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Articles

A selection of papers and articles that tackle specific issues in our understanding of learning, intelligence and education. They span 30 years or more of my academic career, but in all of them you can see my evolving belief that our minds are malleable, and that the environments in which we grow and work shape our mental capacities much more than has been traditionally thought.

Hubris in Leadership: A peril of unbridled intuition

How does hubris and unbridled intuition intersect?

The Development of Learning Power: A new perspective on child development and early education

Understanding how the mix of accidental and intentional influence moulds young minds.

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Nirvana and Neuroscience: The self-liberating brain

Buddhism says not everyone can win a gold medal at 1500 metres but all of us have the potential to be excellent at life.

Wisdom: Advanced Creativty

Wisdom inheres not so much a quality of thinking of cognition, but in the nature of the underlying 'motivational vector' that drives cognition. 

Involuntary Simplicity: Changing dysfunctional habits of consumption

Why is it so difficult for 'voluntary simplicity' to become truly voluntary? This analysis makes clear why certain popular forms of campaigning and education are ineffective and looks to methodologies of self-transformation. 

Beyond Cleverness: How to be smart without thinking

Being clever is not the same as being smart.

Creative Glidespace

An interest in understanding creativity lives happily alongside a variety of highly creative and successful careers at ResCen.

Building Learning Power: The key to great coaching

The best coaches are the most humble: the ones who know they aren't perfect, and are always keen to learn more. 

Turning Thinking on its Head: How bodies make up their minds

Embodied cognition and challenging the assumptions that underlie the dominant sedentary and disembodied approach to the high status elements of education.

Rethinking Assessment: A Crib Sheet

Some Points and Questions (Ps and Qs) that might help us explore better ways to evidence the benefits that young people have gained from their time at school.

Bad Education: Is vocational education for the less capable?

Unearthing the social attitudes about relative merits of the academic and vocational.

Expanding the Capacity to Learning: A new end for education

There is a widespread belief that being an effective, powerful real-life learner is a useful thing to be, and that twenty first century education should be aiming to help young people develop the genetic capacity to learn,

Thinking at the Edge

How learning twenty dispositions may potentially be cultivated in educational settings.

School as an Epistemic Apprenticeship: The case of Building Learning Power

Giving all children a more focused, practical and relevant send-off on their journeys through the rest of the 21st century.

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