(Image via Stowe Boyd from Flickr) “The human mind is an overconfidence machine.” David Brooks, The Social Animal Overconfidence is dangerous. How many ill-judged wars, invasions, crashes, economic downturns and worse, have been initiated by confident fools? Now, such overconfidence provokes such massive global catastrophes, but it also triggers trivial daily problems for us all. […]
Overconfidence – Explaining it Away Read More »
I have the following image to start a couple of assemblies at school. My question for students: what emotions is the woman at the centre of this image experiencing? Negative answers abound: she is invariably lonely and sad. Such assumptions about standing aside from the crowd pervades our culture. We want to be picked first in
The Introvert Teacher Read More »
(Image via David Morris on Flickr.com) “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881) Going to university to study English Language and
Who do you think you are? Read More »
In the midst of final lessons with year 12 students, a last push on essays for year 13 and the general stress of a hectic exam season, I have had another consideration… I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of my new book. I am delighted to say that my new book, ‘The Confident Teacher: Developing Successful
Introducing…’The Confident Teacher’ Read More »
Sometimes a social media story goes viral for all the right reasons. It is just enough aslant from conventional opinion that the headline grabs your attention and you click the link and delve in to read. This CNBC story, of the Princeton professor who ‘posted his CV of failures for the world to see‘, managed
“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify … into every corner of our minds.” John Maynard Keynes Knowledge is power, without doubt. What is an education if not the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. And yet, we should be mindful of the rather
Breaking Beyond Our Old Ideas Read More »
I imagine reading through the 44,000 responses to Nicky Morgan’s ‘workload challenge’ was tantamount to climbing a wind-whipped mountain for some unfortunate staff at the Department for Education. It is no doubt ironic that it compares with the angst-inducing marking pile of many of those teachers who took their precious time to respond to the ‘challenge’. Still,
The Mountain of Teacher Workload Read More »
