Filling The Pail

E. D. Hirsch

E. D. Hirsch Jr. began his career as a literary theorist. As a result of this work, he became aware of the importance of background knowledge for reading comprehension. However, when he looked to the education system, he found knowledge was undervalued. Since then, he has worked to highlight the importance of knowledge though his numerous books, including the best-selling Cultural Literacy, and the Core Knowledge Foundation that he set-up to further these aims by developing the Core Knowledge Sequence, now used in many schools in the US and beyond. In this episode, Don talks to Greg Ashman about knowledge, education, the importance of a 'speech community' and commonality more generally, as well as his new book, How to Educate a Citizen.

Jasmine Lane

Jasmine Lane is a teacher and education writer based in the United States. In this episode, Jasmine talks to Greg Ashman about how she became a teacher, why the killing of George Floyd makes it even more important for Black people to fight distraction and disengagement from education, what Shakespeare has to offer kids in the inner city and why learning standard English is important. Along the way, Greg and Jasmine discuss the literary canon, researchED and so-called 'carceral pedagogies'.  

Calvin Robinson

Calvin Robinson is a teacher, podcaster, journalist and consultant to the UK's Department for Education. In this episode, Calvin talks to Greg Ashman about his switch from the computer science industry to teaching, the events surrounding the Brexit referendum and how this played out in the school where he worked at the time, the wider issue of balance in the curriculum, the Free Schools movement in the UK, computing as a school subject, STEM subjects more generally, educational research and Calvin's role in the 'Don't Divide Us' campaign.

Jennifer Buckingham

Dr Jennifer Buckingham is Director of Strategy and Senior Research Fellow at MultiLit, a publisher of evidence-based reading programs and interventions, where she also heads the Five from Five project. In this episode, Jennifer talks to Greg Ashman about how her interest in literacy developed, the evidence for synthetic phonics and the Australian phonics check, modeled on the check used in the UK, that has been rolled out in South Australia and is about to be trialed in a third of primary schools in New South Wales. Along the way, Jennifer and Greg discuss why it is that teaching methods become lumbered with ideological baggage.

Dan Willingham

Professor Dan Willingham is a psychologist at the University of Virginia. Dan started out as a cognitive psychology and neuroscience researcher, but an encounter with E. D. Hirsch Jr. led him to take an interest in the application of cognitive psychology to education. In this episode, Dan talks to Greg Ashman about his interest in education, his book, Why Don't Students Like School?, a new edition of which is in the pipeline, reading instruction and critical thinking.

Pam Snow

Pam Snow is Professor of Cognitive Psychology at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia. In this episode, she talks to Greg Ashman about her new role in bringing cognitive science to teacher education students and her earlier research into the oral language competency of young people in the youth justice system, before Greg and Pam discuss literacy in general, so-called 'balanced literacy' and what motivated Pam to write a book with Caroline Bowen dissecting 'neuroflapdoodle'. 

Dylan Wiliam

Dylan Wiliam is a world famous educationalist and author probably best known for his research on formative assessment. In this episode, he talks to Greg Ashman about how he became interested in formative assessment, what it is and how it became deployed by the UK government as Assessment for Learning, as well as the importance of a knowledge-rich curriculum, 21st century skills and the issues surrounding educational meta-analysis.

Katharine Birbalsingh

Katharine Birbalsingh is Headmistress of Michaela Community School, a Free School serving inner city London. In this episode, she talks to Greg Ashman about Free Schools, the challenges she faced setting up Michaela, the Michaela approach to learning and to discipline and why everyone should visit and see for themselves. Along the way, Greg and Katharine discuss the opposition to explicit teaching and how to cope with unpleasant comments on Twitter.

Andrew Old

Andrew Old is the godfather of UK teacher bloggers. Not only does he write a blog that has influenced UK government policy and OFSTED, the English schools inspectorate, he has encouraged teacher bloggers through his Echo Chamber initiative, as well as promoting teachers' voices more generally. In this episode, Greg Ashman talks to Andrew about maths teaching, Twitter, blogging, OFSTED, Achievement for All and school behaviour.

Daisy Christodoulou

Daisy Christodoulou is a former teacher and is currently director of No More Marking, an online engine which aims to help teachers with comparative-judgement assessment of school work. Daisy's influential 2013 book Seven Myths About Education reflected on her work as a teacher and some of the myths she once subscribed to. In this episode, Greg Ashman talks to Daisy about lockdown, her new book, Teachers versus Tech, teaching writing, and bad ideas in education.