What Are We Teaching? Powerful knowledge, capabilities, and teacher autonomy – with Richard Bustin

Hello humans and humanoids, and welcome to another episode of the Rethinking Education Podcast. Education's critical friend. My name is James Manning.

İzlediğiniz için teşekkür ederim.

The real David Cameron indeed. How are you the real David Cameron? What's been going on in your neck of the woods? Well, I've been having a very exciting time because I went on holiday. Um but People really don't want to hear about what a fabulous time I had on the beaches of Corsica, especially when they're still in term time. Uh so Friday I Friday or Thursday last week I did a morning session with a group of school business managers.

I'm always hugely impressed when I work with these people. I think they've got so much that they can bring to our views as schools. I think they can do so much in terms of the running of schools. And I don't think they really get the appreciation that they deserve a lot of the time. Um one of the standing jokes is that they don't have job descriptions, they just have boxes for collecting unwanted tasks that nobody else wants to do.

I think they're much misunderstood, much underrated, and I think they can often bring a really quite stark uh commonsensical view of what's actually going on in school. So I was really heartened again with this particular group because they absolutely confirmed all of my views and business managers and their potential. Hmm. Very cool. And what about you? Well, so goodness, it's been a while. I suppose one recent thing is that I was at the Festival of Education.

Friday at the Festival of Education. It doesn't even need a name, it's just the one. Have you ever been to it, the one at Wellington College? No, no, no. Right. Oddly enough, I've never been invited. Well, that's surely only a matter of time. So so it's a just the setting first of all is

I mean, I've been to many like lovely looking leafy independent schools, but nothing comes even close to Wellington. It is like it's just the most extraordinary place physically to be in. It's like you're in some theme park like it's just crazy um and Yeah, so so I was invited to do a to to take part in a panel discussion about community led school leadership, which was very interesting with Shane Leaning, who's just co authored a very interesting book about change.

Um and there were Sam Chrome was on the panel who wrote an interesting book about teams, the power of teams recently, and Sam Gibbs, who works at a uh A school um trust in Manchester, and Catherine Taylor, who's very interesting, who um recently finished her PhD. And she interviewed me about my change book a while ago on Teachers Talk Radio and Little Old Me. And so we were in one of the tents, it's all in tents. There's just like this series of.

of tents. It's like they just they they don't want to use they don't want to sully their beautiful buildings with the oikes. And so they just set up a series of like it's like a little posh refugee camp. Maybe that's a little unfair. But anyway, we're we're all in tent outside. Uh the odd one within the great and the good get to speak in the big halls. So so I so I went to a QA after that with Becky Francis. Um

Um who's obviously the chair of the ongoing curriculum and assessment review. And it was billed as a QA, but actually there was very little QA action. It was there was a panel and basically lots of people sort of talk. And she nodded a lot and didn't really say anything at all until the last five minutes or so. And then there were a couple of questions in the audience.

Um the forest of hands went up, as you can imagine, when people said who's got any questions? And so it was quite frustrating that we didn't really seem to actually get Um and then I I went to a really interesting session with Sarah Selesnyov, who I used to work with briefly, and then I ended up taking on her job when she left the Institute of Education.

Uh and she went off and became the co-head teacher of of a really interesting primary school in in London called School 360. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Interesting. Super interesting, yeah, which she co-leads with Andy Sylvester. They do some absolutely wonderful work and they're part of the big education truck.

Um and Sarah's talk, I was sitting next to her in the Becky Francis session and we were sort of equally frustrated by it and just by the general shape that that curriculum review seems to be taking. It seems to be quite conservative. They don't really seem to be looking at

at all looking at curriculum. I don't know. We'll we'll see how it we'll see how it shapes up. But anyway, Sarah's talk was really interesting. And she started by just saying like here are some curriculum models from around the world. And so she shared all these like visuals of all of these all of these curriculum models from Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Canada, wherever, like loads of

And they were all very similar. And they're all basically what what Sarah and the people at the Big Education Trust call part head and hand, right? So there's of course like core knowledge and literacy and maths and what have you. Like there always is. And then there's lots of stuff about character education, lots of stuff about like emotional regulation, about ethics and values.

Um, you know, collab cooperative learning, project-based learning. Some of it's tailored to different areas of the world, like you know, in Australia, there's a big slice of it, which is all all these international curriculum models and then gets to the like England side and it just says like there's like three bullets on it. But it's like learning is a change in long term memory.

subject based learning is basically it's the knowledge rich curriculum is it and that's basically it, right? And and it really just was Very striking that that we are in that position, and and this is perhaps more of a concern for me than it is for you, because you know there are different emphases. In Wales and in Scotland and in Northern Ireland as we as we found recently in our amazing um poor nation.

Um but it really is a thin gruel, I think, the the the English education system, the English curriculum. And Liz Robinson, who is also a part of big education, she was on that panel with Beck Becky Francis and she was saying like with the the very notion of curriculum as something that is just taught through subject. It's a really narrow interpretation of curriculum. She's like for me, the curriculum is like everything that the child experiences.

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So Tim Brighouse, the gaps in the hedges. And she was like, In amongst this, there is loads of really interesting stuff happening in this country that you don't hear much about because people are just sort of quietly getting on with this stuff behind closed doors. And she gave loads of really rich examples of um, you know, at their school, for example

London and the kids don't really have much contact with nature and they're like, we really think that k that connection to nature is hugely important. So they dug up their playground and they grew like a community allotment. Do all of this stuff growing food that they then cook in the kitchens. Um she was talking about us and she did this survey touching upon about maybe twenty plus schools dotted around the country.

There is one of them that they they teach democracy by taking the kids instead of having like an enrichment week in year eight, all of the kids um build a village. So they give them loads of wood and some tools and some tarpaulins and stuff. and cooking equipment and they have to self organise and they have to build a village

and build some shelters. And like some of them have got tools, some of them have got cooking equipment, some of them have got fire making stuff. And they have to like barter and trade between themselves so that everybody gets what they want. They have these long winded meetings of an evening in the cooperative tradition where they sort of

you know, litigate any any, you know, issues arising and what have you. And it's just fully immersive, like, you know, a week of living intense, which those kids will never forget. You know, and this is in a mainstream absolutely. Um and there are loads of very innovative things that that are happening, even within the the very tight constraints of the English education.

And so I suppose the thing that I've been really thinking about off the back of that is just this idea of yeah, the the so the the so called knowledge rich curriculum that we hear so much about. Indeed it's on like powerful knowledge appears on the front cover of the the person that we're speaking to today.

Is therefore an un an unbalanced curriculum, right? Is it's there if it's rich in knowledge, then what is it pouring? It's pouring other things, right? And other things that are that are arguably as important or even more. And so I've been reflecting on that a lot.

And that that's incredibly timely because of the conversation we're having today with with Richard Bustin. Um and I think there'll be lots in that conversation. But we've got other things that we're looking forward to because after we've done Richard today

Yes, indeed. So is it actually this month? Is it the next one that we're that we'll be interviewing? So yeah, so we're talking about Richard's book today. What are we teaching? I apologise for the blurry image for those of you uh who are watching this. What are we teaching? Powerful knowledge. And a capabilities curriculum. That's what's up today. Uh very interesting book that Richard's written. And then next up we have Jazz Ampore Far um talking about her recently published book.

Because of you, this is me, the stories we tell, the stories we change, and the power of everyday heroes. And I had Jazz on the podcast. I can't remember when it was, but it was not recently. And she was writing this book then. So it's been quite some time in the making, I think.

And and just for the benefit of our listeners and viewers to tantalise you uh about this next episode, which will be a bell to jazz is one of the one of the most listened to episodes from the back catalogue. But the the blurb on the back of the book reads thusly. Growing up in poverty and neglected and abused by her own mother and stepfather

Jazz Amporphar was destined to become a statistic. Her story was changed, however, by five teachers who made a point of putting human connection first despite the challenges of the education system. Because of these people, Jazz went on to become a teacher, writer and award winning speaker Very much so. She's hugely hugely in demand. Through celebration and provocation, she galvanizes educators into embracing the difference that they can make when they too put being a human first.

In this book, Jazz shares her story, often harrowing but always uplifting, to show how the everyday heroes in our schools can transform the lives of the children who need their help most. essential reading for all educators. Um so yes, Jazz is up next. Yeah, and I'm so delighted. We Jazz and I have history. Um and hopefully she might even tell this story, but um Tim Brighouse and I were doing a teach meet years and years ago.

And at that point Jazz was a phonic specialist, that's what she spoke about. And that's the contribution she was gonna make. And then I did the traditional real David Cameron rant. Um and for some reason Jazz decided that that meant she wanted to do something different. So she didn't talk about phonics, she talked about the stuff that's now, I think, coming up in the book.

And she's been very generous about about that. Um and I've just been so proud that I've played any part at all in getting her absolute beh moth of a career off the ground. She is an unstoppable force. She's a fabulous person. She is the absolute queen of marketing. I mean she will run rings around the two of us and um we'll be asking questions.

She'll still manage to promote that book. She'll have it in the bestseller list in every format known to man. And she deserves that. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. So we're looking forward to that one, as you can probably tell. Um but today we have Richard Bustin and so without further ado, let's let's dive in, shall we? Yes indeed. Hope you enjoy the show.

Richard Bustin, welcome to the Rethinking Education podcast. Thank you for having me. You're very welcome. And it's not just any episode. I don't know if you're aware of this. Prob almost certainly not. But today, as my post-it note is reminding me, stuck to my screen, is the one hundredth episode of the Rethinking Education. When I mentioned that to my son yesterday, he said, that's a lot of waffle.

And it is, it's a it's an extremely it's an extremely large unit of waffle, 100 of these conversations. So welcome to this to this special episode. Um it's good to have you with us. Thanks very much. And we're not for a minute suggesting that you're here to add to the waffle. We we think you've got we we think you've got more to contribute than that, Richard. But welcome from me too. Thank you.

I don't feel like I need to apologise for waffle. I think that waffle is something to aspire to rather than to to regret. Only if it's Belgian waffle. Yes, those things are addictive. Hey. So so we're here today, Richard, to speak about your fascinating but uh what are we teaching powerful knowledge and a capabilities curriculum um and we're gonna get to that but um i'd like to start by taking you back to your own education if i may

Where did you go to school? What kind of a what kind of a student was the young Rich? Uh well I went to school at uh in a private school, um school called the Royal Grammar School in Guildford in Surrey, uh which was uh uh a selective. private school, um boys' school, and it still is, um, in Surrey. Um and I guess that's significant because actually I had uh what you probably would describe as a relatively traditional um education. Uh we had lots of uh subject specialists uh as our teachers.

Um and uh and and I worked very hard. Um it was a it was a selective school and I and I and I I guess I kinda just about scraped in, I think. I always felt that everyone else was uh much hard much more hard working, much brighter than than me. But I guess that spurred me on a little bit.

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Right. Okay. What what drew you to geography? Um, I've always been interested in in geography. I think I had great geography teachers and I think that's always uh one of one of the reasons why I've become a geography teacher myself. um that uh no one becomes a geography teacher by accident. And I think he's right in that sense. I think it is

one of those subjects where um the people who become geography teachers have this real passion about the world and about um global politics and about global responsibility and I think that's what drives people into into teaching it. Um And I did a lot of traveling as well as a as a young person. I was in the scouts and I had the chance to go. When I was sixteen, I went to Chile uh and Argentina. Um and that opened my eyes to to

for the first time really to other people, other places, other cultures, other other parts of the world. I follow that up with trips to the Gambia in West Africa. Um and I and I've always been interested in travel and I think travel and geography go together really well because you get to suddenly see things that you've been taught about in the s in school and suddenly there was that little diagram in the textbook and suddenly here it is playing out in front of me.

Um and I think being a scout leader then when I turned eighteen I became a scout leader and that meant that I was then able to take these young people out on trips and show them stuff and I really thought this is really cool, I can show people stuff that I'm passionate about and I guess from there becoming a teacher was probably fairly inevitable. Yes, yeah, okay.

So so another thing that I am very interested in is this idea of significant learning. And that is that is often defined as like just the learning that matters, like the learning that shapes you as a person that changes you in some way. And so and and usually when you ask this, people can sort of identify like two or three moments

that have really shaped them as people. And it might be a moment, it might be a conversation that you had, it could be a book or a person. I wonder if there's anything that stands out as you look back over your life that like where the the bits where the twists and turns What comes to mind is that you're not going to be able I think one of them, as a geographer, was when I went out to the Gambia in West Africa, I mentioned a moment ago.

And I remember watch looking around me and seeing the that the fields around were full of rice fields and all the women would go out'cause it was mainly the women would be out. Um, picking the rice, harvesting the rice, and yet in the town I was visiting and staying in, there were bags of rice for sale, but they were all grown and made in China.

I remember thinking, Well, that's really weird. I'm surrounded by rice fields and yet the rice I'm buying has been imported and carted across uh vast uh swathes of of of probably semi-desert to get to this location. So I just thought as a geographer I found that really fascinating, how we could be surrounded by rice fields and yet the the rice I was buying was from somewhere else. So I guess that was one of those moments where I I I guess I really became a geographer.

um because I really wanted to try and think about what was going on in terms of of of economics, in terms of um global trade to enable um to enable that to be to be the case. So I guess uh from a geo from a geographical point of view, that was something that fascinated me. Um educationally there's uh what started me off on on once I started teaching, I then did a master's degree in geography education and that led me on to my to my lastly to my PhD, which I did part-time while

Um teaching. And there's a book that I read called Corruption: The Corruption of the Curriculum. And I'm I I cite this book and I talk about it in my own book. Um because this is a it's it's a fascinating book about essentially what the the writers it's a multi authored book. Each chapter s is on a different subject, each chapter is taken by a different writer. It was published in two thousand and eight, which I think is significant.

Um and what basically the writers are arguing is that the sub the traditional academic subjects have been hijacked. Uh by uh good causes. So there's a chapter about geography, which called Geography Used to Be About Maps, written by Alex Dandish, who is a geograffy educationist at UCL Institute of Education. And his argument is that geography used to be about maps, which I guess is provocative in itself. Now it's a vehicle, he argues, for environmentalism and for multiculturalism.

Um and I and I and I sort of say it's a sort of anti woke job as anti woke education book before woke was ever even a turn. Um and I don't agree with all the things in the book. at all, uh actually, but I like the book. I like the fact that it was really punchy. I like the fact that it was really spiky. It was really trying to make a point about the nature of this thing we call curriculum. And it really started me off on this journey that I've been on for over a decade now with research.

reading stuff, being interested in in this battle of what we choose to teach our children in the classroom and the fact that it of course it's completely political, it's highly uh at charged, but also it's it's about teachers making decisions and people making decisions about what we want to try and do and why we're and why we're doing that. And I think

And what I learnt from that book really is that as a teacher, I've got to make some decisions here. I've got to make some really important decisions about what we're doing and why we're doing it. And I often worry I wonder whether everyone's actually realising that actually we can make those decisions as teachers and we can have that agency to

uh to to make those calls rather than allowing other people to make those decisions for us, of course, and just following it through naturally. So that book, Corruption of the Curriculum, really started me off on this uh on on my research journey.

Brilliant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I think you've you've done a superb job there, Richard, because yw wedi cael ei wneud arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall arall.

Um, I'm fascinated though because I mean your book's really challenging. I think your book is also incredibly intellectually rich. It's full of references. Um it draws in a wide range of research. It's rich in ideas, it's full of debate. Um Not an easy sell in a world that's kind of, as you point out, it's dominated by brevity and and shallowness. So I'm intrigued. What was your elevator pitch to the publisher? Yeah.

Um I guess the the the the thing I made to the sa said to the publishers was that um I wanted to write a book about what w what we choose to teach. I mean what's interesting is when when the book um finally came out. Of course we were right at the start of this curriculum and assessment review that the g the that the Labour government are undertaking. I'd love to say this was done a great plan of mine.

Um, I somehow managed to foresee that this would happen, but of course that wasn't the case. You know, it takes a year or so to get the book from production through. Um, but it was the timing of the publication was. um I think really, really valuable because at the time my book landed, there were these discussions going on about what are we teaching and how are we assessing what we teach and and and so it fed into that narrative.

Um I also think it's important to have a book um that that talks about what we're teaching. Again, AI i every every second book that seems to be out is about AI now. And my book isn't about AI at all.

um it's it's it's it asks a more fundamental question really which is sort of what are we trying to do and why are we trying to do it. I think it follows on naturally from um some other books. So uh Mark Enser wrote a book called Powerful Geography and it's by the same Crown House publishers, the same publishers.

Um and so I think there was it was there was a natural uh in Mark Ens' book he talks about basically the importance of geography as a school subject, which is something I've written about. Um what my book tries to do is to say, well, okay, what does that look like in other subjects? Can we can we use this framework? Uh to discuss the importance of other subjects. So I guess there was something new that that I was trying to do there. Plus, I'd had a bit of a chance.

to um go out and talk to teachers. And I guess that was that was my pitch to the publishers. It was about what it why are subjects important? What are they trying to do in a curriculum? Um and can we articulate that really clearly? And if we can't, which is what I had sort of got a bit of a sense that we couldn't, that is also quite interesting in in and of itself.

That that was a very tall building that that elevator was in. Sorry, yes, it was clearly. We're clearly talking Empire State Elevator here, Richard. But but I think My my intention was to to follow that up by saying to you that since we're also opposed to brevity and shallowness, tell us a bit more about your book. So I'll now give you the opportunity to do that.

Okay. What what my book asks is what are we teaching? And um it takes it it is research led. So what I was able to do was to speak across three schools to rooms full of their all their teaching staff, their secondary schools. Um and I've got everyone sat in their departments and and I said, Okay, if we took your subject off the curriculum, what are students going to miss out on?

And it wasn't a case of trying to say, well, they're going to miss out on, oh, my my subject does leadership, my subject does responsibility. I said want to make sure they all do that in some way. Actually, what is it specifically that your subject offers on a curriculum that no other subject does?

And I've used a framework of this thing we call powerful knowledge, which is from the ideas of Michael Young. I've used a framework of ideas around this idea of capabilities. Um, but actually forget the framework of thought at it at its heart and at the fundamental level. That is what this book is about. Can you say why is art, for example, a school subject on the career?

If we took it off, what are the children going to miss out on? What is it, the unique knowledge, skills and values that that subject gives that no other subject is able to give? And I went to the first school and I did this and I had a really rich, lovely bit of data.

Um I then went and did it again at a second school and I found something rather interesting, which was that teachers, even though they're teaching the same subject, are are articulating that with the value of their subject in different ways.

Um and I just found that quite interesting. And then I did it again in a third school, then I had a a third set. And when I put the three next to each other, so the three sets, for example, of math teachers next to each other, the three sets of um history teachers next to each other. Yes, you can pick out some common traits, but actually some of them were taking some quite fundamentally different approaches, and yet they are teaching the same subject in different schools.

Um art, I think, was probably the one I often cite from my from my from the data I've got. um as being the ones that were most different actually. Some s one of the art teachers said, Well there's nothing really unique about what we're doing at all. We're we're simply exemplifying or i echoing what other people are doing, other subjects are doing.

Another sub another art teacher in the other school said, no, actually there is something really fundamental in art about creativity and about um expression of of emotions and and and and they articulated in a different way. And I thought there's an interesting story to tell here because if these are experienced teachers working every day in schools and they can't and they can't agree on what they're trying to do.

That that is quite an interesting um idea in and of itself. So I then discussed what they said through the lens of uh this idea of powerful knowledge, which is an idea from fr from Michael Young, which I'm sure we can expand on, um and leave and and through capabilities just to try and get the idea of of of why these subjects are as they are in a career.

You absolutely are going to get the chance to explore powerful knowledge because coming up it's James Mannion in the powerful knowledge question. Right. So so before we do that, uh I'm just interested to hear your thoughts. So this variation Troubling or like s surprising or like

Like in some sense it's it doesn't seem to me just like without having without having, you know, had the experience that you had, it doesn't seem that surprising that there would be variation if you ask if you ask people the same question, you're gonna get a range of answers.

I I I just think that it's sort of like do do you do you think that it's a problem that that people have this do you think that we have it should have greater uniformity of understanding within within the teaching profession as to what it is that we're doing? I think

w a little bit of difference is is inevitable. And one of the things that I that I do in the book is I explore our ideological perspectives. And I think some of the differences between the ways the teachers are thinking can be related back to differences in ideology. So actually I mentioned um w uh right earlier on about that that the corruption of the curriculum and then but that book that I read. And in in a sense if you

If you see your subjects and if for my own subject, geography, i you can definitely argue there are lots of geography teachers who see their role as being an agent for change. They want to teach radical geography, they want to get children to really question and challenge and and and hold flags up and and and hold banners up and say, Hey, we want to challenge

what we've seen here. Whereas other geography teachers will go, actually no, it's let's let's take a step back. Let's talk about the scientific basis behind various decisions. And those are different ideological perspectives and those are different ways of seeing. What I one I want what I try to do whether to go, well, okay, are all the teachers from school A um talking through a particular ideology that perhaps the school is has um has

put on the teachers. And I couldn't find any evidence of that. So these are not ideologies that are coming through particularly from a school perspective. These are these are ideologies I guess that that teachers have

with them when they when they arrive in the classroom. So that was I guess my my one of the ways that I tried to explain that. But sure, absolutely, you are gonna get differences. But I think at a fundamental level, being able to try and say, actually this is what we're trying to do As art teachers or as French teachers, I think it's probably quite it'd be good to have some sort of conformity.

Interesting bef you know b before we go back to the the powerful knowledge piece you talk about ideologies other people in that context would talk about value And the values that schools will often have are around respect or tolerance or you talk in the book about about British values and you enumerate some of the things around that. And arguably if you're starting with that values framework, then that should inform somebody.

It does because schools will look for somebody to teach geography in a way that's aligned with the values that they have set out for the school as a whole. So, you know, it what is that difference between ideologies and values? I guess ideologies it sits at a slightly I I guess at a slightly broader level. So the uh through the ideology are things like a child centred ideology, for example, which says

um uh it where where actually what's important there is about the the maturation of the child. It's about making sure that our curriculum n is a nurturing curriculum that that nurtures the child. Under that sort of scenario, if if everyone bought in within a school to that sort of a child centred

Um and y I guess you could argue that that the the values you were talking about there about responsibility, uh, et cetera, could could be in some sort of ideological perspective. But I think that they're more they're I think slightly more detailed. I think ideologies sit as a kind of

slightly broader level because so child centred ideology probably would have a lot of those values that you just mentioned about responsibility and respect and and all the learning behaviours, perhaps as I would call them. Um whereas other ideologies would be things like your liberal liberal humanist about or or vocational, where actually it's all about preparing children for the workplace.

Now again, if you have a vocational ideology, sure you might find your back to responsibility um and all those and team building, all that sort of stuff again. What what I'm in what I'm interested in is where subjects sit in with that because some of them subjects become a happy bedfellow, they become a happy way of of of getting through these things we want to in the curriculum. But actually in other cases

um they're not. They sort of get in the way a bit. They they but they buff it up against it. If you're trying to do a child centered curriculum and the role of a of a you know, if I went to a school and I said and I said you're teaching geography, actually you're not really teaching geography, you're actually here to make sure the children develop this particular way of thinking, then I go, no, I'm here to teach geography.

But here's the thing, see if you can teach geography really well, of course you naturally develop these other things. So all the bits of the curriculum are always there. It's just what's leading and how we get to the other things. I think that's what I've been interested in, how it all fits together. But I mean, interestingly, you were very specific.

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between some of the terminology and and some of the ideas that you use. But I think it'd be helpful to get back to the the roots and the basics and explore the key idea a a around powerful knowledge. So James

Yeah, okay. Yes, let's dive in. So so powerful knowledge is this phrase that's we've heard a lot of, right, in recent years and there's been this the the knowledge turn as you might call it, the the knowledge rich curriculum that everybody speaks so much Especially it's an English thing really. That's really happened in English education more so than I'm sure there are people around the world who are equally interested.

Um and as David mentioned earlier, I once had Michael Young on the podcast for a couple of hours and I met him. Um we had a very lovely lunch in the London Park once and he's a lovely guy. Um but I do must admit I struggle with the concept of powerful knowledge, I just sort of I don't fundamentally get what why it why why it's powerful. What is it that makes some knowledge powerful? And how do you discern it from non powerful

And so I just wonder if you can help me. I genuinely I I this is not like a ruse, like I genuinely want to understand. I feel like I'm missing something. You help me understand what powerful knowledge is. So my understanding of of powerful knowledge and I do think I should say that it is one of those s s concepts that

um does seem to have taken on a bit of a life of its own. And people talk about it in different ways. And sometimes I read things about powerful knowledge and I go, That's not my understanding of it. And I think it that always that often happens I think when someone comes up with an idea and it then gets picked up elsewhere and it and it takes on a bit of a of a life of its own. Um I guess what I'm what I mean by it and what I think Michael Young means by it

um is it's knowledge which is somehow better and has a greater claim to validity and truth than other types of knowledge. So in my so going back to m going back to geography, just'cause that's kind of where where I'm at. Um

someone could sit and type something that is about geography and in their home and put it up on the internet and and then NASA could come out and say something else. And and what powerful knowledge would do is it would say, Well hang on, let's hang on a minute. Let's look at where this has come from.

And let's try and say actually th th the NASA stuff has a greater claim to validity and truth because it's come from a group of people who are a specialised have a specialist way of understanding the world. and therefore their claims to knowledge and truth are rigor more rigorous and more specialized than someone

Typing something on their own. Now it doesn't mean it's not of use of the per that person who puts the blog post up, doesn't mean not of use, but it just it just it says Uh actually this is we've got this community of people who are thinking in a certain way, a disciplinary way, um and using their disciplinary expertise to create claims to to truth.

And that therefore becomes more powerful than people who are just writing anything else in its own way. It is one of those concepts that has been quite heavily criticized because I think it works really well for the science. So Michael Young himself was a former school chemistry teacher. And I think that you you can tell that because what it says in chemistry is that someone create or in in a science, someone cre

creates a scientific experiment following the rules and the norms of science, you know, that kind of methodology, clamp down the variables, change one variable, look at it, change another variable, look at it. It's a rigorous process and then you can use that and you create a claim about how the world works in some way.

Um someone comes along a bit later on, does the same thing or does something slightly different and makes a greater claim. That is then better knowledge. The old knowledge is gone, that's better knowledge, and over and over time we get increased. um rigor, I guess, through through that process. And Michael Young tries to capture that and he says, look, that is what is um it makes knowledge uh better than other knowledge.

Um it works really well for science and I think and and I wanted to explore ha whether it was applicable in other subjects because actually even within geography there's a problem with that idea of better knowledge. There is a problem and the scientific stuff is great. But what about different and and I guess and I've saw this in literature as well. Actually, what about other interpretations, different interpretations? Is that better? Is that not?

So I guess the the key thing going back going back to your question, it it is is knowledge that has come from that disciplinary understanding about how knowledge is made within different subjects. So the way that a scientist thinks is different to the way that an artist will think. And that is different to the way that a linguist will make sense of

of of truth. And so it respects those disciplinary boundaries, which is why um subjects and subject teachers are quite key to the process, because if you're being taught um a subject by someone who is not a subject specialist. Yes, they can go through the motions and get two pages ahead in the textbook, but are they actually it you know getting you to think through and through the means that and the way that the subject works. And I wonder if then necessarily we always uh we always do that.

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Right. Okay. Thank you. That was actually helpful for me. I've not really heard people talk about it in those terms. Like like often people talk about it's like it's knowledge that takes the child beyond their own experience or their own context or whatever. And uh I know that y yeah, the the the the emphasis on disciplinary

um knowledge comes up a lot. And so you're sort of suggesting that it's it's A it's discipline it's it's knowledge that's rooted in discipline that that that that survives some sort of uh scrutiny of like like that that that can be held up to be true Yeah, and I think that is a different and it's different, of course, within each within each subject. And each subject does that in a slightly different way.

Um and that's why going back to that work I did with the s with the teachers was quite interesting because actually that idea of disciplinary knowledge about how how meaning is made within subjects is different and and can we grasp that, can we um articulate that and more importantly can we teach that to our students? I mean interestingly, um what you're talking about, I think, is validity. Um and you you you do a very interesting you've just done a very interesting thing.

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use these five terms necessarily, but in the book, these are the five concepts that essentially define validity. And you argue, I think, that that validity increases the power of the knowledge. Um my concept of powerful knowledge, not not based on on Michael Young's work, is the knowledge which allows you to manipulate and deploy other knowledge.

So in a sense conceptual knowledge and understanding becomes powerful. And in the context of geography, you would be able to identify lots of conceptual knowledge which would allow you to make sense. Oh other knowledge. Um and that kind of knowledge gives one power. So it's like it it's an interesting dichotomy, I think. Um because essentially your definition of power and presumably Michael Young's is centred around that idea of validity and authoritative.

Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n? Um, it is fair. I mean and also going back to to you know to what James was saying about taking children beyond their everyday, I mean I think there is that idea that

Children don't know everything. Um, and we have to, as teachers and educators, take them beyond their everyday. But that doesn't mean that we ignore their their everyday experiences, particularly in a subject. um I guess uh l like like geography. I mean that children have got they they watch the news, they get a sense of what's going on. Um and I guess to a certain extent, you know, literature, they've all they've all read stuff.

Um we shouldn't dismiss that. But uh but if we're only ever helping them to make sense of what's in front of them, do we really give them the tools and skills to be able to, as as you articulated there, go beyond the everyday? But just not doing that in some way that is um I I I guess sort of random, but actually has some sort of a thought process and a structured way of thinking through things um

uh as well. That that's yeah, that th that would be the the sense of what it is. What's interesting there've been plenty of books that have chapters on powerful knowledge and I so in my book I've called my my my chapter Whatever happened to powerful knowledge because actually yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n I found it as as a school teacher, I found it really useful because what it enabled me to do was to articulate

um why my subject is on the curriculum. Now there have been people saying, well, we don't need the word power. The word power, i you know, that you're right. There's that authoritarian notion of that word power is quite um is quite antagonizing for for for some people. And I can understand that. Michael Young is Michael Young's word. He used it because his previous work was all about knowledge of the powerful. His first book said all h all no knowledge is a human construct.

It's created and written by people who are in control. Um, so all therefore it is always knowledge of the powerful. The problem with that idea is that you then dismiss anything anyone says, or there's a danger that you might start dismissing anything anyone says. Because if all knowledge is a human construct.

What Michael Young says is, well, you know, it doesn't all have equal claims to validity. Actually, some of it is more valid uh and and better than others. And he calls that powerful knowledge. Um but there is still that inescapable idea that if if if if those subject communities are writing things within their own discourse and their own disciplinary understanding, can you ever really escape

some of that power and control and and certainly for geography, you know, geography is written by people who go around the world planting flags and have a white male often way of looking at the world. And and have we as fully escaped that? Rydyn ni. Rydyn ni. Rydyn ni. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â phobl. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â phobl. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â phobl. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â phobl.

And I'm not dismissing those. I'm not I'm not trying to suggest for one moment that these are that that that it that it that somehow we dis we dismiss that. Um I think and and I think one of the other ways when you talk about author is authoritarianism is where does the authority sit? And I my argument is that it's not some academic discourse that's sitting way up above in the clouds and we're just here. Actually what Michael Young argues is that this is a curriculum construction.

You as the jo as the teacher in the classroom, you are the one that ha it that holds uh some of that power. So actually if as a geography teacher you're sat there in the classroom um and you've got this wonderful um piece of of indigenous knowledge

uh about a way that that uh uh an indigenous community makes sense of the world. Of course that can be powerful. It's how you use it with the class and how you do you you present it to them you could do that with literature um from parts of the world and other areas but the point is that you are the specialist.

And you know how to handle that with the class. You're not presenting it to the students saying, Here we are, kids, this is the way the world works. You're saying, What do you think about this view of the way the world works compared to this view? But the power is with you as the teacher. And of course that then empowers the students. So I think rather than being afraid of it and seeing as some sort of

top down, this is the way the world works, this is the way your subject works. Actually it's an empowering concept. That's why I that's why I liked it. But I think some people have interpreted it as this as this way of saying, well, down from on high, people say this is what my subject must be, therefore that's how I'm going to teach you.

And I'm not sure that that's sort of the the message that Michael Young gives. I think Michael Young is very much about empowering teachers as curriculum leaders.

Mm. Well there's a reason why it's called the Copernican Revolution. Um and and I think that would be true of an awful lot of knowledge. You know, it's called the Copernican Revolution because Copernicus challenged the the powerful and established knowledge of his time.

You know, arguably that's exactly what the Einsteinian or Einsteinian or whatever revolution was. It was that challenge to the accepted knowledge and wisdom. If you look at the development of literature, the people who have become profoundly influential. are people like Joyce, for example.

who wrote in a different way, perceived things in a different way. You know, and and there will be examples. I think E. P. Thompson in history would be a classic example with the making of the English working class. And there will be, I think, parallels. So it's interesting, Michael Young's analysis of knowledge always being the property of the powerful. I think is is interesting in that regard. Um, because if that was the case, the earth would still be flat. You know, just interest.

It is interesting, but except I except I would disagree that the earth would still be flat because actually people have gone out and done further ex fur you know, th that idea of better knowledge, people have come out and had

They they've taken photographs of it. They've I talk a little bit about flat earth um in my book because actually that I I teach the flat earth stuff. I I my first lesson with my students, I tell them the earth is flat. And they go, no, no, it's not. So yeah, it is. What's your evidence that it isn't?

And of course they struggle because no one's ever they've never really thought about it in that way and I draw a line on the board and I go, Okay, here's my evidence that the earth is flat and I look out the window and go, number one, it looks flat. And then I do number two and I point to a map on the world on the wall and I go look the map is flat. And then do number three, um, I bring up the Flat Earth Society website and go, it has got a website. Number four, you can buy a t shirt.

Um and then they've got to try and argue against me. And of course when you start to pick out each one of those you can go, well just'cause something's got a t shirt doesn't mean but when they start to then go, well okay and then th it takes them a while to get there, but they don't eventually do. We talk about the rotation of the earth, they talk about

um you know the eclipse, we talk about the positioning of the moon, we talk about photography from a an organisation like NASA and who's funding them and where that's coming from and and slowly they they get this idea of as we were talking about earlier about different claims to to truth and and who might whi which groups and organisations and and and

where w what's more likely to be more truthful than others and actually the the strength of different arguments and and by the end of the lesson we get there and actually I you know I get them to then go and do a piece of work based on that. Um No, look looking at the different arguments either s either way.

I think Michael Young would say that argue of better knowledge. Sure at once we used to think the earth was flat. Interestingly, before people thought the earth was flat they also thought it was round. I mean the uh the the round earth thing goes right back to uh to ancient Greece, but I think

um yeah, people in positions of power will always try and manipulate the curriculum and and what what it's try what powerful knowledge I think it's trying to do is to escape that a little bit, to try and take it away from the individual people, more to a collective I mean I I haven't read the particular works you were talking about there, but I mean I even

when a when a historian's writing, I mean, they're probably still going to go through some sort of disciplinary procedure of history. I mean, you're still taking sources, you're still reading and analysing and interpreting and reinterpreting. um and having some sort of evidence basis. So you're still doing history.

Um, even though what you're saying might be different to what other historians have said, you're still you're you're still within those disciplinary rules of history, making new and and therefore I mean Michael Young would call that better knowledge, I guess. Yeah, but I would call it different different interpretations of knowledge. Yeah, but I think what I'm trying to get at, Richard, is the dynamic nature of knowledge and the transition of power.

because uh knowledge is only powerful till better knowledge comes along. That was the point I was making. yw'n yw'n y Flat Earth Society. I think that's something that we'll come back to. But I mustn't be self-indulgent around pursuing my own particular interests in Joyce and Copernicus. Um and and and let's get back to the book again.

Okay, so so thank you for that. So we've spent a bit of time on powerful knowledge. And just as a final piece on this, so there there's this there's this book that you mentioned quite a few times in your book, Knowledge in the Future School, which Michael uh Young co authored with David Lambert, who subsequently became your PhD supervisor. Um and they postulate like three future

versions of of of schools. Could you please just for the benefit of our listeners in case they haven't come across this before, could you please just like briefly sketch out what these three futures are and and how this relates to your

Sure. So the Three Futures idea is well it's it's a heuristic. It's uh it's this idea of it's it's just a kind of uh it's a mechanism through which we can think about things. It's not has a a kind of clear, definitive tick list of stuff, um I guess. It's actually from the work of Michael Young and Johann Müller. Um originally although of course uh day David Lambert does talk about it in his book. So they talk about three curriculum futures future one, future two and future three.

Um but rather than being in the future, these are curriculum visions that that exist. across lots of schools and lots of di you know a all around the time. So future one curriculum is I guess what we call a very highly traditional curriculum. So subject rigid rigid subject boundaries.

Um subject specialists absolutely, but kind of the aim it's almost knowledge for the sake of knowledge. It's knowledge the end point becomes have you managed to learn all those capital cities? Have you managed to learn all the different flags? Have you managed to learn that sequence of Um vocab, can you translate these pages? It's what we would call a very traditional uh view of curriculum.

Um, yes, absolutely knowledge rich, absolutely knowledge led, but kind of for the sake almost for the sake of it perhaps. The future two curriculum is the opposite of that. So if we want to reject that and go, Well, look, come on.

that's knowledge of the powerful, as Michael Young would describe it. Um what's the off opposite? Well the opposite's a future two curriculum, which ideologically would be very child centered. So subjects sort of get in the way a bit really. This is much more about um identifying a set of um values. Um we might talk about twenty first century skills, um, although quite why they're twenty first century. I mean that lots of those would be very useful in the fifteenth century.

um, you know, leadership responsibility, um all those other things and and and in a future two curriculum that is what leads the curriculum. You can still have subjects and you still have subject boundaries, you still have subject specialists, but they're not really teaching the subject anymore, or at least they are, but the end point is not for them to learn stuff uh if i within your subject, it's to develop these

you know teamwork, leadership, um an orosy done badly could fit in there potentially, where the lesson becomes about oracy, it doesn't become it doesn't become oresn't become a tool to develop geographical understanding, for example. So that fits into future two. And and what future three tries to do is say, Well look

Let's not let's not swing between future one and future two. There is this argument that different um certainly in this country, you know, you c you could sort of trace it back and go, Well, I wonder if there's some sort of political pendulum that keeps swinging back future one, future two, future one, this kind of holistic whole school child centered curriculum and then it gets thrown out and we go back to a knowledge rich curriculum and then it's pendulum swings again.

And is and what Future Three tries to say is well look, come on, there's gotta be um it's just a response to both of those. I I i some people say it takes the best of the both and I guess that that th that is a way of articulating.

But I think it's meant to be a response to it, which says, look, subjects are still important, knowledge is still important, but done in a way that the end point isn't learning the list of capital cities. The end point is enabling young people to think in certain ways about the world. And it's that's through that articulation of powerful knowledge.

that the future three curriculum exists. So within the future three curriculum you have your subject boundaries, you have your subject specialists teaching what makes their subject really important. And through that and through the pedagogies that that enables You're then getting children that will also develop to become really responsible and really uh you know free thinking and and critical thinkers.

But the end point is not necessarily just learning a load of facts. The endpoint becomes something much greater, which is um and what what I articulate that as and what David Lambert does is this notion of capabilities, this ab this ability to kind of use the knowledge. to enable a whole load of other ways of thinking, being, doing and seeing the world. And that's what Future Three tries to cap in tries to capture.

Got it. Okay, thank you. And that brings me neatly onto the next queen. I was going to go down the orrocy rabbit hole then, but I'm going to pull myself back from the brink. The... Yeah, so capabilities. Can you just explain a bit about what they are and how is this different to skills, for example? How is it different to like what's often referred to more internationally?

Than in this country, but like competencies, like the EU competencies, for example, what are capabilities and why are you so drawn to this? So capabilities comes from a slightly different place. Uh it comes from the work of Amati Sen um and Martha Neusbaum and others and in um welfare economics. Now Amarcha Sen went on to win a a Nobel Prize for his work.

Um and he wrote this paper in nineteen eighty I think called Equality of What and the whole point of his work is he said rather than judging the the if he's an economist who's saying look rather than judging the the the the

development and the success of a nation by how much GDP they're able to to generate and how much money they're able to put in. You can you can rank their you can rank countries based on their G D P he says, No, look at what what people in those countries are able to do, what freedoms they have to live life in the way that they choose to that they choose to live.

Um and he said when you turn it round, you have this idea of development as freedom. And in fact that was the title of his two thousand book, Development as Freedom. So when you translate that across into a curriculum, you say, look, rather than judging the success of a school or indeed an entire entire school system based on how many A grades or A to star, A, A to C grades a student gets.

Actually let's look at what how that education has enabled them to think in certain ways and to have freedom to think in their own ways, hence capability. So that's what it's for. So in other words, from my subject, so I was involved in a geo capabilities project, which was um the in fact there have been three iterations of that project now, and David Lambert, I've mentioned him already, uh, you know, has been heavily involved in in leading those projects.

We look to that from the subject of geography. So we'll look, what is it that geography gives young people? It's not just about getting an A star and an exam. It's about going on and and and being and doing in the world. And we call those geo capabilities.

And and to go and the reason why they're different to competencies is because they are rooted in their subject knowledge. That it comes from that subject knowledge. So one of the capabilities that I that I that that that I I I posit in there is something like critical thinking. Now

That could be a competency, but actually there is something very subject based about that. So the way that an artist will think critically about a painting is very, very different to the way that a scientist will think So critical thinking is different through different subjects. Now I'm not trying to suggest that there aren't common traits about you know they're looking at the source of knowledge. And I'm like yes, of course you can teach those.

But I but the real heart of it comes through subject knowledge. So all the capabilities that I um that I suggest for education capabilities are all ones that come from

the powerful knowledge of teaching uh of subjects. So if you can identify what makes your subject a powerful knowledge, And what is it uniquely that your subject is doing that no other subject on the curriculum is able to do, you're kind of saying, well that's what the that's what the capability is that it gives people the the opportunity to do and to think in those particular ways.

Um in terms of lists of capabilities, one of the interesting things about Amart Hussein is that he never created a list of what these cap freedoms might be in different countries.'Cause he says, actually it's not up to me, it's up to People, you know, people almost citizens need to decide what their freedoms are in their particular uh countries and in their particular settings to decide on what those are.

And I guess you could create a similar argument for education. It's far be it for me to write a list of here are educational capabilities. Some people have, um and I you know I talk about those in my book. Um and different people have tried over the time to come up with capabilities. But you're right, some of those do appear, and there is a real danger, of course, if we start with capabilities.

Because you end up back at a future two curriculum. You end up back going, Well, hang on, you you said you want to teach critical thinking. Okay, let's let that guide the curriculum and then th there there's a there's a question mark over well where do subjects fit into that. So I think th the point is you get your powerful knowledge of subjects, different subject teachers teaching their subject

Um and what what I did in my book is I got I got teachers to try and articulate what makes their subject to powerful knowledge. I then took from the three schools, I then said, Well, okay, these humanities teachers are talking about these ideas. I've come up with what I think that's powerful knowledge is is um within those different subjects. And then from those, really interestingly, there were similar traits that all of the subject teachers were sort of talking in different ways about

um, for example, students finding them themselves and having a relationship between themselves and the world uh and and understanding how that how that all fits together. Obviously they're all doing it in different ways. So maybe that's a broad Educational capability. All of them were talking about um critical thinking in different ways and the importance of getting students to think critically, whether that's through watching a piece of drama.

um and thinking and analysing what's going on or whether it's reading some literature or translating some text. or um even as much as on a sports field and thinking about where you stand and where the ball comes to you and where you're gonna pass it on, there's a kind of there's a level of thinking going on that's beyond just a superficial that they all try and tap into in some way. And so that I thought well perhaps that is a capability. But

So I've posited at the back end of my book, I've I've suggested a list of very tentative educational capabilities that that that come from the powerful knowledge of subject. Um but like everything in the book, it's it's all up for grabs. I mean I I hope

Um and I probably should have mentioned this earlier. I'm not here as some oracle. I mean I'm trying to I'm trying to represent what teachers have said, um, reflect on that, um, and I hope it starts conversations. That that's what I want. And actually I've already I've turned up to a conference and someone said to me

I've read your book. Um, I like this bit, but I don't like this. But you've got this subject bit wrong and I go, Brilliant, thank you for reading it, thank you for engaging, thanks for the feedback. And that's what uh that's what it's important about because this is I'm I'm suggesting something here.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. And so I think we want to get into into the um subject specialisms a bit. But before I hand over to David, there's if there's just to just to sort of frame the book in the context of this. Uh so you start the book with the so the first section in the introduction is is subtitled Have We Lost Our Way? And then the next sub the next subheading is a little bit more than a little bit.

We s we seem to have lost our way. So uh and then there's the thing about then the next thing is choose your team, the traditionalists versus the progressives. And I think that that sets up quite nicely, like like just a way to frame so first of all, why do you think we've lost our way and how does that relate to this future one, two, three?

And then frame how the how the how d how do how do you see the traditionalist versus the progressive sort of paradigms as overlaying those The future, or indeed, as you say, the present Sure. I mean I I guess I was trying to be deliberately provocative in the in the uh in that first bit. Um I guess the the point about the first bit of the book is that I think if we get stuck in this dichotomy between future one and future two,

that's where the problem lies. So you gotta you know, that that make that idea the future two but tends to be a bit more progressive, future one tends to be a bit more traditional. And it and and often that's where I I mentioned ideologies and they sort of sit up sit above those as well.

Um but I think often what what you would what you're trying to do is to you teach a traditional curriculum but through a sort of more progressive lens, you're trying to teach a progressive curriculum and through a sub rigid subject boundary and and the reason it doesn't always work and the reason why things fall through the cracks and uh is because

Um so the first part of the book suggests that, that actually sometimes we're we're trying to we we say, Oh yes, we're we're we're we're we're doing one thing, but the experience of the students on the ground is a very different one. You know, we we say, Oh yes, we're here to teach a wonderful holistic

uh broad curriculum for everybody. But then we walk into our classroom and say, You want an exam next week? Here's this, here's this, here's this, here's this how you answer that question. And that those two things are just not compatible.

Um and what the future so that the in the first part of the book I'm setting up really future one and future two. Um partway through the book, I then go, well look, actually rather than seeing cur curriculum like that, let's try and step beyond that and go, there are elements of all of these things that are really, really valuable.

But maybe we could try and find a way forward. And I do think that idea of future three and trying to articulate powerful knowledge is all is a way, certainly not the way, but is a way perhaps of doing that.

Yeah, thank you. Okay. And just as one final question before I hand over to David. I promise I will after this one. Is um like linking back to that that book that you mentioned earlier that really helped shape your thinking, the corruption of the curriculum. How do you think do do you see your book as being a response to that or a sort of like as linking to that in some way? And if so

Yeah, I think I I do see my book I I think my book goes on from those arguments there. So I so my my sense of that book remember it was m that book was written at a very particular time. I think that book was written in um the the sort of two thousand back end of the two thousands where I think one could argue that that there was a a a push for perhaps a more future two progressive style curriculum in schools.

um and schools were encouraged to teach things in certain ways. Certainly when I was trained to teach there we would talk about I remember on my PGC course being taught brain gym, for example, uh where pro popular lesson you had to stand up when the kids had to count ten to one backwards or something midway through the lesson. And I never quite sure what what that was all about or why that was happening. And I guess it was

part of this much broader um you know thinking skills was a big thing and the and the lessons became about the thinking skill rather than using that thinking skill to learn about a particular subject. So I think that book was a response to what was going on in schools where

It was about actually look, we you know, there is this body of academic knowledge that needs to be taught from one generation to the next and and we've lost the point of that. And again, they talk about there's a chapter written um about um uh English and say, look, the choice of texts for

English literature is no longer Bait it's no longer Milton and Pope and these great poets. It's about Caroline Duffy because she's teaching about she she's writing about um relevant subjects that are relevant to the life of a teenager.

for example. And and th th they challenge the decision to make that. Now I think what you've got in that book is a challenge of future two views versus future one. I think the writers probably were going down the future we must have more future one rather than future two. Um so that's why that book was interesting. I think my book goes beyond it because it says actually let's not let's not

get to you know let's not throw the baby out with a bathwater. Let's not you know of course we can teach um texts that somehow speak to teenagers rather than being something that someone wrote two hundred years ago that that still has relevance. It's about

trying to find the ways in which that th those can work together and what they're doing and taking a step back and going, what are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to do? And why? And let's use that to then base our to build our career.

So so let's add the question when, Richard. Um so when does subject specialism become vital? Um is it early years? Is it early primary? Is it constant from the beginning of education? Is it from age three? When? So one of the things I find really interesting about well first of all I will say my I'm a secondary school teacher. My book is with secondary school teachers.

Um and I think any attempt for me to try and stand here and say what primary critiques should be doing, I think is would would be would be wrong. Um one of the interesting things is that one of the big kickbacks from powerful knowledge and one of the other groups of people that have critiqued this um has been some of our primary some of my primary colleagues.

Um because for example, um in my own sorry to go back to my own subject um again, but um in my own subject, the Professor Simon Catling, who's a primary geography specialist, has said, actually, I don't really care what's going on in the geography academic world.

When I'm with my when I'm with my, let's say, early year students and they're walking through the playground and they're kicking the leaves, they're interacting with themselves and the environment, there's something very fundamental about a child and their environment that doesn't really rely on what's going on in an academic discipline. So um in that in that sense and and of course I I completely see that.

Um but also I think on the other side there is, I think, a need to try and get a sense of of of of some degree of specialism. I remember I visited a primary school recently and they had a a big poster on the on the a big display on the wall that said humanities.

And there was a lovely thing about some history. I think they were doing um Fire Great Fire of London or something. They were lovely arts and poetry. Um and they had a sense of the history of story. And then they had stuff on religions around the world.

And then they had a little map in the middle and I thought, well that's lovely, but where's the geography? Where where does geography fit in here? Is it just around the world bit? Um and and I and I and I guess that's just me with my secondary hat on, um, looking at that and critiquing that a little bit. Um I do think that Having a a basic understanding of what these subjects are trying to do at a very kind of basic level is c could be very useful. I'm not gonna say that

I'm not gonna try and tell primary teachers what they should be doing, but I think it might be it might be useful. It might be useful for a for a discussion.

Clearly there are some basic things. There's literacy, there's numeracy, but even with literacy, you've got to be writing about something. You know, you've got to be doing there's something that you've got to develop your literacy through. And if that's storytelling, um but again, you know, is that storytelling through history? Is that storytelling about place?

Um I think the specialism is really important at secondary, but I think having an understanding of what as a basic idea of what these different subjects are trying to do at primary could be useful. Um I don't think there's a huge amount of research and there's much more research that needs to be done on that. Um I think it could be that there is something that could be quite useful about that. Um, just to to kind of get some basic grounding for the students when they then come on to secondary.

It's quite interesting when I when I start teaching year sevens, I'll often say, Who's done geography before? Knowing full well that they've all done geography uh because it's in the national curriculum. And yet lots of hands don't go up. And it's not because they haven't done geography, just they don't know that it's got the label of geography. They go, I haven't done geography. Oh, but we studied mountains last year.

So actually, you know, and and I'm not I'm not too worried about that at that primary level. I think as long as they're able to do have a broad spectrum of different ways of thinking about the world and seeing that and exposure to lots of different things, then at secondary you get that specialism. And of course

Going on to post 16, often that they will get even more specialisms and split off into even more subjects. So there's subjects that exist at A level, subjects that exist at degree level that don't even exist at school level. Um and I think we can get head up on that. And as a geographer, I will get very protective about my own subject, but I'm not I think that as long as the b the the the basic bones are there primary, I think that could be useful.

I'd like to hear from primary teachers. Is it useful? Is it not useful? It might not be, and I'm willing to accept that. I think that's fascinating because you don't actually say that in the... Um and you do refer to primary in the book. You talk about it in terms of the discussion around teacher training. There are a number of points where you refer to primary. And the reason why I was interested. in this area is because it's such a live debate. um and particularly around early year.

the you know the the latest guidance in early year. is I always describe it as being written in the rear view mirror. So it's set somewhere about year three and it's really looking at the contribution of early years to make kids school ready. Mae llawer yn ymwneud â'r sefydliadau'r sefydliadau'r sefydliadau'r sefydliadau'r sefydliadau'r sefydliadau'r sefydliadau'r sefydliadau. um around all of this in primary. And I I I

based on the fact that I didn't think you did make it clear that your your book was essentially secondary. And and you also interestingly you refer to Martin Robinson's trivia. And in a sense you're now almost in reverse of that. So you're saying that the grammar of subject specialism will be tackled in secondary

And maybe we should be getting ready for it a bit in in primary. So it's quite it's quite interesting because I'm not sure there is as much clarity around that separation in the book. I I should have just given this in the discussion. Sure. I'm I'm I'm willing to accept that. I mean I think My m you know, my my background is secondary. Um the work I did with teachers in the schools were were all secondary teachers.

Um interestingly but but the conversations I've had with primary teachers has been interesting because some find it really useful, this idea of uh actually powerful knowledge. uh as a way of articulating what subjects are trying to do is a really could be a really useful way of thinking about curriculum. Um but equally others have said, do you know what actually it's not that important and so and and I don't feel that I'm I'm uh I'm a fair play uh yeah fair is a fair

criticisms say I haven't talked about it much in the book and I'm willing to accept that, but I do think that there's more to do. I'm I don't think I'm the right person to do that either actually. I think it needs to be someone on the ground in the sector who who who knows their stuff, who can actually

uh really critique that. But hey, maybe that's the next maybe that's the next book for someone. But I I think that's really I think that's really helpful to to clarify that because the reason why people will find it helpful is that the knowledge writ um and the knowledge rich approach is is essentially in many respects targeted in primary. So that's of people will find your book interesting and helpful and challenging.

Um because my experience of secondary is that often the subject relationship is pretty shallow. Um that you know you can go into home economics and look at worksheets that they're using. and they'll essentially be testing knowledge and understanding um in in a very similar way sometimes. I mean maybe this is back into this. yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw I'm not always sure that people are absolutely clear, not just about the the powerful knowledge.

but I think often around the point, um, of of of a range of subjects. And I think your book is incredibly helpful in terms of encouraging people to think about But how academic does a secondary teacher need to be in terms of their subject? I think what's important is that teachers have an un a teacher of a particular subject has to have an understanding of

Um, not not necessarily a load of nuts and bolts, or I mean they're called the substantive knowledge of the subject. Clearly they're going to have a bulk of that, but it's more s important, I think, for them to understand how the subject works.

and when what what the subject is trying to do and how people how people think historically. I mean I remember when I worked in a school um where a geography teacher had to teach some history and what was brilliant was she had to teach the Battle of Hastings and she came in and said I taught it through map

And it was brilliant. She drew a big map of France, big map, she had lots of arrows going on and I thought there is a classic example of someone who is a geographer, who thinks like a geographer. um going into teacher history, subject they don't know about, and actually using their way of seeing the world to do that. So

Um, I do think I mean a as a basic level, uh a degree in in a subject I think would be helpful or in a closely allied discipline. But actually it's not even about that. It's about having a commitment. I'm not saying that, you know, if you if you you're a geography teacher you can't teach history. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying if you do teach history

Um there is a responsibility that you would have to actually have an understanding of what history is in schools and what history is trying to do beyond the superficial, beyond the reading ahead two pages in the textbook, okay, that's what I've got to teach them. It's not about lists of content, it's about ways of thinking.

And and that's where I think this articulation of powerful knowledge can be quite helpful because actually what I'm trying to do is to articulate what it means to think like a historian. There's the kind of disciplinary knowledge. And I don't think we teach disciplinary knowledge as as a

uh as a way. I think children develop it in the way that they they they that they interact with the teacher. You know if you're taught a subject by the subject specialist, there is a way there is a way in which they will talk about their subject. There's a way in which they will approach things that's hard you it's not it's not really perceptible.

But actually if you you just pick up on it naturally. So you have good teachers, you kind of do it naturally. Um and I'm and I'm trying to shine a light on that and go, well actually what is that? What is it that you're the way that you talk about the world in your subject and the way that your subject works.

Can we articulate that? Um and that's sort of what I was trying to do in my book. Yeah, I think again, we'll we'll we'll come back to this shortly, but I think one of the interesting things is that you show up the multiplicity of interpretations within every sort.

Um you know, I I taught history Mae'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n you know there there is a live debate again in in all of these subject areas but I think helpful Your anticipatory powers are are on full flow today. Um because we're we're you you're taking us perfectly into James's ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud

Yeah, I guess so. So so I suppose one thing is like I can see the value, as you just articulated strongly, for like disciplinary learning, right? And for for being able to think like a scientist and think like a historian to understand how that's Um but also there are limitations to that, aren't there? Because the world does not divide itself neatly into subjects.

There is not like in history news we this we've just discovered about a new battle that we never knew on the news, right? It's like that's not the way that the world works and um things are very interdisciplinary, right? And that's something that is that is developed More so in other countries than than in certainly in the English curriculum currently. And so I'm wondering where do you see that as fitting here, like this idea of interdisciplinary learning?

Um th if if you like I mean one way of thinking about this is what what David describes as like The the the real action is in the hyphens, right? So things like astrophysics biochemistry, neurophysiology and so on. And you you know, neuro I remember we're getting really into like neuropsychopharmacology at one time in my degree, right? That stuff is super interesting. It's where where these where these disciplines sort of smash into each other.

Um and so where do you see this as fitting in your vision?'Cause I don't seem to recall you talking much about interdisciplinary learning in the book. Sure. So I would s I would answer that and say that before you have interdisciplinary, you've got to have disciplinary. And I think that that too much if we rush to the interdisciplinary, everything gets a bit fudged.

And everything gets a bit mixed. Um, and all those examples you gave interestingly sound like sort of tertiary education. It sounds like the sort of thing that would go on at universities where you've already had I think if you're trying to if you hit an eleven year old where just teaching stuff

And they go from one lesson from st of staff and then go to another lesson of staff and another lesson of stuff and the teachers getting very excited, going, Oh, it's all interdisciplinary with the children go, We're just learning stuff. Um and is and I think children need to have a sense of of what they're what they're doing. Um I have no problem with interdisciplinary learning and but what I f find is quite interesting when teachers try and do it.

Um they often say I want to show children that the world is is really mixed up and messy because all the lessons this week are gonna be about, I don't know, chocolate, let's say. Everyone's gotta develise lessons around chocolate.

um to show that the world, to show that these subject data disciplinaries don't really matter. What you end up doing is completely the opposite because you end up saying that there is a geography of chocolate, there's a history of chocolate, there's a chemistry of chocolate and they're actually they're all very different. And so you try and break down the boundaries but

But you end up showing why what the what the each different discipline is actually able to contribute to the whole. And yeah, of course, in the real world everything is is um mixed together and everything is is complex. And I think it's it's absolutely worth sometimes carefully, um in in you know uh uh th you shouldn't be just rushed into. I think there needs to be a little bit of of careful thought about areas where you might cross over

Um and i we do it all the time naturally, you know. We w in geography w in terms of geographical skills, I I know I argue there's no there's not really any unique geographical skill because we're often drawing graphs, well that's mathematical, we're often interpreting text.

That's kind of literature. Um, maybe maps, maybe we can claim that one sort of interpreting interpretation of maps. But lots of the skills of a geographer are actually other other subjects. So if I'm doing a climate graph with students, I might have a chat with the maths department and say,

W will ye nine get this if I do it? And they'll go, Oh, double axis graph, that's quite hard, we haven't done that yet. But it's not it's not done in a i in a way that's just blind and saying let's let's all teach the same stuff. It's saying, look, this is what the geography contributes to this discussion, this is what history contributes to this discussion.

Um and when we break down those boundaries it should be done for a known a known reason and and and and uh absolutely we can do it, um but I think It it's when it happens. And I think it happens more, the specialism happens more and the breaking boundaries happens more, I think, at higher level, rather than perhaps secondary.

But it but it can be done. And yet that you've got to do it. That's where the the earlier discussion came from. You know, it it would have been common for a long time in primary to be doing environmental studies. and you would have that multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and in a sense it on on on the time scales that you're talking about, you then move to that to disciplinary and then into

uh kind of interdisciplinary on steroids. You know, it it's I mean I'm fascinated. Tim Marshall, um if I don't know if you're familiar with his stuff, but that it his prisoners of geography is essentially a history book in in many respects. because of that coming together of the two perspectives in knowledge. It's just a really interesting model and and I really admire you for your willingness to say, well, may maybe that's the next step. Maybe we need to start thinking more.

about whether or not that cyclical progression from a kind of interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, primary education to disciplinary education to a a much more Rigorous uh interdisciplinary conversation. I think that's an admirable ambition.

Yeah, so so so just to pull it back to the interdisciplinary thing just briefly, I think that the I think that you make a good case that like some of those things, like

Right, yeah, so like psychoneuropharmacology would be a good example of like you sort of need to under you need to have the building blocks in place to understand how the how different sort of disciplines come together there. But if you're thinking about like understanding like current affairs If you think about what's going on in the Middle East currently. Yes there's like there are religious

of it, there's geographical elements, there are historical elements. But I don't think that you're going to like like you were saying, you know, and I've seen this done in schools as well, like yeah the the chocolate thing. And so if we say, right, we're going to have a Middle East week, I don't think that this would happen. But right. And so we're gonna look at

Different, you know, look at look at what's happening in the Middle East through different subject lenses. I don't think that that is the way that you arrive at a an understanding of what's happening in the Middle East. It's much more entangled.

And you kind of have to you have kind of have to weave in and out of subjects and you and it and it's and it's more about um something that's greater than the sum of its parts, you know. It's like it's a very complicated story to understand the history of the Middle East.

And not many people do. And I would argue that that's because n not many people are taught it. Like it doesn't fit very neatly in the history curriculum, in the geography curriculum. It doesn't really fit in the RE. And so it's not taught. And therefore it's not learned, and therefore most people are clueless of it.

Um so I I would I would respond to that by saying it depends what you're trying what you want children to understand about the Middle East'cause you can, you can do some lovely paintings. Rydyn ni'n meddwl am yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r Um we teach I teach in the A our A level geography course has uh has a whole section on conflict and and we do dip into certainly we talk a lot about Syria and the Arab Spring.

So and and yes, that is a h that a historical tour, but it comes back to that n and it can come back to powerful knowledge here because as a geographer, sure, I might dip into history. History becomes a tool through which we understand the present.

Um so actually um as a geographer I of course the what's happened in the past leads to what's going on but for me really what I'm interested in is The what it's like now, where things are, because place is really important, how that place is related to that place, how we've got to those particular power relationships within that within that place. I'm sure if a historian was doing it they would focus much more on the development over time of how we've got to where we are.

Um so it can be taught, but if again if we go back to that question before, which is well, what are we teaching? If we want we've picked Middle East, I would say, well why why Middle East? What what's the justification for it? Um and you can justify it, of course it's in the news a lot, so there is a justification, but I would ask that question what are we teaching? Why why Middle East? And then what do we want the children to actually understand about the Middle East?

Because unless we clarify those two things, um I'm not sh I mean and again, current affairs you mentioned, sure, but current affairs isn't a subject. I mean current affairs is yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n.

boundaries and different different ways of thinking about the world. And I think it is most powerful when they're when children make sense of it for themselves and are able to critically analyze what's going on. And different children will do that from their edge different bit different different bits of education that they've got. We were talking earlier on about capability. And actually I we talk I talk a little bit in the book about a young person's capability sex.

So this idea of they've they've sub they all have to study um subjects up to the age of fourteen and then then there's different subjects that they can choose. Um and then of course what's what they've studied will help them to see the world in different ways. So if the student's gone through and studied maths, further maths, physics um you know at A level and they perhaps haven't studied geography or history at all since the age of fourteen, the way that they're gonna try and make sense of

uh the Middle East, if if indeed that's what they're trying to do, will be different perhaps to someone who studied history, geography, RE, geopolitics, you know, and they they'll have a a different understanding. But then you could say the same thing about the large hadron collider and what that's trying to do.

Um I couldn't tell you and articulate what that's trying to do'cause I I haven't got the the the the knowledge in place to be able to do that. So um if if if we think that and current affairs is an important thing to do, then I guess we could work back from that. But One of those things it's it's it's like a it's an evergreen topic.

Um, it doesn't feel to me like like that you were saying it's sort of like you do the disciplinary stuff and interdisciplinary comes later. I my my sense is that we could be doing more to to to carve out some time and space. within the curriculum from a very young age where where where children are encouraged to to draw together ideas. And you were sort of saying that the starting point is what do we want what do we as the adults want children to know about the Middle East?

I'm not sure that we always need to have this predefined endpoint. And I think that it's okay to just like have conversations about the Middle East and have conversations about how there are different there are different, you know, strands to this to this very complicated situation. Um a very complicated part of the world. Um anyway, let's not let's not dwell too too too much on that. But it does it does neat uh lead us neatly into my next question, which is about

Um the book and the focus on on what we are teaching, the the title, What Are We Teaching? Um and for many of us there's a bigger problem or or parallel problem, which is what not to teach. Um and often people criticize for like the science curriculum comes up a lot, but I know that many subject specialists would say that there's just too much stuff in there. It's just far too crowded.

It feels like it's a very I remember it's a while since I taught silence, but it felt like an ocean of knowledge that was about an inch deep So it was just that you needed to know two things about how a nuclear power station works. He needed to know three things about the difference between plant and animal cells, and there was no depth to any of it, and there wasn't really that that the scope to go deep. And I think that powerful knowledge.

is is basically another way of what I would just describe as deep, deep knowledge, right? Just like actually just it's like digging down through the layer. And so um what's your thinking about this? What do do these concepts of powerful knowledge and capabilities offer us any guidance here with regard to what not

So I think um I think I would pick up on that from in terms of the the the m amount of stuff we have to teach. I mean I as a geography teacher, it's a lot of j I would argue GCE geography is a memory. in a lot of cases. They're just having to learn a lot of stuff. And sometimes I find myself and you mentioned the Middle East, I would love to be able to spend time

delving into much more of the Middle East. We are in my in with the school where I teach in the back of their geography books, they've got a world map and we do geography in the news and basically it's plotting different things that are happening around the world and with the idea that

students go so might they might label a hurricane happening in certain part of the world and then um a few weeks later something else happens in the same part of the world and they go, hey, are those two things connected? Oh wow. Thinking geographically, linking people, places and and I can as a geographer then explore that a bit more. Um I find when we get to GCC, I go, I'd love to spend time on this, but actually we need to go through this bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Um and so yeah, the idea of what not to teach I think is is a key idea. I would say it comes back to um this is where the role of the teacher in the classroom is so important because um it's clearly important you know, if we get a sense of what our subject is doing Um what we don't end up having is a list of facts, because that takes us back to that future one curriculum.

And i an another idea that's quite helpful here I guess is the um horizontal and vertical knowledge structures, I think Basil Bernstein. So in subject like and maths is always given as a classic example, although I don't think it necessarily fits.

Matters but perfectly. But the uh the idea is you have to be able to count b before you can do addition, you have to be able to do addition and subtraction before you do multiplication and division, you have to be able to do that before you can do algebra. So it's very vertical in terms of your understanding. Mm. And so it's quite clear what you need to teach.

Um and and whereas perhaps something that's more horizontal, um, so certainly the humanities would fit in there, um, doesn't really work like that because why do you need to study um, I don't know, the Tudors before you study the Romans? Y y y you don't.

And and so that idea of what y at some point a choice needs to be made about what you choose to teach and what you don't teach. And I guess what what I would argue, what this what um what Michael Young would argue is And this idea of well, look, you're the subject specialist, you are the the you are the teacher, you need to decide what is the most important thing to teach.

Um and as long as you could teach the Romans, you could teach the Tudors within your teaching of the Romans and the Tudors, you're gonna tell children or help children to understand what it means to think historically, what it means to think in certain ways. Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd.

Because we're in a situation where actually if we do have some form of assessment, we do need to have some sort of national bar. So at some point there need to be decisions made nationally about actually we are gonna do the Tudors, we're not gonna do the Stuarts, we are gonna do Second World War, we're not gonna do

So so there are those but I guess that's what exam boards are doing. But but it's within that it's you know, we what we don't want what I would want to try and shy away from is a sort of lists of content. If you can reel off um capital cities you're a great job.

I you know that's what I want to try and rally against. If you can if you can list all the kings and queens of England, you're a great historian. Um and I think we'd all agree that well, no, you're just you can do a party trick. Um it does that doesn't mean you're a good historian, it just means you can l list a load of stuff that you've learned.

So um I think it r it lies with the teacher. The teacher needs to say actually what it what is important here. And also I think uh certainly from my subject, where where you are is quite key. If your if your school is at the bottom of a glacial valley Um and children are growing up in an environment where the glacial landscape is all around them actually

from a fairly early age, having an understanding of that probably is quite key for those children. If you're it uh um if you live on the coast and children see the sea every day and and then maybe coastal stuff becomes more important. Um and so so the idea of a national geography curriculum in in in and of itself is is often a bit weird because

Children are in different places and even if you've never seen the sea, if you're in a school in in an urban area and children uh don't don't really get out of that area very much, they might have never seen the sea, why are you going to teach them uh uh coastal geography? Now there is an argument which says we should be taking them beyond what they know, and there is an argument for that.

Um but equally there's also an argument to say, Well, if this is their local environment, can we get them to see that through a fresh pair of eyes, perhaps in some way? So Um I think it I think the decision lies with the teacher in terms of what they're teaching and what they're not teaching and justif and being able to justify those decisions. And they're not easy things to do, but I guess that's sort of the job of a teacher.

Just as a f just as a follow up on this, do you think that there's a role that like beyond going beyond the teacher and we'll we'll come back to teacher agency shortly, but um like you said towards the end of the book, you sort of said something like there's nothing that we can do about the exam system, right? The exams are sort of here to stay, but we so we sort of have to work within those constraints. I wonder why

you don't sort of take that next step and say, actually, like maybe we need to just cut stuff out at the at the higher level, like cut stuff out of the spec. Because like a lot of these decisions that you're saying that teachers should be making. It's det detected sorry, it's determined by the spec and essentially the spec becomes the de facto curriculum.

Because of that, you know, going back to where you said like we are lost, when you asked that teacher, like, you know, why are you teaching this? And he said, It's because it's the next lesson on the on the lesson plan or because it's on the exam or people have this very sort of instrumental view. And that's what happens when you when when you have these sort of structures that are like super super at the level of above schools that sort of are dictating the direction of travel.

Um I d I don't know, I just wonder what your thoughts are there. Why do you why do you make so much about it's the role of the teacher rather than actually we need to think on a national level, like we're just we're setting way too much stuff. The specs are too big, we need to to to cut them in half so that we can provide teachers with the time and space to make those

Um, I would agree with you, but I guess one of the things is that specs come and specs go. Um uh whereas actually the idea of why subjects are important is is um a a bigger discussion and I think

we can get l bogged down in the sort of the here and now of what teachers are saying on the ground. And you I mean I hear this all the time. They go, Yeah, R you know, I did a talk the other week and they said, That's lovely, Richard, but I have to teach this at the exam spec and I and I and and I kind of I get it. I understand that. But but actually um First of all with the exam spec you can you can

just subvert things a little bit, you know, you just cause you guys you've got to get through content. How you choose to get to that point and the pedagogies that you employ and the way in which you do it, you c you can still have a lot more agency than perhaps you you might think you do.

Um and uh and so that would be the first thing. But also, you know, y we might have a change of spec, we might have a change of of of examinations and it might cut things out completely, it might change. In ten years' time it might look subjects might look to the exam system might look very different.

But I think the arguments about why certain things are important in a curriculum and other things aren't will still be valuable. So I'd I I I I think there's always a danger in writing a book that you you you you root it too much in what's going on in twenty twenty five or twenty twenty four. What you know, I w I want people to read my book in five, six, seven, eight years time and still be able to find something of value in it.

um rather than it being being being um bogged down. But it but I mean it is a problem and it is teachers who do feel fairly helpless in terms of that curriculum, what they can do to to to to power through a curriculum. And I and and and I think that's where understanding what your subject is trying to do and and using that cleverly to to get through content is is probably the way the way forward.

And I think it's wrong to expect you to solve all the world's problems in a single book, but um there's a there's an interesting question which you don't ask. yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r Um and I'm really interested in it. I set a national exam, uh trial national exam years ago. And in the geography set And we asked them to apply the powerful knowledge and the geographical understanding that they'd learn in other continents.

these resources and this new information. And I was saying to to James before we started that the response from the the moderating panel who were looking at the paper was they'll just look at that and they'll say we've no done Africa and they'll flee screaming from the room. which said an awful lot about how geographers saw themselves as teachers, said an awful lot about the existing curriculum, but said also an awful lot about the tyranny of the exam, because that that was what they expected.

Ac yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r. specifications and design assessments which would reward the kind of approaches that you're arguing. I I think with a lot of justification Um, absolutely. And and what you said there as a geographer, that I I think that's really exciting. I would love to see that sort of that's sort of because that would take you absolutely away from that idea of a memory test.

And I'm pleased in and w I do with the GCC course that we do, we have a there's a pr pre release material which tells them a story of a certain area and they go into the exam and there are questions about the and they're allowed to use it as a resource. So I guess that's sort of nudging into that area, although

uh i i there's a certain predictability about that as well. You know, they can only ask you certain questions, um, you know, that here's here's something, here's why it shouldn't be built, here's why it should be built.

guess what they're going to ask you in the exam? Should it be built? So there's a certain level of predictability. Um I don't talk about assessment and I think deliberately so because actually I'm more interested in in what we're teaching rather than how we're assessing it. But you're right, that is the natural next step.

Um I think and and I'm I th I mentioned this briefly in in my book about when a student when when someone comes for an interview for a teacher, um I will often ask the question well how do you know if someone's good at your subject? And how do you know if they're getting better at your subject? Because I think in in those answering those questions, you're then nudging into what assessment should look like. So actually if if in let's take geography, w if we value something like field work.

for example, and we say as geographers, I know we're not the only subject that does fieldwork, biologists do fieldwork too. In and I don't mean doing trips to a castle. I mean I mean actual going into the field, collecting data, going, measuring stuff, writing it down. There is there's a real um whole discourse around field work. And if we value that as geographers, which we do, how should we actually find a way of

rewarding a student. And you know, I I've taught loads of students in the past who perhaps in the classroom haven't found that classroom environment necessarily the most conducive to to working hard. You take them into a minibus, chuck them out by a river, put the wellies on, and they're the first in the river. They're getting a tape measure across, they're getting the and they're absolutely in their element. Now I'd love to be able to reward them in some way for

for that and go, Brilliant, you've done so well today, I'd love to r find a way of assessing that. Instead of saying, Yeah, well done now you're gonna go into an exam in six months time where you're gonna be asked about what you did today And I just feel that's not quite um Not quite not quite the way forward. I'd love to find other ways of I mean

Uh you we mentioned Orasy earlier on, but I'd love to be able to sit someone down and say, Tell me about some geography and get them to actually articulate it because some will be able to do that really, really well. Oh yeah, oh we did this and we did this and uh this place it links to this place.

um and actually perhaps presentations. Yeah we get presentations. So um and trying to find different ways. So if you start with what makes your subject important and that becomes our our starting point, what is the powerful knowledge of geography, how can we assess that? And then you're into a whole different world and I and I think if we start with the subject and why it's important for a young person

then you think, well, how could we assess that? I think your you'd find the assessment would be look very different to what it currently looks like where we shut shut them in a room for three hours on a really hot summer's day and ask them to write. Now I'm not saying literacy isn't important. I'm not saying that The articulation on paper, a set of ideas isn't important because actually that is important, but I think it's not the only way to show that you're good at a particular subject.

So I I'd love to see a really radical re review, but I but I'm only talking for my subject. Um I can't talk about other subjects. But I guess that would be uh the next logical thing. If we start with the subjects, let's see where that then leads us. We are just setting you up.

really well here. So you've already got your second book, which is looking Looking at subject specialism in the primary and early years, you're now onto your third book, which is you know, how how how how could assessment support what we're teaching. Um so just to get you on to your fourth book. Um I know, but you love it. Um so there's a a really interesting question for me. You talk an awful lot about teacher agency. Uh you've done it in the podcast. You do it in the boot.

And it it it's particularly interesting because what we've seen in Scotland and Wales Um because it it People have argued that it's increased workload They've argued that it has created duplication of work and so on. And there's been a loud cry from lots of secondary teachers in both countries with, just tell us what to do. Um so it it how do you how do you get at that? Well I d I don't know about the specifics of of Scotland and Wales. I haven't um

But but I guess for me it's about being prof it's about professionalism, it's about the nature of what it is to be a professional teacher and what that actually means and looks like. Um, you know, I work with with PG C students, you know, I get them uh I've had PG C students in my own department and and if I felt that they were just

downloading or getting getting in AI to write their lesson plan and and rolling through with it. I think I would I would want to challenge that. Actually is part of the professional work of a teacher.

to have a really deep understanding of what you're trying to do, why you're trying to do it and then how you do it. And I think if you're you and I guess if you're used to a situation where you can shortcut that and do it quickly and you're not willing to take responsibility, I guess is a kind of learned helplessness

um that people are used to. Um and I'm not saying people aren't busy because you then you then fill your time up with all the other stuff that you've got to do. If then you're told um oh yeah you've got to do all that l proper hard thinking and lesson planning stuff, you've still got to do that, but you've also got to do everything else as well.

yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd Um but I guess if we are gonna take it seriously then we need to give time for it and we need to actually give space for it and we need to provide means and and direction with which we can make that um make that work. And if that means

finding s other things that teachers aren't doing and I you know, I I can't talk about um the the you know the the full workload requirements of teachers'cause I guess it it varies. But But I think if we value it, we need to give time for it and we need to give space for it. And I think if we were to say to teachers, um, actually we do want you to think carefully about what you're doing and why you're doing it and how you're doing it, but look, you're gonna get time to do that.

Then I think that sounds like the obvious way of doing it. But I appreciate that's difficult. Schools are busy places, other things need to be other things need to be done.

helpful and and I'll I'll now do a handbrake turn as well. Um the the you have an interesting argument that you make in the book um where you talk about politics and you talk about, I think you used the term, unfortunate. Um others, possibly including myself, might argue that that was a very deliberate contribution. from particular politics who had a real vested interest. in a curriculum that emphasised legacy.

that emphasised uh that particular concept of, if you like, patriotism and nationalism um and that they were A lot of that debate was very closely related as indeed corruption of the curriculum.

to culture wars and culture war debates. So rather than it being unfortunate, I would argue that particularly with Nick Gibb, there was a deliberate and inappropriate uh willingness to put forward curricular ideas, pedagogical ideas on a basis of no subject specialism in either um and that it's not an unfortunate thing it it was a politicised debate and a deliberately I mean, do th is is there some justification for that that view, do you think?

Oh I think I think certainly the justification for the view, I think I think and I I can't remember the exact quote that I wrote about, I think in term I I'm thinking I'm thinking about the way in which the phrase powerful knowledge and the idea of powerful knowledge is used'cause I think as soon as Nick Gibbs came up and said Um we want every child to have access to powerful knowledge. Well, because he's from a particular party in a particular positionality.

other people are going to immediately go, Well, we don't want any of that nonsense without really reading it and understanding what it means.

And I guess that that that's why I f I think that's why I think I use the word unfortunate, because actually even if people had a different view on on the the the party of from which they're talking about, there's still some value in some of the ideas. And I think It we we're very and and we're kind of quick to dismiss ideas because a particular person or a particular party is advocating for them.

And I and I want to say look, actually rather than seeing it as as something that a politician's talking about, let's look at this as professionals, as as our own teachers and value it based on our own understanding of our profession.

uh rather than uh something that uh someone else has decided to do. And I think that's where I think it's unfortunate. I think the debate has become clouded. Um but you're absolutely right. I mean these are important and and politic politicians will always want to try and emphasize things in in certain ways. That's why the British Values thing has come through.

Um and I guess it's it that that idea of teacher agency becomes key because you you can subvert these things. You can do these things at the end of the day, and I say this to my PGC students, once that door is shut and it's you and the children

That it's you and the children and and and you are there to teach. And of course you've got to do things that you know you have to you have to follow certain things, but ultimately the way in which you convey ideas to what what you're doing with those children, what you are teaching back to the title of the book.

Um it's kinda down to you and and you've got to you've got to be able to think it through and justify it and be able to to um be be upholding to other people who who who are i in charge of you. And I think that's that's where I would come from with that. Yeah, and as a compliment to you, I think one of the great strengths of your book is that you argue for knowledge as a dynamic for challenge.

And I think you're very consistent around that and a lot of it, a lot of what you write is around the idea of what do people know in order to be able to act. Um and and you're you're very consistent around that. And that there's a really you know, there's an interesting overlap between the approach that you take and the approach that Ian Dunn takes and he he's got a a brilliant book about what it means to be a liberal. Um and that there's a lot of common elements between

There's a a a a wee pat in the back because you've you've you've handled you've handled some properly challenging questions. James, back to you. Okay. I've got one more challenging question and then we'll do the quickfire round.

I suppose the challenging question is um what do you think if there was like one thing that you think that the book is arguing for, like something that needs to change.

Like like towards the end of the book, I was sort of I felt like it was sort of leading somewhere. And then I got to the end and you were sort of saying we need to have subject disciplines, which we already have, and you said we need to sort of maintain it's just felt like a bit of an argument for maintaining what's already happening to something. I don't know if that's an unfair

reading, but like what would you say needs to change? Is this in terms of teacher education so that teachers need to become more sure footed in making the kinds of decisions that you're talking about? Where is it that you think things need to be different to how they are now?

Well, I think we've already we've already touched on on assessment, although I don't talk about assessment in there, but I think it is about that notion of subject specialists. Actually, I do think every child deserves to have a subject specialist in front of them teaching a subject. And if they and and I'm willing to say uh and I mentioned this earlier on I'm willing to be

slightly broader about a a subject specialty. If it's a historian teaching geography, I'm not that I'm not that worried about it, as long as that teacher is willing to undergo, you know, some sort of education about what it means to be a geographer, a geography teacher, uh or, you know, if you're a maths teacher teaching physics, actually it's a different discipline. How does it how does it differ?

Um and so it does come back to teacher education. And one one observation about changes to teacher education um re over recent years has been this I you know, when I did my teacher training I was in a room full of we had over twenty of us, we were all geographers. Um and actually over the course of that year we had a everything was from the perspective of

me as a geography teacher. So everything we did was from jok the centre was for the subject and we looked out. What happens now, I think, in lots of different ways, that model still exists, but actually there's a lot of quite generic training. So you'll be asked you'll be have have a session on something and then you'll be asked And what does that look like in your subject? And you're discussing it with another teacher, well that's fine, but actually

W what gives their have they done the reading? Have they have they understood that? So I wonder if some of that real deep expertise in subject critical um curriculum, subject critical pedagogy for some of the m other mo modes of teacher training, I'm not sure that's as rigorous as perhaps it could be. Um so I think I would try and look at look at the the ways in which we are educating and training our teachers and going, is there a really strong, rigorous subject component?

to that, not just as a what does this look like in you know not just always from the core and then going out what what does it look like in your subject, but actually starting with the subjects and going, what are some of the key live issues in our subject?

um that may or may not have anything to do with any other subject. Doesn't you know that that's not doesn't matter. It's there's key stuff happening in within subject communities uh that's really key and and s I'm I'm worried sometimes that we might miss out on that. And obviously there are um increasingly shorter methods of getting into the classroom. They're very much a let's get in and train them on the job.

Um and we don't really do that in in any other way. We don't really do that with our pilots and with our with our doctors. Um but it's okay to do it with teachers. And I think when you get into it, you then learn to you learn to do it quickly and you learn to cope. And I wonder if then that gives people and we mentioned earlier on about the time people have to really give deep disciplinary thoughts about what they're doing and why we're doing it.

Um if we value that, we need to give time for it and we need to make sure we we properly resource it. And I think that so that would be something that I would look to try and change, not just for those coming into the profession, but those in already actually have a chance to sit down and go, what are we teaching? What is our what is the contribution of our subject?

Um how can we make sure that children are getting that? And and I think that's what I that's what I would like to see. So it comes back to that, I guess. idea of sort of teacher agency and and everything else, but but but making sure that that's that's part and the heart of what we do.

Yes. Okay, thank you. So like a robust defence and and argument for deepening of subject specialisms and a call for the abolition of teach first. And then I didn't say that. No, but clearly we did yeah, I'm only joking. Uh half joking. Okay, so so let's go to the to the um the the three fast fire. Actually I've got four. Uh quickfire questions. One is a positive. What is something that you think is really good?

'Cause it all we have these conversations and a rethinking education is the name of the show and we you know, by by its nature it's you know the the strap line is education's critical friend and we can sometimes be a bit overly critical perhaps.

There's lots to celebrate within our school system and the wider educational ecosystem. So is there anything that you think uh you would like to shine a light on and say, I think that is really good? And perhaps even it's like not really acknowledged, you know? Um Hmm. No no I think I think no. I I think it's very telling Richard. No no no no no No no I it's always easy to be critical, isn't it? I I think

Uh I think is I think that the fact that we've got a subject based curriculum I think is really good. I think the fact that we Uh we clearly still ha are employing teachers in within their subject disciplines, I think, is really key and we and there is still a valuing of that. Um yes we can tweak how we do it and yes we can deepen the knowledge of of that. But the fact that we still got that and the fact that there seems to be a valuing of that i I think is

is a really, really good thing. And I think also recognizing that it's not the be all and end all and that there are lots of other things that are important in a curriculum like the co-curriculum and all that stuff. I mean right at the start of this I mentioned the fact that I went travelling around the world with the scout.

I'm a scout leader. Of course these things are really important, you know. It's not just about what goes on in the classroom, it's about what goes on outside. Um and so it I think all the all the bare bones of of of what makes a great education is there. It's there in every single school. I just think perhaps

what's leading it and what and where that has an effect is perhaps where sometimes there's a bit of nuance and difference. But I'd say that we we know that we know what's good, we know it's all there. Um and my you know i i it's just how it all fits together that perhaps is where we need to sort it. But hey, it's all there. OK, thank you. A challenge. What do you think is a major challenge that we need to face?

Well, I think um it it won't surprise you to know it's it's the classic stuff. It's about teacher recruitment and teacher retention. I mean, we haven't talked a bit at all about those. I do wonder actually how mu um how whether whether or

empowering teachers uh to actually be the agents in their classroom, to actually empower teachers to be the great and I mentioned that phrase curriculum curriculum leaders. Um and that's not my phrase, that's again from from David Lambert and the Geocapabilities Project. But that idea of

rather than teachers being seen as someone who stands at the room and being told what to do all the time and then just enacting it, actually giving teachers that responsibility. And I wonder if we did that a bit more, whether that might help retain teachers'cause they might feel a bit more empowered

People come into the profession I think with with these grand ideas about what they want to do and then they they get a bit jaded because they find they can't enact the change that they want to and and that's why well, one of perhaps of many reasons why um they're leaving. But I wonder I just wonder if we could really empower teachers a bit more, whether that might help recruit uh and retain a few more teachers.

Um so that's that that's I think is the biggest challenge, you know, real a real challenge. Yeah, yeah, thank you. And just to expand on that a little, uh moving into the solution, you've already hinted at it there. What does that what is empowering teachers more?

I think it's it's about um reducing the the the the shackles of of um a high I mean there are some schools I know where teachers have a very prescribed curriculum and they have to follow everything to the letter and everything to the T and I think Ac yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n.

You know, you need to go through these things. How you choose to do it, um, I think is up to you. Um, but even what you're choosing to cover. There should be discussions happening within schools, within departments where we go, let's do that and not that. Let's do that and not that for these reasons. And using that to then build a curriculum.

There's a wonderful quote in Unfinished Business, which I've managed to get this far into this podcast without mentioning it. Um now finally managed to squeeze it in. And I think that's the concept that you're you're dealing with. The you know, we we we tell people where true north is, but we allow them to chart their way across the territory towards it. So

Thank you for allowing me to get that mention in. You're you're doing well today. Well done, David. I thought you were slipping up there, but uh you you snuck it in at the final the final furlong. Um okay, and so all that remains is to s to ask my final question.

Uh which I think is the thing that is going to be burning and like foremost in the minds of our listeners, which is um why do they eat Chinese rice in the Gambia when they're growing it? Uh it's all to do with economics. I mean the fact is clearly it's cheaper to import it. Um I guess it because the gr the the stuff they're growing, they are eating within their own fa they're not growing enough. They the stuff they're growing, they're eating in their own families.

Um so to to in other words, if you want to sell it, uh particularly sell it at bulk and at scale, you've got to import it. And it's cheaper um because you can you can grow the the rice paddies are much bigger, I guess, in China and it's much you can pay people much less and the importing costs

uh and technology's got so good that you can get it over. So um I guess that would be my answer. And and huge thanks to James Mannion and and also to yourself, Richard, for managing to end the podcast on a note of subject specialists. So absolutely. On message to the very end. I feel thoroughly educated and empowered. Thank you.

Yes, well thank you very much, Richard, for uh for for taking the time to speak with us and for writing this super interesting book. I we heartily commend it to our to our listeners and readers and viewers even. Um thank you very much for your time. Thanks very much. We finish the point.