The Emotional Learner

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    • Why do we break the rules?

      I don’t write much about classroom behaviour, or rather, I don’t write explicitly about classroom behaviour. In fact, this post is more about behaviour in general, with some comments on behaviour in schools, so please don’t assume that I’m setting myself up as a behaviour guru (there are plenty of those already). In fact, I’m…

    • Truth, imagination & bleief: How do we decide?

      Far from being gullible, young children are capable of rejecting claims when they don’t match their experiences, but this doesn’t mean they’re always right. Making the distinction between what is real and what is not seems simple enough although multiple layers of fantasy can quickly complicate things. I, as an adult, no longer believe in…

    • Can knowledge get in the way of creativity?

      ‘I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination encircles the world’  – Albert Einstein I’ve seen the above quote numerous times, although it’s usually only the Imagination is more important than knowledge bit. It’s a real Einstein quote, unlike…

    • Netflix, binge-watching & the spacing effect

      What does binge-watching the latest Netflix addition have to do with teaching and learning?  Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon. Initially, I put it down to the inevitable slow decline of my cognitive functions as I age, but being the curious kind of person I am (and not being entirely…

    • What is Dual-Coding?

      During the 1960s, Canadian psychologist Allan Paivio made an interesting yet seemingly simple observation; he discovered that people found it easier to remember concrete nouns that can be imagined compared to abstract nouns where images were harder to come by.  For example, if I were to present to you a list containing only words like…

    • Book Review: Notes on a Nervous Planet ~ Matt Haig

      Notes on a Nervous Planet is an extraordinary book for a number of reasons. First of all, Matt Haig isn’t trying to fix anybody and, at times, his advice to the reader has little to do with what Haig himself does. For example, he spends much of the book on the negative impact of social…

    • Framing Language To Promote Positive Behaviour

      I recently wrote about how we can manipulate our audience for personal gain. I was certainly being somewhat satirical, yet the main purpose of the piece was to highlight how easily we can be manipulated and how often we unintentionally wind up promoting the types of people we would rather not see become even more…

    • A Beginners Guide to Manipulating Your Audience

      If you want to become the next guru or rock star of your particular field (or just bag yourself hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter) you first need to get to grips with the basic principles of manipulation. There are, in fact, two audiences you need to manipulate: those who are supportive of your…

    • Resilience: A Love-Hate Relationship

      I think Nick Rose hit the nail on the head with his comments on resilience in What does this look like in the classroom? To paraphrase Nick, if you were to ask thirty teachers what resilience was, you would be likely to receive thirty different explanations. I’ve been mulling over the whole issue of resilience…

    • Extreme Fear

      Imagine you’re scaling a rock face, let’s call this particular rock face El Capitan and situate it in Yosemite National Park, California. It’s approximately 3000 feet in height and it’s a difficult climb, actually, it’s vertical. Many climbers have succeeded in climbing El Capitan, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t get scared, especially when…