In ‘Making Kids Cleverer: A manifesto for closing the advantage gap’, David Didau reignites the nature vs. nurture debate around intelligence and offers research-informed guidance on how teachers can help their students acquire a robust store of knowledge and skills that is both powerful and useful.
Foreword by Paul A. Kirschner.
Given the choice, who wouldn’t want to be cleverer? What teacher wouldn’t want this for their students, and what parent wouldn’t wish it for their children?
When David started researching this book, he thought the answers to the above were obvious. But it turns out that the very idea of measuring and increasing children’s intelligence makes many people extremely uncomfortable: If some people were more intelligent, where would that leave those of us who weren’t?
The question of whether or not we can get cleverer is a crucial one. If you believe that intelligence is hereditary and environmental effects are trivial, you may be sceptical. But environment does matter, and it matters most for children from the most socially disadvantaged backgrounds those who not only have the most to gain, but who are also the ones most likely to gain from our efforts to make all kids cleverer. And one thing we can be fairly sure will raise children’s intelligence is sending them to school.
In this wide-ranging enquiry into psychology, sociology, philosophy and cognitive science, David argues that with greater access to culturally accumulated information taught explicitly within a knowledge-rich curriculum children are more likely to become cleverer, to think more critically and, subsequently, to live happier, healthier and more secure lives.;Furthermore, by sharing valuable insights into what children truly need to learn during their formative school years, he sets out the numerous practical ways in which policy makers and school leaders can make better choices about organising schools, and how teachers can communicate the knowledge that will make the most difference to young people as effectively and efficiently as possible. David underpins his discussion with an exploration of the evolutionary basis for learning and also untangles the forms of practice teachers should be engaging their students in to ensure that they are acquiring expertise, not just consolidating mistakes and misconceptions.There are so many competing suggestions as to how we should improve education that knowing how to act can seem an impossible challenge. Once you have absorbed the arguments in this book, however, David hopes you will find the simple question that he asks himself whenever he encounters new ideas and initiatives Will this make children cleverer? as useful as he does.;Suitable for teachers, school leaders, policy makers and anyone involved in educations.
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About the Author
David Didau is a freelance writer, blogger, speaker, trainer and author. He started his award-winning blog, The Learning Spy, in 2011 to express the constraints and irritations of ordinary teachers, detail the successes and failures within his own classroom, and synthesise his years of teaching experience through the lens of educational research and cognitive psychology. Since then he has spoken at various national conferences, has directly influenced Ofsted and has worked with the Department for Education to consider ways in which teachers workload could be reduced.
– Professor Rebecca Allen, Director of Centre for Education Improvement Science, UCL Institute of Education
David Didau has done it again! ‘Making Kids Cleverer’ is an engaging, highly readable analysis of the latest research on how we learn and what we can do to improve the achievement of our pupils.
Like his previous books, David’s latest offering contains many strong claims. Your initial reaction, like mine, may be that he has made these claims for effect, but he sticks so closely to the research evidence that you have to take his arguments seriously.
Anyone involved in the care and education of children and young people would gain a huge amount from reading this book. Highly recommended.
– Dylan Wiliam, Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment, University College London
In ‘Making Kids Cleverer’ David Didau provides us with a brilliant and accessible account of why knowledge is opportunity, and of how we can increase children’s knowledge through a thoughtful and scientific approach to schooling.
More than ever, children need a core set of ideas, facts, procedures and other forms of knowledge in order to help them navigate the ever-changing work environment they will encounter and to fully participate in the many opportunities afforded by the modern world. In this book, Didau offers an incisive argument for the importance of knowledge and a solid framework for how to improve the knowledge base of all children.
‘Making Kids Cleverer’ will be an invaluable resource for parents, teachers and policy makers.
– David C. Geary, Curators’ Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri
Written with great precision and clarity, and with a good dash of humility and humour too, ‘Making Kids Cleverer’ is a truly magnificent manifesto. Everything David Didau says chimes deeply with what I know to be true and what I am trying to accomplish in our schools, and I am of course cleverer now than I was before reading it. It is an absolute joy to read, and an incredibly timely tour de force that can, and should, have a national impact.
A must-read for everyone in education, from trainee teachers to inspectors and policy makers.
– Lady Caroline Nash, Director, Future Academies
David Didau’s latest edu-blockbuster is a compelling and endlessly fascinating read. Weaving together a wealth of evidence and ideas – from the philosophical to the practical – Didau confronts the taboo topic of intelligence head-on. Didau shows us that by teaching children powerful, biologically secondary knowledge we not increase their intelligence but also prepare them for happiness, wealth and whatever adult life throws at them.
I have not read another education book that brims with as much insight and stimulating thought as this. Every page serves up a new surprise or gentle provocation. Making kids cleverer should become the priority of all schools and teachers. A thoroughly recommended read.
– Andy Tharby, English teacher author of ‘Making every lesson count’ and ‘How to explain absolutely anything to absolutely anyone’
–This text refers to the paperback edition.
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