like well, yeah, but there's a lot of other things to do go on to understand what's going on here. So if we say things like that. What are we teaching? Why are we teaching it is very important as well. So it's not just recall anything don't the qualitative nature of what we're teaching and the quality can is a subjective thing rather than the objective thing. So the objective thing might be 42, but the subjective thing of what we're talking about and why we're talking about this and what value these things have. I don't think can be arrived at objectively scientifically. I think we have to look at these things, huh objectively and therefore go through very difficult discussions and arguments about what we should include why we should include these things and what value these things have and I don't think those things can be given a number at the end and say, oh that will make some more socially mobile or that'll make them have more cultural capital or all those things. I don't think it can come like that. We have to make subjective decisions based on values based on what we believe is teachers are important things to teach No, definitely definitely so just moving a little bit away from the science. So I'm going to look at extracurricular programs. We mentioned that before but just to go off on a personal anecdote to start with so child one as I'm fond of calling him on the podcast here. He said he's about to go to secondary school. So I've been on the tour of lots of different secondary schools to look at, you know, which one would suit him best etcetera. So we've been to pretty much everyone in the geographical location of where he lives and one of the It struck me was one school proudly said that they have an hour for lunch and they are not changing having an hour for lunch because that is the time that pupils particular people's at a disadvantage have an opportunity to engage in extracurricular activities and they run lots of lots of clubs and societies and sports activities at lunchtime and I just thought how different is that from perhaps many other schools who are shrinking lunchtimes down, you know, reducing number of extracurricular activities, and I understand that and I'm not criticizing. And for doing it, but I guess the question I'm Meandering around to is how important and underemployed our extracurricular programs and you know can schools help alleviate that the narrowing opportunities that particular disadvantage pupils seem to suffer from. Yeah. So School choir one of the most glorious things anyone could be involved in and I speak as someone who never was in the school choir. Let's see my daughter Goes to School choir and send the important. She attaches to that. the lunchtime huge Keys huge to get your lunch to know so you rush into the to you rush over to school choir and you see what more could anyone want and because it's not judged as a number at the end of it is not necessarily going to get you your last GCSE or whatever then people perhaps don't value it as much but for some kids Kids that can be the richest thing they do that day at school and it certainly can be the sort of thing that can hang around you for the rest of your life. Of course Let It Be chess club whether it be Dungeons and Dragons club or what. I think that's coming back in isn't it? Whatever it happens to be we've things that can give Sanctuary for some kids as well. But also Hammer artery camraderie not just hanging around together. Which nothing wrong with that but hanging around together doing something together is such an important in which they would you be measurable and but is it wise to do with his this is where Taylor comes in Is it wise to do it? Well, do we feel it why today is singing together a good thing is the choir a good thing. Yes, and that her Athena can judge it. That's how the machine. Machine might say yes, but we've got this High accountability coach we need to do this this this and they're therefore we haven't got paid for it and that's machine and a sealer in one conversation on one lunchtime about whether we have a long enough lunchtime to do school choir or we reduce it and we fiddle extra lessons on that etcetera Etc. Whatever it happens to be what's wiser. We're seeing some movement in terms of a dread to mention ofsted already in a past but we're seeing some movement in terms of you know, Daniel Moses work on the research of personal development, for example, so, you know School climates that are supportive and nurturing, you know, fit the context of the school. So actually we are seeing a little bit of you know, roll back from you should be spending your lunch time doing extra lessons catch up, you know duty all the laser things. Les Morts around you know giving those, you know experiences that people don't get us are really in the classroom. Yeah, exactly under education is a whole, you know, after I think are looking at the subjectively the things that you can't quite put a number on the importance of the culture of the school of the whole and and of course that that is also the community around the school as well, you know everything Thing that can make a community work in some ways that whether it be usually ends whether it be libraries whether we all these things around a school as well as the school itself and the culture that goes on in school. It's an extraordinary important thing and it's something that the best schools do very very well, you know, and if you get to a point where you're having to make choices about taking away the things which structure the institution You don't know how important they are included on that. We suddenly Find Out World perhaps we shouldn't have done that perhaps we shouldn't have sort of squeeze the ABS perhaps we shouldn't have done these other things that the choices we've made to increase certain things and decrease over things and these are very real decision schools have to make sense of re obvious and real needs that they have whether it be accountability whether it be Something whether it be the reaming all these other sorts of pragmatic Choice has come into play of course. Oh, I don't knock school to taking certain choices, you know, which which perhaps they would prefer not to take. But also where you have the possibility. What do you what do you do? Well, You try and keep together a whole and that starting time as well, you know to expect to start to work after school every lunchtime, etc. Etc. I think certain things have to give in Prague and I think you know, we have to think about those things as well. So how can we structure things in a way that's fair to staff let alone and to the people who fell but certainly think about how to make the cream We could slice of the school come alive at lunchtimes and artistically as weather during the school day and you think something that struck me as you were talking there is you think about you know, the damning I've go into lots of schools, but I work in the up quite a large school you think of the number of people that are outside at lunchtime and then risk data are required to supervise that number of Staff who people out at lunchtime and you think well if they could be doing something more constructive than just basically standing around and talking to each other which of course has its merits you know, there's nothing wrong with that, you know. The not sort of mobile phones because we don't have those but you know what you could think that the stats are willing to do that. So perhaps an extracurricular club or something would be you know, supervision and in Rich. Yep, absolutely and also there is an argument. since have subjects was on things almond which are you know doing the school play or what or being an orchestra during the school day not just at lunch time and or after school year, so it doesn't you don't have to just have subjects which are Going to end up with a grade at the end of it. So for example, if you've got a nice pose you got your payment 8 etcetera etcetera, but if you've got room on the timetable for nine or ten none came could be. Coin they could the school play. It could be orchestrate could be debating. It could be whatever they're all science club. It could be whatever we think happy to be with God just for themselves that you know, we can determine we keep we can and we do I'm just conscious now that Martin were moving into sort of password. I've called commute to length, which is what I like to keep the podcaster. So I have you got time for a couple more questions. Is that okay? Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Okay, so we pick up a couple of threads. We've mentioned earlier on so we mentioned Arnold's work earlier in terms of teaching the best that has been thought and said so you mention this before but how can teachers go about, you know, encouraging people to make up their own minds in an educated way rather than simply, you know going along with that to the best taste on said what quo the way I cook by kick in the book if we look at into leaving and juxtaposition and putting things next. To each other comparing and contrasting dialectic arguing. So we put things together and we've gotta say well she's instead of HE of this poem. It's the best we put together two or three poems and say right he's this point has this poem has this point. This is why they might be considered good. Right? What do you know about these things? But what do you think about these things? What do you think the best out of those and then we have both choices made by the people that that time Absolutely, just like okay. Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking as you were talking there. Yeah, absolutely and and the other thread to pick up his I mentioned that sport to I was very forward to speak to Professor Michael Young and he makes a strong case as you know for powerful knowledge. And if you've got this right he talks about a curriculum that moves beyond the experiences that pupils would get on a day-to-day basis anyway, so he talks about you know, so it teaching things that you know, you can experience the teaching things that are you know in similar to what we just talked about with with on. So the best is still bad, but you talk about how you've got sympathy with the views of Professor young but your views diverge a little bit. So could you just cook out like a couple of areas? Where you differ maybe? Yeah, it's it's mostly point because I'm like we Michaels where can I get one of those, you know future once huge to teach the three curriculum now if you look at his teacher three quickly, which is the one who you know, who He extolled then there's something about I would agree with them so much of that but there's a couple of things that I do sort of worried about slightly in the point of what we be talking about. And that is its distinction from Common Sense knowledge and the knowledge acquired through everyday experience. I think I and I and I was worried about this in the case. I can see it in an academic sense. But what? The case of the arts and by developing and developing people sensibilities because to me that's very much working with their Common Sense the everyday experience and expanding on that and also its specialized moving beyond Earth and you just you just mentioned that we are moving beyond the not just the everyday but also it becomes objectified and it talks about a job. Ejected knowledge and I'm talking very much about the subjective side as well. But yes, there is more objective knowledge and I suppose there's also more subjective knowledge and I see that and I think it becomes particularly those of us who work in the ER and serious slightly differently, but we the knowledge report that is not objective. It is very much arrived at subjectively and through discourse and thinking about for yourself. Yourself into the picture. So those those are the two areas where perhaps I diverge somewhat. And the last question is Sir. That's okay. So you talk later in the book about the sequencing of knowledge. So how important is the sequence in to ensure that children can make meaning of the world? Yeah. Now I can say I think this becomes the joined up your Secret Kingdom. How do we call this story? The story becomes vital and the story starts with the beginning schooling right to the end of the and also carries on you know, the type of the stories can After the so it could be a grand narrative something that the pace modernist thought of as should be should have gone have destroyed around us. I think that the grand mal seizures is very important. They give us structure. They give us meaning meaning is from the stories the metaphors the way we see the world how we explain the world around us. They give us the structure for our cultural lives lives being in the culture. In other words being in the world. We live in so the structure of the story needs to be thought about what's the story of our curriculum. What's the story of our subject within the overall curriculum that we're telling and how does every creature sort of realized that they're teaching a chapter in that story and the ventilation know about the chapters that follow in the chapters of of come before and and how they actually tell that story in the way that perhaps opened up the narrative the later as well as perhaps brings the narrative from the Before some sort of semblance of understanding all the way through. Well, that's a nice Point twenty speaking about the chapters and I just wanted to say that and I said this to off are you know, I felt completely invigorated reading this book and it has really changed my thinking on a lot of those areas that we've outlined here. So firstly thank you for writing it and secondly, thank you for being a guest on the podcast. Welcome to waiting for approaching me and asking me to talk this morning is such an honor and it's so lovely. And if I want to if you want to come and physically talk about this, you know research at Blackpool would be very very happy for you to come along in March. I'm going to talk to us about this but I don't expect to live on are answered. Oh, well, I'd love to but you know, I've never been to Blackpool. The only time I've seen it is flying over to Ireland and I've seen seen the Promenade from above but never actually know so I'd love to come along. Thank you very much fantastic. So Last little bit. So are you going out and doing quite a lot of talking about this book and where can listeners may be find out some more about what you're doing what you're saying and where they can find the book. Well, I can find the book on Amazon. Oh, I expect they'll also ID and various research heads around the country and other countries and also work as a consultant. So I end up in the schools and other institutions and they'll be talking about it and program that curriculum generally great. Well, thank you. Again, Martin. Thank you for this morning, really appreciate it and great to talk to you and thank you. So enjoy talking to Martin there. I could literally a spoken to mall days of haven't seen the book or you haven't got the book then what are you waiting for get on to Amazon and get that order and have a read of Athena versus the machine so into the Shameless plugs section and and plug in something that doesn't exist yet. But we're going to be looking at a new Ed coming up to the northwest of England. So just keep The posted we've got more details on what that looks like. I just like to keep mentioning it so that Emma turn and falls off the running machine at this point of the podcast also mentioned last week Brew Ed Ozzy. So again, not Australia, but Oswald's whistle in Lancashire, so I'll be speaking about curriculum that they took it to going very nicely for that now, so if you haven't got one get one pretty quickly before they sell out less of a Shameless plug a more of a thank you, so Thank you to Karen and the team at UK Ed res chat for allowing me to host last week really really enjoyed it and thanks to those that engage with that as well really was quite difficult to keep across the retweets and my typing is just appalling so apologies. I didn't get many responses there but really enjoyed it. Hope to that again and I'm a big fan of that hashtag and I always like to join in on a Thursday evening when I can so this isn't like and less of a plug of A plea this case. I'm still looking for contributors to the podcast pedagogy section. So if anybody is up for a one to two minute clip on something that they have taken from the podcast and used in their practice. And so again, it's moving from talking to teachers to having an effect on your practice. So I'd love to hear from you. It's not an onerous thing to do is literally record it on the voice recorder app on the phone in front of you send it across and you could be playing out. Hundreds of people every single week. So yeah, if that's for you so many male all the details on the show notes and on my website, which is near as NASA dot Co dot u k okay move it into teacher five a day and teach a five a day is something that I've been following and the passionate about since its Inception. I think probably about five years ago now Martin does a fantastic job of raising the profile of teacher well-being so teacher five a day as listeners will know promotes five. Different things so it looks like connect notice learn volunteer and exercise and there are blogs coming out via the teacher 5 add a Twitter feed and through the website and I'll be interviewing key people in the teacher 5 add a Steering group of which am proud to be a part. So thank you master for that opportunity as well. And I'm going to be speaking to Lisa fathers and bookie Yusuf, and there's also a national teacher Firebird a week, which is coming up pretty soon. So that's December the To December 6 this year to raise awareness of teacher well-being in every school of the country. So check out that and post your experiences via the hashtag teacher five a day. So next week. I'll be chatting to Tom Reiss about wholesome leadership. So hopefully you can join me then and I'll also be giving it away Tom's book to a lucky listener who retweets the link to the podcast and this is part of Jill berries, pass it forward or pay it forward from Um her podcast it's costing me a fortune by the way, but it's worth it all the listeners. It's worth it to make sure that we're passing on that experience or Thomas book is fantastic for an opportunity to Win It pulse with hashtag never Schnatter onto your feed with the podcast and I will do the draw on a Thursday evening and get it in the posterior first thing Friday. So it's a nice treat for you on Monday morning. Okay, so it remains to say until next time. Thank you for listening and see you next week on Naylor's natter So just talking to teachers talking to teachers about academic research and evidence-based practice with continuing professional development at PNA 1977 on Twitter. teachers
This week I am in conversation with Educationalist, Author, Writer,Consultant, Orator and Liberal Artist Mr Martin Robinson. Martin is a Teacher with 20 years experience working in state schools in London. Martin was an AST,Head of Department,Head of Faculty and an Assistant Headteacher. Martin is interested in developing teaching and learning building on the tradition of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. We are nattering this week about Martin's latest book which I consider to be an essential read namely 'Curriculum-Athena versus the Machine' . This book has fundamentally changed my view on the rationale for a knowledge rich curriculum, moulded my thinking on extra-curricular activities and engendered cognitive dissonance when I consider Martin's views on educating for freedom. The book explores the educational value of a curriculum rooted in the pursuit of wisdom and advocates the enshrinement of such a curriculum as the central concern of an academic institution. Martin argues that teachers need to be liberated from policy-led prescription in order to design curricula which brings subjects forward rather than the pursuit of outcomes. TDT Section  This week we have a TDT excellence hub school , South Shore Academy launching a TeachMeet as a way to promote all the amazing work going on in Blackpool . They will have teachers from the school and experts from all over the area sharing their wisdom. Tickets are available here   https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ssa-teachmeet-tickets-79868126717?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-source=strongmail&utm-term=listing  Podcast Pedagogy   This week I am reading 'Talking to Strangers' by Malcolm Gladwell. This is a research based book which examines the varying ways we misinterpret or fail to communicate with each other. This is a real page turner and I recommend it to you all along with Gladwell's back catalogue and his revisionist History podcast . 