Dear {{first_name | Friend}},

(This FREE weekly newsletter now goes out on Fridays at 16.00 to more than 13,000 members. Is that the right time? Some people seem to want it at 9am on a Friday. Please let us know: [email protected])

When did you last hear this?

We have an education system in England that was designed in, and built for, the Victorian era. Like Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens’ Hard Times, we prioritise facts, facts and more facts, when what we should think harder about is feelings. Well-rounded individuals with high IQ and EQ is what we want. We need to get with the times, and create good listeners as well as learners. Education should be about the specific needs of the child, rather than the transmission of knowledge through the generations. It follows that we should give equal weight, at an early age, to vocational education. 

The above paragraph appears without much challenge in an endless catalogue of podcasts, articles, pamphlets and broadcast interviews by politicians, educators, wonks and parents the world over. It has become commonplace, the conventional wisdom, the prevailing orthodoxy; and if you need evidence, the fact that the above paragraph virtually describes the current Labour government policy should serve well enough. 

What if it’s wrong? What if every bit of it feels sensible, and modern, and compassionate - but those feelings in fact mask a deeply regressive approach to education that limits minds and life chances - particularly those of the poorest? What if, counter-intuitively for the age of AI, the old ways worked best? 

And how to explain the strange way in which belief in teacher authority, the sacred power of Knowledge, the value of discipline, the importance of standards has all become politically Right-coded - i.e. associated with conservatives - when for much of the 20th century there was a noble tradition on the Left which venerated academic excellence as our best tool to achieve such supposedly leftish priorities as social mobility, justice, and equality of opportunity?

I wish to humbly submit that this week’s episode of The Amol Rajan Connection will be the most useful conversation you hear this year about Education. That is certainly true for me, and I’m obsessed with the subject. 

In it, Daisy Christodolou slowly, systematically, eruditely, wittily dismantles that prevailing orthodoxy. Daisy is special. She grew up on a council estate in east London, got a scholarship to City of London School for Girls and in 2007, as captain, seemed to single-handedly win University Challenge for Warwick University. For this, she was dubbed the Brain of Britain by the press. She is very clever, relatable, and charismatic - an unusual assembly of qualities. 

Best of all, she is really funny. There are a couple of stories she tells that, as you’ll see, had me in stitches. We nearly had to pause recording at one point. 

In the episode, we go through the Seven Myths of Education that gave her the title of that influential book of 2014. She writes a great Substack, and runs No More Marking, an assessment company that uses comparative judgement. 

But we also go through some first principles about how the mind works, what education is for, and the balance between academic and vocational education. As a primer for this conversation, I just want to give you 5 broad takeaways. Lessons, if you like. It was one of those conversations that felt like a wake-up call, a cold bucket of water poured over your head, after which you feel invigorated. Naturally we have fact-checked all her claims. On the matters of opinion she espouses, I’m not saying here that I agree with every word, but I’d invite you to listen and make up your own mind. She says, broadly: 

1. Knowledge is Power. We need knowledge to think. The more knowledge you have, the more you can understand. Knowledge can be equated with long-term memory: a store of retrievable information and wisdom. This is different from working memory. Working memory is contiguous with consciousness. It is generally limited to between 4 to 7 new ideas at any one time, whereas long-term memory can keep thousands of items. If you have knowledge stored in long-term memory, it frees up space in your working memory for new ideas. And by committing knowledge to long-term memory, you not only free up vital space, you create a bigger store of reference points for that new information.

(My campaign to promote rote learning of poetry just gathered pace). 

2. We have an amazing, invaluable natural experiment in Education policy, which shows very clearly that one method works and the other fails - and yet, right now, according to Daisy, the Labour government is rejecting the method that works and adopting the method that fails. Education is devolved in the UK. About 15 years ago, education in England went down a particular path. Michael Gove and Nick Gibb and others pursued what, very broadly, you could call a traditional approach. High standards, a knowledge-rich curriculum, rigour in testing, academic focus until 16 and so forth. In this and their Free School programme - crucially - they were continuing the work of Labour figures like Andrew Adonis. At the same time, Scotland, and Wales went down a very different route: less focus on phonics, terminal exams, specific bodies of knowledge in the curriculum. Today, their educational standards are falling, according to PISA, the most widely used international tables. In England, standards have risen - a complete outlier in international education. And yet Labour is abandoning the successful path, in Daisy’s view. (She wrote about this in a recent Substack).

3. Why? One of the curiosities of modern Education is that the approach which has the weight of evidence on its side is now firmly associated with the Right. It’s true that Michael Gove and Nick Gibb put turbo-boosters underneath it, and that head-teachers like Katharine Birbalsingh are associated with it. But the Gove reforms were an acceleration of where Tony Blair and Andrew Adonis eventually got to. And as Daisy explains, there is a strong tradition on the Left in the 20th century of seeing academic education as the best route to emancipation for the working-class. I found this bit of our conversation so riveting. 

4. Good quality, highly esteemed vocational qualifications are great and noble - just not at 14. That’s too soon to specialise, and secondary schools aren’t the right place for it. Secondary schools are often smaller than Further Education colleges. They don’t have the specialist teaching of FE colleges, or the specialist equipment, or the connections to employers. “It’s very hard to do that [provide great vocational courses] in secondary schools, where you might have one or two kids every couple of years who want to be an electrician”. The other reason specialism at 14 is wrong is that the evidence shows this puts a lot of kids from poor backgrounds into courses that have limited economic value. We end up with schools for the rich and skills for the poor. And what if little Harry from Huddersfield or Chloe from Camelford is a late developer? To air the stereotype: if Harry has taken up carpentry at 14, or Chloe has gone into hair-dressing at that age, what if they change their mind at 16 - or discover a love of astrophysics? None of this is to disparage vocational education: Daisy’s cousin and grandfather both did the Knowledge as black cab drivers, a brilliant vocational course. Just not at 14.  

5. Perhaps the most shocking section was the discussion of technology. We are at severe risk of becoming a Stupidogenic Society. Humanity is getting dumber. For most of the 20th century, global IQ levels rose; we know this from the Flynn effect. Now they’re in decline: the reverse Flynn effect. And it could be that technology has something to do with this; in particular, the decline of reading. I covered this in one of my daily explainers recently, and the engagement and reach was immense, which tells me that a lot of you are worrying about this, as I am. We are right to worry. 

There are a few interviews I’ve done, conversations I’ve had over the years, that I feel are so profound and urgent that I want everyone to share in it. The glory of a show and digital platform like this is we can do just that. 

Please do me the honour, and all of us a favour, by kindly enjoying the full episode. Oh and if you’re kind enough to hit the Subscribe or Follow button it helps us grow, gives us great data on what we’re doing well or not, allows me to hire and build a great team, and helps us get more great guests on. Thank you so much - and thanks too, to Daisy, who I’d never met before, for her time, and for a very special contribution to the nascent ARC Universe.

Here are links to the full episode

On Spotify:

On YouTube:

On Apple Podcasts:

On Amazon Music:

Thank you so very much for all the many questions we got in Minette Batters, the former boss of the National Farmers Union. We’re recording that episode soon, and I think it’s going to be spicy. 

This week’s Budget added to, rather than quelled, talk of an early election. I’m going to do a daily explainer in the coming days explaining why that’s the case. When Ed Conway comes on the show, I want to talk both about the somewhat bizarre and underwhelming Budget, and the much bigger picture of what’s going on with the global economy - which is frankly terrifying. 

I will get in trouble for saying this, but I think that in the domain of what he does - explaining deep global trends, especially in economics, using great visual journalism and deep reporting, Ed is just about the best journalist in Britain. There are different types of phenomenal journalists, too, who do different things, like muck-raking, scoop-getting, or mega investigations. But at what he does, Ed is one of the greats. 
We’re going to talk about two brilliant books he’s written, on the trade routes that are the secret web of the world economy, and the six raw materials that power it: sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. And we’re also going to talk about the huge vulnerabilities caused by the global addiction to Debt. Spoiler: I think a major emergency is getting increasingly likely - and this time, unlike the Great Financial Crash of 2007, governments may not be able to come to the rescue. We’ll make it both a fascinating and fun listen, I promise.

Go on - what’s your one great question for Ed Conway about the Budget, or about the global economy, or trade wars, or the materials that power our world.

Please email [email protected] by 10am on Monday to let us know.  We’d love to get questions as a short voice message or video message if you can. Thank you! 

A weekly selection of life-enhancing delights, curated by your humble correspondent, in response to popular demand. I think you will enjoy them.

Visit:

Half-term means Devon, and Devon is heaven. This week I took my older two to Clip’n’Climb on the Quayside and they loved it. So then I took my middle daughter too. You have to be 4 years old to do it; she’s 5, and she loved it too. Basically, they put you in a harness, and there are a series of different walls you can climb up, some harder than the others. If you come off, your harness gives you a nice slow descent. It was exhilarating watching my son and eldest daughter develop such confidence so quickly. This is an absolutely classic example of being at the age and stage where parenting becomes really fun. Not nappies and extreme sleep deprivation and goo-goo-ga-ga; more, “Dad, time me, time me!” and “I did it Dad! Did you see?”. If I could bottle that feeling, I’d be a trillionaire. Later in the week we sneaked off for dinner at The Hour Glass Inn as well. Also easier when you’re out of the nappy stage. Fabulous pub: really good food, lovely setting, great service.

Read:

The Aristocracy of Talent, by Adrian Wooldridge. I have read Adrian closely for years, and really admire how he has become a patron saint for causes that threaten to become unfashionable - Liberalism, Centrism, Meritocracy. The latter is just about the most interesting word in the English language, one invented satirically as a warning by Michael Young, author of the 1945 Labour manifesto, but now adopted across much of the world, and also perhaps the source of the populist revolt we are seeing. This book is vast in scope and ambition, deeply erudite, frequently mischievous, and has a pacy urgency about it. I met Adrian when he came on RADICAL last year. Now at Bloomberg, he’s one of the most important writers around, precisely because he’s brave. 

Watch:

The final of Celebrity Traitors, which I have now watched. How could I suggest anything different? It’s the greatest show in modern television, and it’s humbling to have been a tiny part of it (alas, really tiny. Damn you, Withnail!). I knew, from gossiping with fellow contestants, who had won, but to see it on screen is still very special. I just love the fact that, because so many people have watched it, generations and geographies have been united. It was like the 1990s all over again, when so much more of our public domain - our culture - was a shared endeavour. 

Listen: 

We spend so much time listening to Taylor Swift as a family, I feel at times like she’s part of the family. I don’t know what the fashionable or cool opinion about her is supposed to be, and I’m gutted I couldn’t take up an invitation to see her live last year. But I think she is just about the most fantastic, inspirational, talented, smart, hard-working megastar currently writing songs. And I think there’s a danger that the extreme familiarity of ‘Blank Space’ or ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ makes you overlook the absolutely sizzling composition and production of other hits. Just listen, and then listen again, to the layers of ‘Style’. I think it’s amazing music. There I said it. 

I hope you had a decent half-term if you were off for any of it. And thank you to Mary, mum of three teenagers, who wrote just the most wonderful email to us about my newsletter last week on NEETs. Mary agrees with my mother-in-law - always a good policy - about the case for brevity in these weekly musings, so I’ll leave it there, except to say: Mary, we appreciate your membership very much; and if anyone else wants to get in touch, you always can at [email protected]. 

Happy Friday.

Yours ARCfully, 

AMOL