My new substack about learning - the intro

Why it is, what it is and who I am.

The Story So Far

This is the first Looking for Learning post. The story so far is of someone (me) who has spent a lifetime in education, in many different roles. I’ve noticed how the very best schools are relentlessly focused on student learning. I’ve also noticed the many schools and teachers that aren’t quite that focused and aren’t quite sure what to do about it. These Substack posts bring together everything I and my colleagues have learned in our work with hundreds of schools and thousands of teachers, parents and students around the world. I want to spread the news so that they can get better and they can help children, students and adults learn better all the time.

Here We Go

I am in my second year of teaching. (This is some time ago.) It is February. Fred Tiramani - a lovely, lovely man - teaches next door to me. In this difficult school in which we find ourselves, he is my mentor, long before 'mentoring' was invented. From my very first day, before school and after and many times during lessons, on the concrete landing between our classrooms, Fred gives me advice. Without him, I wouldn't have got through the first year.

By now, half way through my second year, the quick conversations during lesson time have reduced to no more than two or three a week. At the end of one of them, as we turn away from each other to go back to our classes, I hear Fred say, 'There's something I want to tell you.' 'What is it?' I ask, turning back to face him. Fred says, 'You're not a very good teacher.'

He has never once spoken to me like this before. He goes back into his own classroom, leaving me on my own on the concrete landing. Three weeks later when I finally have the courage to ask him what he meant. He says, 'The truth is, they aren't learning anything in your class.'

It took me five years and one more school before, on a cold day in an oil-fired overheated classroom during another February when I looked up at my class, the penny dropped. It took me another fifteen years to really see what he meant when he said ‘…they aren’t learning anything…’.

It’s taken me longer than that to get it in a deeper and more useful way. All the time through my work as a class teacher, as a deputy Headteacher/ acting Headteacher, as the Head of two very different schools, as the leader of a number of curriculum development projects, as an author of textbooks for students, as a co-founder of an educational consultancy and as consultant to many schools and organisations, as a member of my town education committee and a governor of a school in the East End of London, as the Director of Learning for two international groups of schools, one of which I also co-founded. In truth, I am still getting it now.

Fred judged me as a teacher in the way I should be judged; by asking whether my students were learning. He was right. It’s the way that all teachers should be judged. It’s the way teachers should judge themselves. But despite four years of college I didn’t even know what learning was when Fred spoke to me. (You won’t believe the percentage of new teachers with whom we have worked over the last thirty years or so who told us they barely talked about learning during their own college courses. )

It is still true today in many colleges. It is still true in too many schools and in too many homes. Looking at children and students (and teachers too) in school through the lens of learning takes place far less than you might think. In fact, the extent to which learning is NOT the focus of most governments, schools, teachers and parents is the hidden issue of both public and private schooling. It’s the issue behind the frustrations felt by so many. Very few people want to own up to this.

This makes me and some of my colleagues and friends feel like the little boy who cried out that the king wasn't wearing any clothes. For so many people, saying that many schools, teachers, school leaders and parents aren't focused on learning invites the kind of ridicule or avoidance faced by that little boy in the story.  It simply cannot be true, especially given the amount of money, research, time and energy put into public and private schooling and parenting over the past 50 or more years.That’s why it took me so long to get it. It’s one of the main reasons why schooling is so frustrating to so many. It has to change.

These Substack posts are for teachers, parents, administrators, school leaders and others who want to get it, too. I’m writing them to provoke you to think about learning and to discuss learning amongst your friends, colleagues, parents and everyone connected with your school or organisation. I’m hoping those discussions will help you and your school become more learning-focused and that your children and students will do even better. I’m going to post weekly. Because I am still getting it, I welcome any feedback or comments you may have. I do hope that you will become a subscriber and a part of this learning community. Because It’s been my passion ever since that penny dropped for me and because I think it is so important I am going to do everything I can to make this free for everyone.

I have chosen Substack because it seems to me to be such a good space for what I want to do. I can post regularly. You can reply. We can have a conversation and we can involve other people. When I learn something new that enables me to think slightly differently, I can update posts immediately. I won’t have to wait for a second edition of the book to be published. Ideas can be shared more easily. If I do say something occasionally that you think might be useful to a colleague or group of colleagues then it is there for all of them to see. There is no need to buy multiple copies of books and no need for, ahem, a little, possible illegal, photocopying. Colleagues can simply subscribe to Looking for Learning on their own Substack app and they have everything you have. That goes for parents, Board members or Governors of your school or organisation, too. I am an avid book reader and purchaser, but to spread and share ideas in readable chunks they are relatively cumbersome compared to something like Substack, especially given that Substack also enables podcasts and video. Nothing planned for either of those yet, but you never know.

. I’m looking forward to my own learning growing through your replies and comments that I hope will be forthcoming. I’m looking forward to the conversations.

If you stay subscribed, I can promise now that we will be looking at a number of important things, including, at least:

• Why learning should be so central to schools (and some other organisations, too)

• What learning is and how we can move to a usable definition of it

• What learning looks like (and what happens that isn’t actually learning but is often taken to be)

• Three different kinds of learning, what they are and how they are learned, taught and assessed differently

• The most important factors that affect learning, some for good, some for bad and some, interestingly, for both

• And, because this is being written and, hopefully, responded to in real time, I hope there will also be a host of things that I don’t know yet what they are.

There. That’s the introductory post done with. I think. If you have any questions or comments already, please respond. If not, keep a look out for the second post which is coming in the next few days. Thank you.