Over the last 18 months, I have been co-authoring a new book with Becky Allen and Ben White. It is about educational fads. More broadly, it is about why it is so difficult to improve the school system. The time we spent researching and developing our ideas generated far too much content to fit in … Continue reading Can we make our schools anti-fragile?
Category: The Next Big Thing
The corruption of curriculum thinking
In 1975, the economist Charles Goodhart wrote: 'Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes'. This claim is often colloquialised as 'When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure'. An example of this is what happened when GP surgeries were given … Continue reading The corruption of curriculum thinking
The searing memories of the curriculum era
For the last 18 months, I have been co-authoring a book with Becky Allen and Ben White. It is called The Next Big Thing in School Improvement. The book is about the perpetual novelty that we experience in education. In the run up to publication, we will be publishing a series of blog posts which … Continue reading The searing memories of the curriculum era
Are you ready for the Next Big Thing?
For the last 18 months, I have been co-authoring a book with Becky Allen and Ben White. It is called The Next Big Thing in School Improvement. The book is about the perpetual novelty that we experience in education. In the run up to publication, we will be publishing a series of blog posts which … Continue reading Are you ready for the Next Big Thing?
The Imagined School
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows A paracosm is a detailed imaginary world, often formed in childhood, which blends the real world with imaginary places, characters, and events. Children may develop a … Continue reading The Imagined School
If the answer is curriculum, what was the question?
It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.Douglas Adams In The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the supercomputer Deep Thought is built to find the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything. Over 7 million years later it generates the answer: 42. However, … Continue reading If the answer is curriculum, what was the question?
Matthew Evans 