A few years ago, I was invited to a teacher-workforce symposium commissioned by the NSW Department of Education and run, as these things inevitably are, by a large management-consulting firm. Academics involved in teacher education had been assembled to help solve the persistent problem of attracting and retaining teachers. There was the usual discussion ofContinue reading “Qualified, Deemed Suitable and Given a Number: Just What Every Parent Wants for Their Child”
Category Archives: Schooling & Education
Ignore the Naysayers (2026 Update): Why Australia’s Education System is Stronger Than You Think
I wrote the first version of this in 2024, back when the doom was slightly quieter and nobody had yet stood at a podium to announce that the reading wars were over. Two years on, the catastrophe headlines have multiplied, the NAPLAN numbers have moved in genuinely mixed directions, and the overclaiming now comes from bothContinue reading “Ignore the Naysayers (2026 Update): Why Australia’s Education System is Stronger Than You Think”
The Wellbeing Industry Has Eaten Difficulty: We promised students comfort and called it care.
Somewhere right now, a Year 9 student is sitting in a beanbag in a softly lit room because quadratic equations made him feel overwhelmed. Someone will record the visit as a wellbeing intervention, the relevant box will be ticked, and everyone involved will have acted with entirely decent intentions. The student was distressed, a teacherContinue reading “The Wellbeing Industry Has Eaten Difficulty: We promised students comfort and called it care.”
Streaming Without Conviction: What schools call streaming is often just selective extraction
Schools are not nearly as uncomfortable with sorting students as they like to pretend. We talk about inclusion, belonging, mixed-ability learning, and meeting every student where they are, which are all noble enough ideas when they are taken seriously. At the same time, we run selective schools, opportunity classes, gifted pathways, accelerated streams, extension groups,Continue reading “Streaming Without Conviction: What schools call streaming is often just selective extraction”
Differentiation Is Not the Problem. Pretending It’s Easy Is.
Somewhere right now, a teacher is producing three versions of the same worksheet and calling it inclusive practice. There is the “support” version, where a few of the harder questions have quietly disappeared. There is the “extension” version, where the same questions have been given an extra verb, probably “evaluate”, because nothing says academic stretchContinue reading “Differentiation Is Not the Problem. Pretending It’s Easy Is.”
How Many Standards Does It Take to Train a Teacher?
Education reform has a curious rhythm. A problem appears. A review is commissioned. A framework is introduced. The framework does not quite fix the problem, so a second framework arrives to strengthen it. Eventually, the system begins to resemble a geological formation: layers of policy sediment built up over time, each one deposited with theContinue reading “How Many Standards Does It Take to Train a Teacher? “
AI Is Not the Problem. Avoiding Effort Just Got Easier
One look at the headlines and you would think civilisation is either ending, ascending, or about to be permanently automated. Apparently, AI will destroy work, create infinite prosperity, democratise knowledge, eliminate expertise, replace teachers, save education, and possibly run the world sometime between Year 10 exams and the next university curriculum review. Not bad forContinue reading “AI Is Not the Problem. Avoiding Effort Just Got Easier”
The Arrogance of Certainty: Why Epistemological Modesty is Education’s Lost Virtue
In the current educational discourse, modesty is a forgotten virtue. We are inundated with calls for innovation, rigour, and evidence-based practice, yet we rarely hear a plea for the one thing that should underpin them all: a healthy sense of our own limitations. By epistemological modesty, I mean the unfashionable idea that we should notContinue reading “The Arrogance of Certainty: Why Epistemological Modesty is Education’s Lost Virtue”
You Are Misusing Cognitive Load Theory
Education loves its theories. We love them with a kind of earnest devotion that would be charming if it were not so historically destructive. A theory emerges in the literature, carefully tested in small, controlled studies involving volunteers who sit quietly, complete tidy tasks and never once throw a pencil across the room. Then, almostContinue reading “You Are Misusing Cognitive Load Theory”
Questions That Will Define 2026
There’s a predictable rhythm to education. Every few years we rediscover an idea we abandoned a decade earlier and insist it’s revolutionary. The only constant is the pendulum swing: one decade it’s all soft lighting, beanbags, and “let the children lead”; the next it’s rigid scripts, highly structured lessons, and the kind of certainty usuallyContinue reading “Questions That Will Define 2026”
