What if Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong?

If you’re annoyed at the presumption of some guy daring to suggest everything you know about education might be wrong, please take it with a pinch of salt. It’s just a title. Of course, you probably think a great many things that aren’t wrong.

David Didau will question your most deeply held assumptions about teaching and learning, expose them to the fiery eye of reason, and see if they can still walk in a straight line after the experience. Combining his 15 years of classroom teaching, coaching, and consulting for United Kingdom’s Department of Education, David shares the tools to help you question your assumptions and assist you in picking through what you believe.

This book draws on research from the field of cognitive science to expertly analyse some of the unexamined meta-beliefs in education. If you come out the other end having vigorously and violently disagreed with him, you’ll at least have had to think hard about what you believe.

In Part 1 Why We’re Wrong, David dismantles what we think we know; examining cognitive traps and biases, assumptions, gut feelings and the problem of evidence. Part 2 Through the Threshold delves deeper, looking at progress, liminality and threshold concepts, the science of learning, and the difference between novices and experts. In Part 3, David asks us the question What Could We Do Differently? and offers some considered insights into spacing and interleaving, the testing effect, the generation effect, reducing feedback and why difficult is desirable. While Part 4 challenges us to consider What else might we be getting wrong? cogitating formative assessment, lesson observation, grit and growth, differentiation, praise, motivation and creativity.