28 Nov

Posted at 09:10h in Uncategorized

There is currently a debate in educational circles about whether it is more important for children to learn facts or to learn skills. This either/or thinking – where it has to be one or the other – does not make sense to me. So it will be worth considering what is important to learn in education. The first issue, then, is – is education aimed at learning about things (facts) or learning how to do things (skills). It is linked to ideas about the difference between education and training. A simple distinction is exemplified by the following; You are a parent and...

17 May

Posted at 09:36h in Uncategorized

200 people gathered at the Freedom to Learn conference at Summerhill School on 6th, 7th and 8th of May. I ran a workshop on different ways of learning particularly focused on learning without using classrooms. I generally find when talking with many people about learning that they have a bit of a blank in thinking of alternative ways of learning which don’t require the classroom. Somehow an approach which doesn’t need any classrooms can seem aberrant. The reality is that the classroom is a rather odd alternative that has been relatively recently created in human history. For most of the time...

28 Apr

Posted at 09:49h in Uncategorized

Self Managed Learning College is part of a global movement bringing traditional 19th century education into the 21st century by paying attention to solid evidence of better ways of educating young people. The case I will make here is that the role of adults and of schools should be to support young people in taking charge of their own lives and, centrally, of their own learning. I will mention a few examples of solid evidence about learning before indicating how to respond to this evidence. Evidence All young people are different. Specifically all the research shows that people (young and old) learn in...

14 Jul

Posted at 09:38h in Uncategorized

Big thanks to Josh Gifford and his team for the second edition of P.E.N Journal. The first edition brought together some of the contributions of last years, very successful Alternative Educational Futures conference. We were delighted to be asked to contribute once again. You can download a pdf version of the journal and read our piece looking at the student experience of SML using the link below. Pen Journal 25 ...

20 May

Posted at 09:41h in Uncategorized

This title may seem a bit bizarre. After all, most people in authority believe education is a good thing and there are organisations attempting to create compulsory education worldwide. The basis for this is the idea that there is an entitlement to education for young people. So I have to explain what I mean by ‘learning, not education’. My fundamental stance is that humans are crucially learning creatures. Human babies are born with the least range of inbuilt abilities of any creature. Babies have to learn hugely the first few years of their life and even then they are not...

04 May

Posted at 09:42h in Uncategorized

I appreciate that the title may seem a little strange. So many self-help texts are about things “made easy”. What I want to cover here is the fact that it is quite difficult to get people to understand why we are doing Self Managed Learning. The prevailing paradigm is one where assumptions are that young people go to school to learn. The dominant model is one that I want to challenge here and I want to do that through presenting real evidence. I’m a scientist by background and therefore I tend to be interested in evidence rather than prejudiced opinion. The...