Curios of the week #73

Clippings, endnotes and other ephemera

Image via AI

---

It has been a week of changeable weather in Ballarat. It would be a stretch to say the farmers have been rejoicing at all the rain, but they have certainly been pleased to top up their dams. Then, in equal parts, we have been treated to glorious winter sunshine breaking through, lighting up our clock tower. At times, it has felt like Spring.

I have continued teaching ‘sound and hearing’ to Year 6 and have been struck by just how many questions they have. I have taught this age group before but it was a while back and I had forgotten just how curious they can be. At times, I have even had to say I would take no more questions just so I could get through a point.

This week’s Curios include politically neutral libraries, big fish in little ponds, what to do about the abuse leveled at some Australian teachers and much more.

Bad journalism of the week

On Sunday, The Observer published a story by Anna Fazackerley. The story suggested that the UK’s new Labour government was going to row back on much of the work done to tackle disruption in England’s schools. The government’s behaviour adviser, Tom Bennett would be given his marching orders; the government would bear down on suspensions and expulsions and:

“One source close to the Labour government predicted that it would remove funding for the Department for Education behaviour hubs that have rolled out training for schools following Bennett’s strict model.”

There was much celebration from educational progressivists on Twitter and LinkedIn who do not like Bennett’s approach. Unfortunately for them, Fazackerley has a patchy record for veracity and it soon became apparent that the government and the new education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, had no such plans. Asked by Nick Ferrari on LBC about reports of Bennett’s possible sacking, Phillipson stated:

“I genuinely have no idea where that report has come from because, no, that is not the case.”

In another interview with Kay Burley on Sky News, Phillipson backed the need for schools to be able to expel students when necessary and implied that the current system was basically sound:

“There should be safeguards around that. There are safeguards around that.”

However, the old adage that, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on,” seems to be appropriate here. Those who read the initial article seems blissfully unaware of Phillipson’s attempts at correction and at least one school leader was forced to field questions about the supposed change of approach:

It is hard to understand how a journalist could make such a basic error. Perhaps judgment was clouded by campaigning zeal? The original article in The Observer ran extensive comments by Anne Longfield, a campaigner and former children’s commissioner, and it is tempting to see it as an attempt by Longfield and Fazackerley to bounce the new government into a position. If so, it backfired badly, with Phillipson and the Labour team being more wily and informed than assumed by the would-be bouncers. A salutary tale.

Substacks of the week

I have three Substacks other than my own, to recommend to you this week.

The first is a piece by Rebecca Birch, exploring the PISA creativity assessments that I have commented on previously. However, Birch goes into more depth and includes some interesting comments from the big boss, John Sweller.

The second is an American perspective on working memory and teachers knowledge of its implications by Holley Korbey over at The Bell Ringer. The skinny is that American teachers don’t seem to have been taught much about working memory when training or during professional development. I would argue this extends to most teacher worldwide, a worrying thought when working memory places such basic limits on learning.

The third post is by Daisy Christodoulou over at No More Marking. In this post, Christodoulou reflect on the advent of AI and the truthy-sounding argument that we should not give students assessments that a computer could do. She outlines three reasons why this is wrong, with the third being quite a profound point on the nature of assessment that all teachers should grapple with.

Library of the week

Image via AI

Should state-funded libraries exercise political neutrality? The answer would seem to be an obvious, ‘yes.’ However, there are those who disagree.