Thesis 18 – Understanding Cultures

Why are we as individuals and societies all so different, yet at the same time so curiously similar!  The colour of our skins may vary but in comparison to the overall structure of our bodies and what we are discovering about our inherited predispositions to behave in certain ways, we all conform ─ English, African, […]

Thesis 9 – Big Heads

[Please scroll down to listen to an audio version of this thesis] As our distant ancestors started to make better use of their brains so, over long periods of time, human brains got larger so forcing the skull to get bigger.  So large did the skull become that the birthing process became more difficult and […]

Thesis 7 – Collecting Our Thoughts

[Please scroll down to listen to an audio version of this thesis] Learning is not so much about being taught, as it is the consequence of having to think something out for yourself.  As such, learning is a reflective activity.  By drawing upon our past experiences to understand and evaluate new ideas we are able […]

Deschooling our Humanity

Everywhere not only education but also society as a whole needs “deschooling.”

Learning to Go with the Grain of the Brain

If young people are to be equipped effectively to meet the challenges of the 21st century it is surely prudent to seek out the very best understandings from current scientific research into the nature of how humans learn before considering further reform of the current system.

This article by John Abbott and Terence Ryan appeared in the Spring, 1999 issue of Education Canada.

The Central Thesis

Contrary to many a childhood memory, learning is not an alien activity which has to be imposed on humans; rather it is a set of instincts and predispositions as fundamental to the human condition as sex or survival.

Some Recent Developments in Cognitive Science

While all children need both a body of knowledge and some basic skills to enable them to be functionally literate, a rapidly changing society demands that young people be able to rise above such rote, factual levels to think critically, and creatively; to be flexible, and spontaneously to be able to solve ill structured, ambiguous problems in areas in which they have little first hand information.

In Search of Community

Ernest Boyer delivered this speech to the the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development’s 48th Annual Conference Creating Learning Communities, held at Washington, D.C., on 26 – 30 March 1993. Please note that this is an exact transcript rather than a cleaned-up print version. I’m delighted to be invited to join you to celebrate the 50th […]

Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible

This article has exercised a great influence on the 21st Century Learning Initiative’s thinking. It originally appeared in the Winter, 1991 issue of American Educator, the journal of The American Federation of Teachers, and is reprinted here with permission.

Making Connections: teaching and the human brain, by Renate and Geoffrey Caine

A highly influential book linking research to evolving practice