An essential read for anyone interested in the roots and development of today’s education system If you’ve attended one of my talks, you’ll have heard me bemoan the conspicuous absence, from the shelves of actual and virtual bookshops, of any recent books about the history of education. To my knowledge the last overview for the general reader was published in […]
The day passes profitably: Robert Raikes and the Sunday school movement
An essay about the role played by the Sunday school movement in widening access to education in England and beyond. For more on the advance of mass education during the 18th and 19th centuries, look out for my chapter on the subject in the forthcoming History of Education (Routledge). Trouble on the Sabbath By the latter half of the 18th […]
Learning Through the Ages comes to Substack
The Learning Through the Ages newsletter has moved to Substack, the popular platform for independent writing, and is now available on email, online at learningthroughtheages.substack.com or in the Substack app. For new readers, I’ve been posting some highlights from this blog, including articles on: Look out for an all-new essay coming soon on the remarkable role that early Sunday schools […]
Learning what we don’t need to know
I was invited to discuss my essay The Liberating Power of Education this weekend at the second Buxton Battle of Ideas festival. The text of my introductory speech follows. The discussion that followed, with respondents Dr Adam Simcock and Dr Ruth Mieschbuehler and members of the audience, was recorded and should be available soon. For as long as people have […]
What do we mean by ‘the best that’s been thought and known’?
I was recently interviewed about my essay The Liberating Power of Education for a future episode of Dr James Mannion’s excellent long-form podcast, Rethinking Education. In the often intolerant and tribal world of educational theory and policy, James is to be commended for his willingness to explore differences of opinion in a generous and civil fashion. And we disagreed, civilly, […]
How we learned to teach ‘small children’
I have contributed two chapters to Routledge‘s History of Education, a primer for undergraduates which is due to be published in 2022. My chapters describe the development of liberal education from Ancient Greece to the Industrial Revolution and the arrival of mass education in England during the 18th and 19th centuries. With so much to cover and only so many […]
The Liberating Power of Education
I’m very proud to have contributed to the Academy of Ideas’ Letters on Liberty series of pamphlets, which has been doing a great job of showing what the much-devalued idea of ‘freedom’ can mean to us today. My Letter is a mini-history of education, which explores the tension between the recognition that knowledge is important and the fear of where […]
Reimagining schools at the Battle of Ideas
I spoke on the Reimagining schools panel at the Battle of Ideas festival, which took place in Westminster on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th October. My introductory comments are reproduced below: Pandemic or no pandemic, I think it’s always worth asking could schools be done differently? Could be they be done better? There’s still plenty of scope to experiment – […]
Education can save your life – the story of the Neck Verse
One testament to the power of education is that many people credit it with having ‘saved their life’. But whether that’s because knowledge and learning opened up a path to a rewarding career or because it helped someone escape difficult personal circumstances, ‘education saved my life’ is usually meant metaphorically. In medieval England, however, it was literal. Having an education […]
What makes a ‘public school’ public?
During 2020 I’ve been researching and writing a couple of chapters for a forthcoming Routledge book on the history of education. My contributions look at the development of liberal education from Ancient Greece to the Industrial Revolution. I’m now in the final stages of editing, cutting the chapters down to fit the allotted word count. Here’s one section that got […]