Education Bookcast

Last week's episode served as an introduction to behaviourism. This week, in the name of balance, we are looking at another theory of animal training, the so-called dominance approach. Cesar Millan is a Mexican dog trainer who emigrated to the US in his youth. He now has a TV show called The Dog Whisperer. Unlike Karen Pryor, he taught himself his approach to dogs through experience and exposure from an early age. He is said to have "a magical way with dogs", which is something that comes across, at least to the layman, in his show. Millan's approach to dogs concerns thinking about the dog's needs. Perhaps that should read the Dog's needs, as he believes that all dogs have the same psychology, "dog psychology", which is different to human psychology and necessary to understand in order to solve "dog problems". His famous motto, "I rehabilitate dogs, I train people", is a reflection of the philosophy that the reason that dogs have problems is that humans aren't meeting their needs. If it seems presumptuous to

Why should somebody who is interested in education be interested in behaviourism? Because it's had a huge impact on educational theory and practice over the past more than 100 years. When I started reading books on education, the I was astounded at the frequency with which behaviourist arguments were put forward to support ideas. I felt like I could hardly budge without bumping into another reference to it. And it's no surprise - behaviourist educationalists include figures such as Edward Thorndike, sometimes referred to as "the father of educational psychology". The first book I read about educational psychology said that there were three chief paradigms of teaching, one of which was "behavioural". Understanding behaviourism helped me to better understand what these books were talking about, and to know when they didn't know what they were talking about. Because it says some pretty crazy stuff, which is nonetheless hard to refute. Burrhus Frederic Skinner, the behaviourist who made the greatest contribution

Common sense tells us that in order to get someone to do something, or to get them to do it better (faster, more thoroughly, more carefully), you might offer them a reward - or if the offer is already there, increase its size. All kinds of clever-sounding people hold this view - principally economists and management consultants, but more or less anyone else too, as it seems to be so basic and so widespread an idea as to not merit further inspection. Daniel Pink's book Drive introduces us to the research that seems to turn much of this "common sense" on its head. It turns out the rewards such as financial incentives usually make people perform worse. It's not limited to financial incentives (although Pink focuses on these), and not even limited to people - the initial example given is of how giving contingent food rewards to monkeys makes them worse at learning how to open latches than literally just leaving the monkeys alone. In place of the carrots-and-sticks theory, Pink introduces us to a new theory, which

The ideas from Carol Dweck's research, explained in her book Mindset, seem to be very popular nowadays. They are even part of the curriculum of the Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) for new teachers being trained in the UK. And, I believe, with good reason. The ideas here are very powerful. They almost read like self-help, but (thank goodness) they are grounded in many years of research by her, her colleagues, and other researchers.  In brief, "mindset" here refers to what somebody believes about their own (and other people's) traits, skills, and abilities: are they an unchangeable part of who you are, written in to your genes, so to speak; or are they mutable, flexible things which change and develop with effort and experience? Those with the former belief have a "fixed mindset", while those with the latter have a "growth mindset". Dr Dweck spends most of the book explaining what effects each of these have, and makes it abundantly clear that it's better to have a growth mindset than a fixed mindse

This is the very first episode of Education Bookcast, in which I introduce myself and the podcast. I will leave a brief introduction here in the description also.   Brief introduction to the podcast Education Bookcast is a podcast in which I talk about one book or article relating to education per episode. The intended audience is mainly teachers and parents who would like to know more about education, but do not have the time and energy to read stacks of books or chase up references. Topics covered are very broad, and include: - various aspects of educational psychology (such as motivation, intelligence, exam anxiety, and self-esteem); - cognitive science (including memory research, expertise research, flow and optimal experience); - neurology; - cognitive, social, and character development; - history, philosophy, and economics of education; - teaching techniques and approaches; - studies of great teachers; - types of educational institutions and experiences (such as Waldorf-Steiner schools, Montessori schoo