That'll teach him

My school years were patchy to say the least. My father was in the Royal Air Force, so I spent most of my formative years travelling, and switching schools on a regular basis, which played havoc with my education. I went to 10 schools in total, starting in Gibraltar at St George's Primary School and completing my schooling in Brunssum, Holland at the AFCENT International School. My school years were difficult for one important reason. There was no National Curriculum, which meant that every school taught what they considered to be most important. Because I switched schools every year or so, I learnt some content two or three times, and I missed some content completely. I learnt more about process than product during those turbulent years.

On reflection, I can now see exactly how teachers can either make or break a child's education. The old maxim 'Doctors save lives, teachers make lives' is true. I recall one teacher in particular who took me on and inspired me to learn new things. Mr Handel was one of the two primary teachers at Cherhill Primary School near Calne in Wiltshire, who stand out in my memory. He spent time with me helping me in the areas I was struggling with, and he really went the extra mile, to make sure I achieved to my full potential. The other teacher in the same school was the polar opposite. I once asked her a question about English grammar. She looked at me with contempt, told me I had asked a 'stupid question' and then made a big joke out of it. The whole class laughed at me, and I went bright red with embarrassment. I was only 8 years old, but I can still recall how it felt. It taught me a lesson. I never asked another question in class throughout the whole of my school life. I will refrain from naming that teacher.

Many teachers are excellent at what they do, and really care about the children in their care. I try to do the same, aspiring to be like Mr Handel, taking time to give my students individual attention if they are struggling in some difficult area. I try to instil some of these values in my student teachers too. But there are a very few teachers who can stifle creativity and discourage individualism - exactly the traits we need to draw out from our learners so that they can develop the skills to transfer into lifelong learning. Teachers can make all the difference, but sometimes it is time and pressure that militate against this. I look at my own children now as they negotiate their way through school and into work, and I sometimes cringe at some of the things they come home and tell me about their school experiences. It's as tough for them as it was for me. But school isn't the be all and end all and nothing is graven in stone.

My travelling took its toll on my formative years, and I left school with very few qualifications. I made a lot of friends, and had to keep making new ones, so I became very adept at interpersonal skills, but was very weak on content. All of my academic achievements have been made because of my own efforts and due to my own passion for learning, and all of them after the age of 30. The week I finally left school, my form tutor met with my parents. 'Steve is a great lad, and is very sociable' he told them, 'but don't ever expect him to become an academic'.

Photo by Cam Good on Flickr


That'll teach him by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Red House opens

The Red House in Plymouth

Throughout my professional career I have had the pleasure to visit many excellent schools across the globe. Each one offers me a little more understanding and insight into the grander picture that is education. I count it a privilege to learn from the students and staff at every school I visit. But to be there at the birth of a school is a quite extraordinary honour. Tonight, along with more than one hundred others - supporters, parents, children and teachers - I saw the Red House officially opened by Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate Gallery. The Red House houses PSCA - the newly established Plymouth School for the Creative Arts.

PSCA is a history making school. Situated in the heart of Plymouth's drab dockland area of Millbay, it is a colourful haven for creativity and self expression. It is the first British school to open as a free school under the patronage of a College of Art, and  - as its visionary head teacher Dave Strudwick said in his speech tonight - it is a school from reception through to employment. Currently with just over 400 children on roll, ultimately it will be a place of learning for more than 1000 students.

Some of the children performing at the Red House opening 

As leader of this creative community, Dave Strudwick has a progressive vision for the curriculum of the Red House. He wants to ensure that the expressive and performing arts have equal time with the STEM subjects. He refuses to accept the oft accepted belief that children cannot succeed if they are poor at maths or science. Failure is not an option when learning through doing and making is the norm. The Tate Gallery's Sir Nicholas made his own prediction that PSCA will very soon become a template for contemporary education that many other schools will copy. PSCA, he said, contradicts the views of politicians that arts and creativity should take second place to STEM subjects. He said he expected government ministers to eat their words when they visited in the future.

The Red House is a beautifully designed space within which learning and creativity can flourish. Built on three floor levels, it gleams boldly in contrast to Millbay Docks international ferry port and the adjacent industrial units. This is almost a metaphor for the fight it has endured against its critics. Instead of classrooms, the school features studios and other open, flexible and creative spaces. As one might expect, dance, music, drama and other expressive arts feature largely in the school curriculum. Students can develop their thinking through a number of traditional and non-conventional curriculum activities. They might find themselves designing the menu and cooking the school lunch, under the supervision of a teacher called Andrew (students know their teachers by first names) - who incidentally has also been an award winning chef in his time. Teachers come from all backgrounds. There is an award winning composer who has worked for BBC radio and the Ministry of Sound, foreign language, geography and history teachers who are passionate to connect their subjects to learning to many other subjects, and a deputy head responsible for performance and pedagogy. The curriculum draws on evidence, expertise and understanding from psychology, neuroscience and social history. Creating Individuals and Making Futures is the school's defining document, guiding all their practises and processes.

Many of us will follow the development of PSCA over the coming years, as it blossoms and develops into a beacon for creativity, in a city that has re-created itself over and over again.

Photos by Steve Wheeler


The Red House opens by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Backing the future #BackToTheFuture

Image source: Deviant Art http://mjmstudios2020.deviantart.com/art/

Many people are excited about today - Wednesday 21st October 2015. The reason? It's Back to the Future Day - the day the fictional characters Marty McFly and Dr Emmett Brown arrive from 1985 into 'the future' in the wonderful science fiction movie trilogy Back to the Future. There will be many blogs and articles celebrating this today. So here's one more (I refuse to be left out). Back in the late 80s and early 90s, the films were a must for everyone of a certain age. Those of us who were the same age as Marty, late teens, early twenties, were fascinated by what we might be doing in the future. Would we still be alive when 2015 arrived. What age would each of us be? What would 2015 bring us? How would we cope with all the new technology? What jobs would we be doing? Would we have children? Grandchildren? These are the reasons why so many of us are excited by the fact that the date has finally arrived, so we can look back on time, and compare what we hoped and expected with today's reality. We are all time travellers - in one direction at least.

In Back to the Future 2, Doc brings Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer, into to the future to try to avert a personal disaster. This is the old timeline trope where you go back in time to change something there, in the hope that it will make your own present better in some way. However, the twist in Back to the Future Part 2 is that Marty has to travel into the future to redeem his present. Along the way there are many twists and turns, and a temporal dance of intricate proportions results. It's a splendid yarn, and it kept us entertained for some time back in the day. Yet, looking at the movie now, how many of the technologies that were predicted actually exist, and what does it mean for us, living in 'the future' of 2015?

Source: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/amphalon/sets/

Flying cars are a classic example of a technology that has been predicted for more than a century. The French artist Villemard painted images of flying vehicles back in 1910. We are still waiting, because, after all, do we really need or desire flying cars? How might they make our lives better, and what attendant risks and challenges might the flying car bring to our already complicated 21st Century lifestyles? Driverless cars are probably enough to be grappling with right now. Other similar technologies featured in BTTF2 included self lacing footwear, self-drying and adjusting clothing, and yes - the hoverboard. Back in the eighties, skateboards were new and exciting. Now it seems they are largely consigned to the hardcore of youths who regularly try to severely injure themselves by performing dangerous tricks on hard surfaces in deserted city centres in the evenings. Whether or not hoverboards have been invented or indeed are commercially viable is open to discussion, but we already have Maglev trains that work on a similar principle, so we could say that this prediction is partially fulfilled.

Other technologies are conspicuous by their absence. There is no mention of the Internet in the movie. Where are smartphones and social media? All are missing because they either didn't figure in the minds of the writers, or they simply hadn't been invented at the time the movie was being made. Other technologies are laughable by their inclusion - think of the Fax machines middle-aged Marty's boss uses to fire him from his job. Does anyone still use fax machines in 2015? Controlling the weather? Hmmm. And what about the inverted, gravity defying orthopaedic frame used by Marty's ageing father George McFly? Hardly credible then, or now.

One interesting technology that does appear in the movie was nascent in 1985, but it did exist - video conferencing, and it is portrayed accurately in BTTF2. Note that several times in the movie, the characters communicate with each other through wall screens that project images and sound. I first saw videoconferencing in 1972, it has been around for a while in various forms, and it was already featuring as a futuristic means of communication in such TV shows as Star Trek. It wasn't hard to include it as a future means of communication, and of course this is particularly accurate with the advent of FaceTime, Skype and other similar visual media. But it's an isolated case of accuracy in the midst of mis-predictions.

Image and graphics by Steve Wheeler

We run the risk of ridicule when we try to predict the future. No-one has been there. It's impossible to predict it with great accuracy. Alexander Graham Bell, credited with inventing the telephone, was so excited by his wonderful idea he made this declaration (left). He was right. Every town in the U.S. has a telephone. But it's a ridiculous statement, in hindsight. The fact is, everyone who wants a cell phone has one (or more) in their pockets. Bell couldn't predict the future beyond his current frame of reference, because as Voltaire once pointed out: 'Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.' Those who can break out of their current thought culture, and imagine a different future, are the visionaries who create that future.

Voltaire also said 'The present is pregnant with the future'. Go make your own future.

P.S. I'm a big fan of the Back to the Future trilogy, so if you try to suggest I'm dissing these movies, your comments will die at the moderation stage. :)


Backing the future #BackToTheFuture by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I want to break free #twistedpair

My #twistedpair are Nelson Mandela and Captain Jack Sparrow.

Nelson Mandela spent more than 26 years in South African prisons, mainly in squalid and inhumane conditions. He was imprisoned largely as a punishment for his political beliefs and membership of the outlawed African National Congress during Apartheid.

I won't forget the day I visited Robben Island, the penal colony on which Mandela spent the large proportion of his prison sentence. It's a small island in the bay near Cape Town. It is unbearably hot in the fierce summer sun, and is cold and inhospitable in the winter months in the icy Antarctic wind.

I visited the cell in which he spent most of his time, and was appalled at how small and cramped it was. I would have been easy to despair. Yet Mandela didn't give in. He proved that in adversity, when all the odds seem stacked against you, you can still achieve your dream. You need persistence, resilience and a strong belief that what you are doing is right. Mandela had all those qualities. He survived.

Mandela's cell on Robben Island

Eventually he was released as the political climate changed and the influence of Apartheid began to decline, and he was ultimately elected as president of the country that had once rejected him. He studied for a law degree while still in prison, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and became one of the most revered icons of the age.

Jack Sparrow is the fictional character of the movie series Pirates of the Caribbean. Sparrow is a wisecracking rascal of a character, who leads a motley crew that represent freedom from the ruling powers of the British Empire and the East India Company. Sparrow and his crew fight numerous battles with the powers that be, and ultimately using his guile and audacity he triumphs again and again, but always with a cost.

On the face of it, it seems that Jack Sparrow and Nelson Mandela have very little in common, and there is no comparison between a fictional pirate and a real-life hero who freed an entire nation. But there is this: Both fought tyranny and sought freedom. Like Mandela, Sparrow ends up in prison, although it's only for a brief period. Sparrow is freed from prison to rescue an innocent girl from the grasp of a gang of ruthless pirates, while Mandela is released from prison to rescue an entire nation from its hatred and divisions.

There are many prisons in life - some are physical but many more are self imposed, mental prisons. Apartheid was an idealogical prison, created in the minds of racists. It limited millions of people from achieving their full potential. But it was defeated. In education the same principle applies. Mental prisons are those in which we limit ourselves by the way we think. To break free from a mental prison, you will need to change the way you think.

What can we learn from this #twistedpair? Mandela once said: 'Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.' I say: You have to be on the inside if you want to change things. To break free, you need to see beyond the walls and imagine a better world. Be persistent. Be resilient. Believe.

Photo by Stepph on Wikimedia Commons


I want to break free #twistedpair by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Is education broken?

During the EDEN Conference in Barcelona this summer I had the pleasure to interview several keynote speakers. One was Audrey Watters, who has been in evidence recently at a number of high profile events such as ALT-C 2014 and ICDE 2015. Formerly a university academic and now a freelance writer, Audrey has courted her fair share of controversy and opposition, not least due to her forthright views on education, technology and a host of related topics. As a self styled 'expert on political pie throwing', rabble rouser and 'Ed Tech's Cassandra', Audrey Watters is not shy of making her views public on her blog Hack Education and she makes for interesting conversation. This interview was recorded for the EDEN YouTube channel, featuring questions such as: Is education broken beyond repair? Is Google the largest surveillance network in the world? Does the web constitute a new form of cultural hegemony? Is the web really open?



Video courtesy of the European Distance and E-learning Network


Is education broken? by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Lessons to be learnt

I was asked a very thoughtful question by one of my first year education students earlier today. The group had been tasked to consider strategies about how they might embed a new technology into their primary school lessons. This is not a simple task, because schools are notoriously conservative organisations, and new ideas are not always welcomed with open arms. The question from the student was 'what can we learn from the introduction of previous technologies in history?'

The poet Steve Turner once wrote 'History repeats itself. It has to, because no-one ever listens.' Yet there are some great lessons to be learnt from history if we know where to look.

I immediately thought of failed technologies, and in particular, the Sinclair C5 electric car (actually a tricycle). In a 2013 poll it was voted the worst innovation disaster in modern history. The C5 was an invention that was very much ahead of its time. It was so futuristic that no-one was really prepared for it, not many could see an immediate need, and very few were prepared to invest their cash in purchasing one. But that wasn't the only reason the Sinclair C5 failed to capture the public imagination.  It was a great idea, but it was not fully conceived. It was difficult to drive, had a top speed of only 15 miles per hour, and required more battery power than it was capable of delivering. It was low on the ground and flimsy, and there were fears that its low visibility might result in a number of fatal accidents. Yet the most important factor that contributed to its failure was neither technological nor conceptual. On the day the C5 was launched to the press and media there was a cold spell, and there was snow on the ground (as can be seen in a quick Google image search). The open cockpit of the electric car was not conducive to comfort at the best of times. On a cold, icy day, it was a disaster. Bad press reports from the launch were the final nails in the coffin for the C5, and ultimately its production was halted.

From this sad tale, we can glean several principles that might aid us when we try to embed new technologies or ideas into conservative environments.

1) Relevance: Make sure the technology is relevant to the needs of your community
2) Design: Ensure that technology is easy to understand and use
3) Model: Provide a conducive environment within which to showcase the new technology
4) Protect: Closely manage anything that has the potential to go wrong

Photo by Alan Gold on Flickr


Lessons to be learnt by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I blog therefore I'm spammed

Some of the spam comments posted to my blog are amusing. Others are simply baffling. They aren't quite as pathetic as the son of a Nigerian former finance minister who has millions of dollars to deposit into your bank account, and requests your banking details, but I think they're amusing enough to be given a wider audience. They are almost always posted by 'Anonymous' which seems quite a common name for those sad individuals who spend their time trying to promote their lacklustre or spurious website links on the back of someone else's success.

Maybe Anonymous is one person. If so, he is incredibly industrious, because I receive at least a dozen spam comments every day from him. I'm glad I decided to moderate all comments so they don't just automatically appear on my blog. Anonymous invariably posts inept and unintentionally funny comments (around a hidden website address) in the hope that I will believe that Anonymous is a genuine reader, and will then be convinced to allow them through the net. Here's one of Anonymous's recent offerings that would give Lewis Carroll's nonsense writing a run for its money:

Truly no matter if someone doesn't know then its up to other viewers that they will help, so here it takes place. 

Er... yeah, right. Fathom that one out. Other spam comments from Anonymous offer fake flattery in the hope that you think they are commenting positively on your blog post. One or two turn out to be quite ironic:

I do believe all of the ideas you have offered for your post. They are very convincing and can certainly work. Nonetheless, the posts are too brief for novices. May just you please extend them a bit from next time? Thank you for the post. 

That from someone trying to tout a website selling diet pills. Reductio ad absurdum. The next one also offers some cheap flattery, but falls very wide of the mark:

Hurrah, that's what I was seeking for, what a information! present here at this weblog, thanks admin of this sight. 

This spammer is trying to get me to post their website selling customised T-Shirts. Hopefully, the spelling and grammar they print on their shirts is a little less error strewn. Oh boy, can it get any better? It certainly can... with this obscure beauty:

What a stuff of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious know-how on the topic of unexpected feelings. 

I think that was a compliment, but whatever the sentiments his website is not being published on my blog. Thank you Anonymous for your entertaining and, at times, baffling comments. I laughed until I stopped.

Photo by Freezelight on Flickr


I blog therefore I'm spammed by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The #twistedpair list

The #twistedpair blogging challenge asks you to put together an unlikely pairing of characters - these can be historical, contemporary or fictional - and write about the connection they have (however tenuous) and how it relates to teaching and learning. Here is the original challenge. You can use any of the pairings listed there or create a strange pair of your own.

So, what is the thinking behind this challenge?

Going through the process of thinking about this should involve a lot of creative, lateral thinking, and the end result will be a unique perspective on education - on a blog post which we can all enjoy reading and learning from. If we try this out ourselves, perhaps we can adapt this and similar ideas to promote good writing skills for our students too!

Below is a growing list of all the awesome, thought provoking blogs that people are publishing as their responses to the #twistedpair challenge. Join in!

Maha Bali - Audrey Watters meets Doc McStuffins
Niall Barr - Walter Bright, Professor Branestawm and me (Walter Bright // Prof Branestawm)
Sue Beckingham - Enquire within upon everything (Pablo Picasso // Sir Tim Berners-Lee)
Chris Betcher - Twisted pair (Pablo Picasso // Sir Tim Berners-Lee)
Steve Brophy - Know thy context
Amy Burvall - Madonna meets McLuhan (Madonna // Marshall McLuhan)
Amy Burvall - Twisted Pairs (The Beatles // Alfred Hitchcock)
Amy Burvall - Twisted Pairs: Pedagogy from the Unlikely
Amy Burvall - Leonardo Da Vinci meets Billie Holliday

Vanessa Camilleri - It's all about Spiderman and Paulo Freire

Lee Mark Davis - Of Grace and Mansbridge (W.G. Grace // Albert Mansbridge)
Debsnet - Coaching fields forever (Strawberry picking // coaching)
HJ DeWaard - What Dewey and Yoda reveal about learning (John Dewey // Yoda)
Charlene Doland - Downton Abbey and Frog and Toad

Terry Elliott - Epictetus and Mojo Nixon
Terry Elliott - A short ride on a fast hoverboard
Wendy Eiteljorg - Twisted Pair (5th graders // 12th graders)

Enoch Hale - Learning transformation or Chindogu?
Scott Haselwood - Doctor Who + Jack Sparrow + Leonardo da Vinci + Me
Sarah Honeychurch - Fools march in (Alexander Pope // Roobarb and Custard)
Sarah Honeychurch - Kicking down the cobblestones (Dave Cormier // The Red Queen)
Sarah Honeychurch - Blogging is a way of life (Mr Motivator // Steve Wheeler)
Sarah Honeychurch - Making an ass of you and me (Aristotle // Chicken Licken)
David Hopkins - Connor MacLeod and Wile E Coyote

Andrew Jacobs - Spoonful of sugar (Mary Poppins // Isambard Kingdom Brunel)

Gordon Lockhart - Connection not content (Hound of the Baskerville // MOOCow)

Richard Martin - Fork in the cat (Erwin Schrödinger // Jonny Wilkinson)

Laura Ritchie - The music lesson and the walnut tree

Tania Sheko - How Seinfeld and Maria Montessori influence me as an educator
Tania Sheko - #twistedpair for teacher PD (Slideshare)
Andrew Smith - How Monty Python and Albert Einstein inform my professional outlook (Albert Einstein // Monty Python)

Wendy Taleo - To twist or not to twist? That is the question (Deleuze and Guattari // Yuen et al)
Steve Turnbull - Talking gibberish - from nonsense to meaning in learning (Jack Bauer // Teletubbies)

Colin Warren - If at first you don't succeed... (Wile E Coyote // Sisyphus)
Sue Watling - Klimt and the Venus of Willendorf
Steve Wheeler - Danger illustrated (Socrates // Maria von Trapp)
Steve Wheeler - Einstein, Monty Python and lateral thinking
Steve Wheeler - I want to break free (Nelson Mandela // Jack Sparrow)
Noeline Wright - Heston Blumenthal and the research process

If you notice one that is missing, let me know in the comments section below, and I will add it to the list.

Photo by Greg Jordan on Flickr


The #twistedpair list by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Einstein, Monty Python and lateral thinking #twistedpair

The #twistedpair blogging challenge asks you to put together an unlikely pairing of characters - historical, contemporary or fictional - and write about a connection they have (however tenuous) and how it relates to learning. I hope that going through a process of thinking about connections between two seemingly unconnected characters will involve a lot of creative, lateral thinking, and that the end result will be a unique perspective on education from which we can all enjoy reading and learning.

Yesterday Sarah Honeychurch wrote a first blog post in response to the challenge and came up with Fools march in which is a brief but pithy reflection on professional practice and human impulsiveness using a tentative connection between Alexander Pope and the cartoon characters Roobarb and Custard (I love it!).

Andrew Smith swiftly followed up on my #twistedpair challenge with another strange pairing: How Monty Python and Albert Einstein inform my professional outlook just goes to prove my point that a lot of lateral thinking can be generated when we stretch our imagination a little. I created a whole bunch of other unlikely pairings in my initial blogpost. What kind of conversation might Tarzan have had with Jean Piaget? How might the love child of Marshall McLuhan and Madonna have turned out? Would Han Solo have been BFF with Queen Elizabeth I or would he have been beheaded? And what the heck has that to do with education?

Feel free to choose one of the unlikely pairs, or better still, make your own up, and join in with the fun and mayhem, as together we explore our professional practise through humour, imagery and creativity. I look forward to reading your #twistedpair blogs!

Photo source


Einstein, Monty Python and lateral thinking #twistedpair by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Twisted Pair #twistedpair

Are you up for another blogging challenge? If you accept this challenge, it should encourage you to write creatively, and you'll end up sharing a new idea with a large audience.

It's happened before: you might remember the #blimage and #blideo challenges from the summer. The first was a challenge where you were sent an image to inspire you to write about learning. The second was the same idea, but with a video.

Many of those who participated said it caused them to think more deeply and creatively about how they teach or learn. Some remarked that they had discovered new bloggers they didn't know existed, and many reported that their blog traffic had increased significantly. It was a win-win for everyone who took part.

So here's my idea. It's called twisted pair. After my post from yesterday about how Socrates and Julie Andrews (a strange pairing indeed) influenced my teaching, I got to wondering. Are there any other strange (twisted) pairs that would inspire people to write thoughtful blog posts on education and learning? Well, if anyone is up for this challenge, here are a few very strange pairings to get you going. I bet you can think of loads more.

Batman and John Dewey
Michaelangelo and you
Paulo Freire and the Hunchback of Notre Dame
Eddie Izzard and Pavlov's dogs
Jack Sparrow and Nelson Mandela
Pablo Picasso and Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Micky Mouse and Adolf Hitler
Han Solo and Queen Elizabeth I
William Shakespeare and Buzz Lightyear
Marshall MacLuhan and Madonna
Tarzan and Jean Piaget
Paddington Bear and Barack Obama
Jean Jacques Rousseau and the Easter Bunny
Walt Disney and the Grim Reaper
Sir Winston Churchill and the entire cast of Frozen
Doctor Who and Snoopy
Jack Bauer and the Teletubbies
Mr Spock and Margaret Thatcher

Go on - I dare you. Choose a strange pairing from above (or make up one of your own, the weirder the better). Let your imagination run wild, go very slightly unhinged and dig deep into your knowledge of those characters. Some of the connections may be tenuous. That's part of the fun.  Come up with an inspirational, satirical or thought provoking blog post about teaching and learning. Share it and include the tag #twistedpair. Don't forget to also challenge at least three other people. I'm gathering responses together on this page so they are all together in one place. Up for the challenge? So, let's twist again, like we did last summer...

Photo by Baran Ivo on Wikimedia Commons


Twisted Pair #twistedpair by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Danger illustrated

Students often struggle with critical thinking. They are great at description, but ask them to move beyond this into critical analysis and they look at you and shrug. And yet critical thinking is a vital graduate skill that once acquired, can be applied to all aspects of life.

Recently I have been teaching a research skills module to a whole year group of third year education undergraduates. The time came to address critical thinking, and I thought long and hard about the best way to help them to learn.

There are some great exemplars of effective education from across the ages. Think of Socrates with his constant questioning, or the great educator Comenius with his naturalistic approach to learning by 'obtaining knowledge through objects rather than words'. Then there was Maria von Trapp (played by Julie Andrews in the movie musical The Sound of Music. Look, I'm being serious here - kind of). She used a combination of sounds, imagery and mnemonics to teach the children to sing. She could have taught them to sing anything using this method - even Firestarter.

I brought all these ideas together to teach critical thinking this week. I illustrated my teaching with a simple plastic bottle of water. I asked my students to describe it. 'It's transparent', 'It's made of plastic', and 'It holds water' were perfect answers. These are superficial qualities to the bottle of water, but they don't really tell us much more about it. It's dangerous to accept something at face value without examining it in depth.

So, I made the illustration a little more difficult. I asked them to analyse the bottle of water. Now, there are many ways you can do this. You could chemically analyse the contents for example. Or you could simply trust the manufacturer and read the contents label on the side to see what levels of calcium, sodium or magnesium were present. You could also analyse the shape of the bottle - its design - and the affordance of the bottle top and whether it allowed you to twist or flip the bottle open.

The next stage is one that most students struggle with. How do we critically analyse the bottle of water? After a lot of thinking, several ideas were ventured including 'the water is almost gone, therefore the owner might have been thirsty', and 'the design of this bottle isn't as good as another brand I usually buy.' In essence the students were speculating based on their analysis of the bottle, and were also beginning to evaluate the worth of the bottle. They could have gone further and evaluated its worth in terms of value for money, or its health benefits in comparison to other popular drinks. They may have discussed the history of bottle water, its cultural impact, or even debated the plastic bottle in terms of how easy it would be to recycle its component parts. In fact, when you get to the critical analysis and the evaluation stages of thinking, there are endless possibilities. Let's hope the students make the connection to their education studies.

Photo from various sources to numerous to list here


Danger illustrated by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.