An easy win that would immediately make school more enjoyable and meaningful

For children, young people and educators alike

My last post focused on what I describe as the educational polycrisis - an interconnected web of increasingly dire problems that passed the ‘crisis point’ a long time ago.

To make the point, I focused on seven crises: attendance, mental health, behaviour, misogyny and sexual abuse, teacher recruitment, teacher retention, and educational inequity. I could equally have focused on many other bad situations - the SEND crisis being an obvious example.

By the way, The Real David Cameron and I recorded a fascinating podcast with Amjad Ali this week about the SEND crisis - keep your eye out for that one in a week or two. We also recently recorded an absolute humdinger with Warwick Mansell and Naomi Fisher about the so-called Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill currently going through parliament, which ironically seems to be adversely affecting many people’s wellbeing. That one will be out in the next week or so. But I digress.

I ended my last post saying that I have two concrete proposals for things that every school could do tomorrow, which I believe would drastically reduce the scale of the educational polycrisis and make it all seem much more manageable.

In this post, I’ll share one of these proposals. And in my next post, I’ll share the other.

So. Here goes. By the way, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this idea, reader. Please let me know in the comments or by dropping me an email.

My proposal is this:

All schools should have a weekly lesson called ‘Making Sense”.

It would be an open-ended circle time session, led by teachers who are up for this kind of thing (not everyone is - more on this later).

The lesson would require no planning, no writing, no marking. No assessment. So straight off the bat, it reduces workload. I can feel at least some teachers warming to the idea already.

And by the way, not assessing things is also really good for kids. It helps them get out of a transactional “what's in this for me?” mindset and to see things for their intrinsic worth.

But these are fringe benefits.

The main benefit of Making Sense lessons is that they would, well, help children and young people make sense of the world around them.

This may all sound a bit woolly. But I' have taught many lessons of precisely this nature. There's a tried-and-tested framework for it: Philosophy for Children (P4C).

If you haven't ever heard of P4C, just type this phrase into YouTube and tiptoe into that rabbit-hole. You won't regret it.

P4C is an absolutely wonderful way to spend an hour. It's my favourite thing to do as an educator, by far.

Like anything worthwhile, P4C is not without its critics. Arch-traditionalists tend not to like P4C very much because it isn't about teaching subject knowledge, and arch-traditionalists seem to think this is the sole purpose of education. This has not been helped, in my view, by some misguided research that has sought to evaluate the value of P4C based on the extent to which it helps children to read and do maths.

But those with an interest in another kind of learning - the kind I discussed in my recent viral blog Learning to *be* - immediately see the value in it.

To be clear, I’m not simply advocating for weekly P4C lessons. I’m just saying that P4C provides us with a trusty template for what Making Sense lessons might look and feel and sound like.

Kids sitting in a big circle.

Kids doing most of the talking.

Kids taking turns to speak.

Kids building on one another's ideas.

Kids listening to one another intently.

Kids learning how to disagree agreeably.

Kids learning how to change their minds and contradict themselves and be OK with that.

Kids naturally and visibly growing in confidence and eloquence from one week to the next.

But there are some aspects of P4C that I find a little too prescriptive. In particular, the teacher providing a stimulus for discussion, and the time spent formulating questions for discussion. These things have their value, but I find the best sessions are a little more flexible and take more account of wha the kids want to talk about, and then to dive straight in at the deep end.

Making sense lessons would be a safe forum where kids can discuss a wide range of things that we really should discuss more in schools. The following list is intended more as a set of examples rather than a suggested curriculum, but the general flavour is - big ideas that don't get much airtime in the national curriculum. These are often confusing ideas that divide people around the world. Things like:

• Issues raised through topical news stories and TV shows

  • Scandals like Hillsborough, the post office, infected blood

  • Economics - banking, trading, cryptocurrencies, memecoins, universal basic income

  • Misogyny and sexism

• Big evergreen topics

  • War and peace

  • Crime and punishment

  • AI / automation / superintelligence

  • Immigration

  • Racism and anti-racism

  • Smartphone use

  • Mental health

  • Sex and gender politics

  • Morality and ethics

• Conspiracy theories they've read about online

• Any emerging issues that concern or interest them

• Life, the universe and everything

You get the idea.

It would be a forum in which any topic can be explored through a ‘community of enquiry’ approach.

One idea I’d borrow from P4C is that each lesson would start with students writing suggested topics or questions on a mini-whiteboard. They would share them and the class would vote for the question or topic they would most like to discuss. Once a topic has been laid to rest, you move on to the next most popular choice, and so on.

Last thing on a Friday is a great time to do it. This is not a deal-breaker, although I’ve found in the past that lessons such as these are a wonderful way to end the week.

There is more to say about this idea - how to identify and train suitable teachers, how to introduce the lessons, how to start lessons to get people in the mood for listening and sharing, how to write good questions for discussion, how and when to alternate between whole class talk and paired talk. I’d be happy to explore these questions in a future blog if anyone is interested. I can also provide training on all this stuff. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again, I tells ya.

But as ideas go, it's a pretty easy one to implement. It wouldn't cost anything. And I think the upsides would be tremendous:

• No marking

• No planning

• Much more student autonomy than you get in a teacher-led lesson

• Stress-free human connection

• Helping children and young people make sense of this wacky old world of ours

• A life-affirming, purposeful way to end each week

It’s not a panacea. But it would be a bloody good start. I think it would help alleviate the polycrisis in all kinds of ways.

It would take another blog to illustrate how and why in detail, but I think it's kind of self-evident. There's way too much micromanagement and top-down pressure in schools - secondary schools in particular.

Implementing a weekly Making Sense lesson would be like releasing a pressure valve. It would allow people to end the week making sense of the world, and connecting to their fellow humans in an intrinsically fascinating, non-threatening way.

What's not to like?!!

Anyway.

That's what I reckon.

How about you?

Angel of Death update

I mentioned last week that I’m currently performing a rock musical wot I wrote in the Brighton Fringe. It’s called The Angel of Death Will See You Now…

Anyway, we’re currently halfway through our 8-show run at the Brighton Fringe and I expect you’re simply dying to hear how it’s going (!)

Well, my friends, I can happily report that it is gong insanely well! We’ve had two press reviews so far, both incredibly positive. Check out the Fringe Review one in particular - it’s a work of art in itself!

‘A rousing musical production with community at its heart. You’ll see nothing quite like it at the Fringe. A rebellious gang-show of a piece, with talent at its core.’ (Fringe Review)

‘An accomplished and stylish piece that demonstrates the high the level of performance that can be within the Brighton Fringe’ (Brighton and Hove News)

We also now have a trailer:

As mentioned, there are still 4 shows left in the run and we have some mega venues to fill. So, if you’re in the South-East of England in the next couple of weeks, come visit Death’s waiting room!

We plan to film the last night of the run, and if it looks and sounds pretty enough we may find a way to make this available to people further afield - watch this space!