• The Creative Vocabulary

  

  2nd March 2026

   (Drawing hands, M. C. Esher, 1948) “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism.” – Jean-Paul Sartre (1989) One of the most...
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• Higher Education in ‘The Present...

  

  26th January 2026

  As my colleagues and I prepare for the next step in our research project ‘What’s the “Use” in Higher Education’, focussing on how the contemporary and diverse landscapes of universities...
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• In Praise of the Essay

  

  19th January 2026

  (Essais, de Montaigne, 1595) The essay is a unique way of approaching education. It can be part science in that it means 'to test' or 'to experiment'. Conversely, it can be part art in that in...
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• Between Expression and Erasure:...

  

  1st December 2025

  Education is never only about the transmission of knowledge. It is a field where professional identities are shaped, contested, and continually remade. To speak of professional identity in teaching...
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• Resisting the ‘AI gospel’: The...

  

  3rd October 2025

  In recent years, the world has witnessed a surge of advancement and popularization of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. With the publication of several UNESCO (2019; 2021; 2023) documents...
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• What do I mean by ‘autonomy’?...

  

  8th September 2025

  Francisco Goya, El sueño de la razón produce monstruos (1799).  With the support of a small grant from the PESGB, I recently attended the Association for Moral Education’s annual conference,...
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• The inevitable growth of standardised...

  

  18th August 2025

  Edvard Munch, "The Oak" (1906) A recent report identified a growth in the use of standardised curricula in both primary and secondary schools in England. These resourced schemes of work are...
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• Polymathy Lost: On the politics of...

  

  21st July 2025

  (Melencolia I, Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)  What is to be done except learn all we can about everything we can? Education is a force of civilisation. Through it we have...
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• Is Philosophy just making stuff up?...

  

  25th June 2025

  One of the most awkward parts of attending conferences, or indeed any work related event, is the requirement to explain what I do. On the train from Sheffield to Oxford for the PESGB annual...
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• Existentialism in the Classroom: The...

  

  16th June 2025

  Having taught Philosophy A Level in Further Education for two years now, I still find it so striking, and perhaps frightening, the expectations and pressures that our society bestows upon our young...
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• Phronesis and Virtue: Reflections from...

  

  13th May 2025

  An allegory of wisdom, attributed to Giovanni Domenico Cerrini (1609–1681) Phronesis and Virtue: Reflections from Gdańsk I am a full-time maths teacher at an inner-city comprehensive school in...
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• Freedom in the classroom

  

  9th May 2025

  Practitioners face questions relating to freedom each day when teaching and planning curricula. How will students engage with the material? How should students be in the learning environment? Do...
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