The Trojan Horse in the Tribal Classroom: How Culture Wars are Waged and Won on the Front Lines of EducationBy: Thomas Alan TobinAll three hundred thirty million of us are immersed in culture wars at every turn. It’s one of the great disadvantages of diversity. One such “warfare” has been hidden from all of us despite the fact that we had to face it almost daily in our formative years. The battleground for this most common cultural conflict is where we all spent at least 40...

The key to personal choice, and even happiness, is to gain control of our attention—our mental lives.Matthew Crawford is the author of Shop Class as Soulcraft, which challenged our notions about what we do and how it affects our sense of self (and our happiness). This new book addresses the crisis of attention: where we focus -- or cannot focus--equally affects our sense of self. As our mental lives become more fragmented, what is at stake often seems to be nothing less than the qu...

A guide for parents to help children of all ages process the onslaught of unfiltered information in the digital age.Education is not solely about acquiring information and skills across subject areas, but also about understanding how and why we believe what we do. At a time when online media has created a virtual firehose of information and opinions, parents and teachers worry how students will interpret what they read and see. Amid the noise, it has become increas...

A revolutionary call for a new understanding of how people learn.The End of Ignorance conceives of a world in which no child is left behind—a world based on the assumption that each child has the potential to be successful in every subject. John Mighton argues that by recognizing the barriers that we have experienced in our own educational development, by identifying the moment that we became disenchanted with a certain subject and forever closed ourselves...

‘Tom Bennett is the voice of the modern teacher.’ - Stephen Drew, Senior Vice-Principal, Passmores Academy, UK, featured on Channel 4’s Educating EssexDo the findings from educational science ever really improve the day-to-day practice of classroom teachers?Education is awash with theories about how pupils best learn and teachers best teach, most often propped up with the inevitable research that ‘proves’ the case in point. But what can teachers do...

Naming What We Know, Classroom Edition examines the core principles of knowledge in the discipline of writing studies, using the lens of “threshold concepts”—concepts that are critical for epistemological participation in a discipline. This edition focuses on the working definitions of thirty-seven threshold concepts that run throughout the research, teaching, assessment, and public work in writing studies. Developed from the highly regarded original edition in response to grassro...

Engaging Minds: Cultures of Education and Practices of Teaching explores the diverse beliefs and practices that define the current landscape of formal education. The 3rd edition of this introduction to interdisciplinary studies of teaching and learning to teach is restructured around four prominent historical moments in formal education: Standardized Education, Authentic Education, Democratic Citizenship Education, Systemic Sustainability Education. These moments serve as the foci...

Based on their Financial Times Weekend column, philosopher Julian Baggini and his psychotherapist partner Antonia Macaro offer intriguing answers to life's questions. Can infidelity be good for you? What does it mean to stay true to yourself? Must we fulfil our potential? Self-help with a distinctly cerebral edge, the shrink and the sage - aka Julian Baggini and Antonia Macaro - have been dispensing advice through their FT column since October 2010. Combining practical advice on personal d...

No one doubts that science underlies every tangible aspect of our lives, but few people apply its systematic style of thinking to improve their communication styles. To get the most out of science, its important to understand science as a style of thinking rather than just a forbidding collection of facts and mathematics. Individuals who learn how scientists collect evidence, evaluate facts, and draw conclusions can improve their own thought processes and overcome shortcomings. Written by ...

As a woman with a husband and other partners, philosopher Carrie Jenkins knows that love is complicated.Love is most often associated with happiness, satisfaction and pleasure. But it has a darker side we ignore at our peril. Love is often an uncomfortable and difficult feeling. The people we love can let us down badly. And the ways we love are often quite different to the romantic ideals society foists upon us. Since we are inevitably disappointed by love, wouldn’t we be better of...

This popular text provides a clear, succinct explanation of how reflection is integral to teachers’ understandings of themselves, their practice, and their context, and elaborates how various conceptions of reflective teaching differ from one another. The emphasis on the importance of both self and context is embedded within distinct and varied educational traditions (conservative, progressive, radical, and spiritual). Throughout the text the reader is encouraged to examine his/her assumpt...

A short guide to living well by understanding better what you really value—and what to do when your goals conflictWhat do you want out of life? To make a lot of money—or work for justice? To run marathons—or sing in a choir? To have children—or travel the world? The things we care about in life—family, friendship, leisure activities, work, our moral ideals—often conflict, preventing us from doing what matters most to us. Even worse, we don’t always know what we rea...