To extend this thought process I see a difficulty for teachers in being responsive to unmet need as a SENCo and I can feel direct instruction creating situations in which teachers cannot be curious any more about the way the child is interacting with the learning or environment. I am struggling to bring back to teachers an adaptability or flexibility in thinking as they are becoming dependent on tightly narrated and modelled instructional practices and in observation when the very specific instructional skill is observed we hit the shout out button with no regard for if it was actually an effective moment for the skill or, more importantly whether it was necessary or effective. “We are here to see this, so this we shall see” mentality. I also feel like I learned to teach in an era of both instructional and moderately guided practice but without deliberate practice and thus I honed and refined every single day, because I worked in a school where not to do so were a considerable risk to life and limb! That is where my teaching really developed, not by being completely stifled by routine instructional approaches but by thinking hard about how to deliver well to extremely complex children during challenging interactions. I worry that the repetitive cycles that children experience throughout their school day in the way that all staff deliver using similar narrations can be boring and repetitive and that life satisfaction and enjoyment of school suffer as a result. Has this got anything to do with poor attendance and lack of engagement in our secondary schools? I sometimes hazard that it might. I like the comparator to parenting. In a family of three I have to use multiple methods as I have two sons, one of whom is Neurodivergent and requires repetitive explicit practice with highly scaffolded learning opportunities for independence. My second son requires moderate instruction with room for independence and self-reliance and my daughter prefers to lead from the bottom with complete autonomy and to seek the support she requires, when required, rather than accept explicit guidance. All three approaches are appropriate to the differing needs of my children. One size cannot fit all.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Fran. I completely understand your worries about the observation culture you describe: when a lesson is judged on whether a particular instructional skill shows up, with no regard for whether it was the right move for that child in that moment.
You learned to teach through thinking hard about how to deliver the best for your students in very challenging situations. We put too many trainee teachers in these situations with too little support – is it any surprise we struggle to recruit and retain teachers? You were able to develop your judgement, but it’s easier to hand teachers a script and say ‘just teach it this way’.
Your family example makes the point more clearly than any study – it isn’t that explicit, scaffolded instruction is best, or autonomy the ideal; it’s that one of your sons needs the first, your daughter the second, and the skill lies in judging which is most appropriate for each. It’s that judgement that we’re in danger of removing from our education system. Even when we allow it, it isn’t clear we’re giving teachers the skills to exercise it effectively.
You ask whether this feeds into attendance and disengagement in secondary. It’s hard to prove any single way of teaching is the cause, but I don’t think we can rule out that it’s part of the issue. I looked at the data (https://www.chris-reid.co.uk/p/why-dont-students-like-school-do) and something is clearly going badly wrong. We owe it to the children in our schools to work out what that is.
Thanks for sharing this Chris, although there is a lot to respond to hear your story does remind me of an interview with a high-performing school in Victoria and I mentioned the phrase "developmental continuum" for learning and I could just feel the body language cringe in the room...
Although we don't like to think of them that way, schools are ideological spaces, and this comes out in these kinds of interactions. The good thing is if you're aware you can get a real sense of what is actually valued and like in your case, it's probably a good thing to experience rejection when the ideological differences between yourself and the school is possibly too wide to negotiate.
Thanks Tom – I think you’re right. Looking back, that interview turned out for the best, for both parties. Exposing where your sympathies lie can be awkward in the moment, but it probably leads to the right outcome.
I went in fairly naively, having spent a few years teaching at a private school. There’s a gulf between the education discussion in the private and state sectors in England – both say they use evidence and want to improve teaching, but, to borrow your phrase, they’re different ideological spaces.
The interview was a lesson for me in the terminology that schools use and the meaning behind it. I was also asked whether I was a ‘guide on the side’ or a ‘sage on the stage’ – and got that one wrong too!
On what you’re saying here, I have a friend who gave me some really interesting advice about interviews: don’t ask questions that polarise but seek out the interviewers position first by asking more open questions and then move from there (e.g. instead of “what football team do you support?” ask “what sports are you into?”).
Kind of feels a bit like manipulation, but I think he raised an important idea for how we tend to try and discern “in” and “out” groups quickly and how these need to be challenged.
As a teacher, you do want somewhere that feels like ‘your sort of place’ - your ideological spaces again - even if it’s hard to get a sense of from a single visit.
I feel schools should think about recruitment more openly than interviewees do, though. If they rely on polarising questions a school can end up with staff who all agree, but who then leads the change when something isn't working? Who challenges the orthodoxy? And if a school doesn't want to be challenged, how is it going to teach its students to think critically?
Anyway, more to take up another day. Thanks Tom - enjoying what's happening on The Interruption too 🙂
Glad to catch up with your work this evening Chris. Found myself nodding, thinking, nodding again and rethinking with this one. Really thought provoking, interesting and comprehensive article. And fascinating to hear about your interview experience; discovery learning certainly seems to be growing a rather contaminated stigma!
Taking an inverse approach to Ashman's argument that modern explicit instruction may be tending towards a more 'total instruction' is a very unique angle to take, and I very much enjoyed working my way through your thinking. Ashman's article is indeed very relevant to this discussion, who you mention makes the realistic point about what happens when viewing the unguided-direct instruction divide as a continuum; if going from the left to the middle is on the right track, why not go all the way? Your convergence on guided discovery in response reminds me a lot of a related term I've encountered in this research called 'explicit enquiry', which seems to satisfy both sides of the continuum in a similar way.
As you've very elaborately outlined, perhaps a middle ground or a hybrid combination of direct instruction and guided enquiry may be best for children's learning. But as you explained, which side of the continuum the teacher leans into more seems to highly depend on so many different factors. While notorious for their obsession with knowledge and explicit instruction, this hybrid is something I didn't get to see much in my visit to Michaela a few months ago, but have read about. The teachers value the importance of children's inquisitivity and research enquiry, but only after building a secure enough knowledge base as a foundation. So perhaps the order of teaching methods matters a lot, similar to what the KSC paper explores around novice and expert learners.
Apologies for the long comment, just had a lot to share and very much enjoyed reading, Chris!
Thanks Sam - it's great to get your take on this, especially as you've seen a far wider range of schools and practices than I have. I wrote about a Michaela imitator; you've visited the real thing, and what you describe - enquiry valued, but only once a secure knowledge base is in place - is exactly the sequencing point I think gets lost in the polarised version of this debate. That said, I think there is a push in a lot of schools towards a particular ‘correct’ way of teaching that distorts even the evidence around what works well with explicit teaching.
You're right that order matters. Part of the value of KSC is that there genuinely was poorly conducted discovery learning around at the time - I ran some of it myself early in my career, with little guidance on how to do it well. Children won't spontaneously teach themselves the literacy and numeracy they need; they need structured guidance. The real question is when we can start removing some of that scaffolding, and ultimately I think only the classroom teacher can make that call - they know their class and they know the material. The job is to make sure they're making it with balanced evidence in front of them.
The terminology is a minefield - PBL (problem- or project-based, depending who you ask), enquiry, minimally guided instruction - and lumping it all together, as KSC did, doesn't help. That said, ‘explicit enquiry’ sounds very close to the position I'm arguing we should take seriously. Thanks for the heads-up, Sam, I'll go and find some resources on it!
Brilliant summary. Very pragmatic and sensible. There is no need for two camps. No need for all or nothing thinking. Collaboration, not debate, is how humanity advances.
Thanks Toby – that's exactly it. A lot of what looks like deep disagreement is really about terminology and the assumptions we bring, not aims. Get past that and there's far more shared ground than the two-camps picture suggests.
To extend this thought process I see a difficulty for teachers in being responsive to unmet need as a SENCo and I can feel direct instruction creating situations in which teachers cannot be curious any more about the way the child is interacting with the learning or environment. I am struggling to bring back to teachers an adaptability or flexibility in thinking as they are becoming dependent on tightly narrated and modelled instructional practices and in observation when the very specific instructional skill is observed we hit the shout out button with no regard for if it was actually an effective moment for the skill or, more importantly whether it was necessary or effective. “We are here to see this, so this we shall see” mentality. I also feel like I learned to teach in an era of both instructional and moderately guided practice but without deliberate practice and thus I honed and refined every single day, because I worked in a school where not to do so were a considerable risk to life and limb! That is where my teaching really developed, not by being completely stifled by routine instructional approaches but by thinking hard about how to deliver well to extremely complex children during challenging interactions. I worry that the repetitive cycles that children experience throughout their school day in the way that all staff deliver using similar narrations can be boring and repetitive and that life satisfaction and enjoyment of school suffer as a result. Has this got anything to do with poor attendance and lack of engagement in our secondary schools? I sometimes hazard that it might. I like the comparator to parenting. In a family of three I have to use multiple methods as I have two sons, one of whom is Neurodivergent and requires repetitive explicit practice with highly scaffolded learning opportunities for independence. My second son requires moderate instruction with room for independence and self-reliance and my daughter prefers to lead from the bottom with complete autonomy and to seek the support she requires, when required, rather than accept explicit guidance. All three approaches are appropriate to the differing needs of my children. One size cannot fit all.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Fran. I completely understand your worries about the observation culture you describe: when a lesson is judged on whether a particular instructional skill shows up, with no regard for whether it was the right move for that child in that moment.
You learned to teach through thinking hard about how to deliver the best for your students in very challenging situations. We put too many trainee teachers in these situations with too little support – is it any surprise we struggle to recruit and retain teachers? You were able to develop your judgement, but it’s easier to hand teachers a script and say ‘just teach it this way’.
Your family example makes the point more clearly than any study – it isn’t that explicit, scaffolded instruction is best, or autonomy the ideal; it’s that one of your sons needs the first, your daughter the second, and the skill lies in judging which is most appropriate for each. It’s that judgement that we’re in danger of removing from our education system. Even when we allow it, it isn’t clear we’re giving teachers the skills to exercise it effectively.
You ask whether this feeds into attendance and disengagement in secondary. It’s hard to prove any single way of teaching is the cause, but I don’t think we can rule out that it’s part of the issue. I looked at the data (https://www.chris-reid.co.uk/p/why-dont-students-like-school-do) and something is clearly going badly wrong. We owe it to the children in our schools to work out what that is.
Here here! The wisdom of experience! Couldn't agree more!
Thanks for sharing this Chris, although there is a lot to respond to hear your story does remind me of an interview with a high-performing school in Victoria and I mentioned the phrase "developmental continuum" for learning and I could just feel the body language cringe in the room...
Although we don't like to think of them that way, schools are ideological spaces, and this comes out in these kinds of interactions. The good thing is if you're aware you can get a real sense of what is actually valued and like in your case, it's probably a good thing to experience rejection when the ideological differences between yourself and the school is possibly too wide to negotiate.
Thanks Tom – I think you’re right. Looking back, that interview turned out for the best, for both parties. Exposing where your sympathies lie can be awkward in the moment, but it probably leads to the right outcome.
I went in fairly naively, having spent a few years teaching at a private school. There’s a gulf between the education discussion in the private and state sectors in England – both say they use evidence and want to improve teaching, but, to borrow your phrase, they’re different ideological spaces.
The interview was a lesson for me in the terminology that schools use and the meaning behind it. I was also asked whether I was a ‘guide on the side’ or a ‘sage on the stage’ – and got that one wrong too!
How could you get that one wrong! 😂
On what you’re saying here, I have a friend who gave me some really interesting advice about interviews: don’t ask questions that polarise but seek out the interviewers position first by asking more open questions and then move from there (e.g. instead of “what football team do you support?” ask “what sports are you into?”).
Kind of feels a bit like manipulation, but I think he raised an important idea for how we tend to try and discern “in” and “out” groups quickly and how these need to be challenged.
Keep up the writing!
It's a good tactic - I'll keep it in mind!
As a teacher, you do want somewhere that feels like ‘your sort of place’ - your ideological spaces again - even if it’s hard to get a sense of from a single visit.
I feel schools should think about recruitment more openly than interviewees do, though. If they rely on polarising questions a school can end up with staff who all agree, but who then leads the change when something isn't working? Who challenges the orthodoxy? And if a school doesn't want to be challenged, how is it going to teach its students to think critically?
Anyway, more to take up another day. Thanks Tom - enjoying what's happening on The Interruption too 🙂
Glad to catch up with your work this evening Chris. Found myself nodding, thinking, nodding again and rethinking with this one. Really thought provoking, interesting and comprehensive article. And fascinating to hear about your interview experience; discovery learning certainly seems to be growing a rather contaminated stigma!
Taking an inverse approach to Ashman's argument that modern explicit instruction may be tending towards a more 'total instruction' is a very unique angle to take, and I very much enjoyed working my way through your thinking. Ashman's article is indeed very relevant to this discussion, who you mention makes the realistic point about what happens when viewing the unguided-direct instruction divide as a continuum; if going from the left to the middle is on the right track, why not go all the way? Your convergence on guided discovery in response reminds me a lot of a related term I've encountered in this research called 'explicit enquiry', which seems to satisfy both sides of the continuum in a similar way.
As you've very elaborately outlined, perhaps a middle ground or a hybrid combination of direct instruction and guided enquiry may be best for children's learning. But as you explained, which side of the continuum the teacher leans into more seems to highly depend on so many different factors. While notorious for their obsession with knowledge and explicit instruction, this hybrid is something I didn't get to see much in my visit to Michaela a few months ago, but have read about. The teachers value the importance of children's inquisitivity and research enquiry, but only after building a secure enough knowledge base as a foundation. So perhaps the order of teaching methods matters a lot, similar to what the KSC paper explores around novice and expert learners.
Apologies for the long comment, just had a lot to share and very much enjoyed reading, Chris!
Thanks Sam - it's great to get your take on this, especially as you've seen a far wider range of schools and practices than I have. I wrote about a Michaela imitator; you've visited the real thing, and what you describe - enquiry valued, but only once a secure knowledge base is in place - is exactly the sequencing point I think gets lost in the polarised version of this debate. That said, I think there is a push in a lot of schools towards a particular ‘correct’ way of teaching that distorts even the evidence around what works well with explicit teaching.
You're right that order matters. Part of the value of KSC is that there genuinely was poorly conducted discovery learning around at the time - I ran some of it myself early in my career, with little guidance on how to do it well. Children won't spontaneously teach themselves the literacy and numeracy they need; they need structured guidance. The real question is when we can start removing some of that scaffolding, and ultimately I think only the classroom teacher can make that call - they know their class and they know the material. The job is to make sure they're making it with balanced evidence in front of them.
The terminology is a minefield - PBL (problem- or project-based, depending who you ask), enquiry, minimally guided instruction - and lumping it all together, as KSC did, doesn't help. That said, ‘explicit enquiry’ sounds very close to the position I'm arguing we should take seriously. Thanks for the heads-up, Sam, I'll go and find some resources on it!
Brilliant summary. Very pragmatic and sensible. There is no need for two camps. No need for all or nothing thinking. Collaboration, not debate, is how humanity advances.
Thanks Toby – that's exactly it. A lot of what looks like deep disagreement is really about terminology and the assumptions we bring, not aims. Get past that and there's far more shared ground than the two-camps picture suggests.