Eton CIRL Podcast

Interview with Cat Davison

We speak to Cat Davison, Founder and Chair of EduSpots, a UK and Ghanaian education charity. Cat is also Director of Service & Partnerships at Sevenoaks School, and Chair of the Independent School Council's Community Expert Action Group.

This interview follows Cat's talk, 'Ethical Dilemmas Within a Model for Community-Led Education', which will be available on our podcast soon. 

Cat has also written a blog post for CIRL on embedding critical literacy within citizenship education.  

Professor Matthew T. Lee: 'Open Space, Transformative Education, and the Pursuit of Flourishing'

Matthew T. Lee, Ph.D., is the Director of Empirical Research at the Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, where he also leads the Program’s Community of Practice. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Scholar of Health, Flourishing, and Positive Psychology at Stony Brook University’s Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics.

Lee's current research explores topics such as well-being and flourishing, organisational compassion capability, and the integration of social science and the humanities. His recent articles have appeared in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the Journal of General Internal Medicine, and The Journal of Positive Psychology. He is the lead editor of Measuring Well-Being: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Social Sciences and the Humanities (Oxford University Press, 2021), which is his sixth book. 

In this talk, Lee discusses ideas and experiences related to the concept of 'open space', and the role and importance of open space in education. The talk involves interactive open space practices Lee has incorporated into his own teaching. The accompanying presentation is available here.  

Virtues in the Classroom - Closing Remarks

In June 2020, CIRL hosted a free online conference in collaboration with the University of Hertfordshire’s Forum for Virtue and Understanding, on ‘Virtues in the Classroom’. The conference explored ways in which we can model philosophical virtues in the classroom, such as charitability, logical reasoning, critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, rational judgement, and intellectual humility.

This conference put on talks and provided a forum for discussion of the theme of how teachers can model philosophical virtues, how such modelling might be skilfully done, and where the pedagogical risks lie. More broadly, the conference considered the theme of virtues in education.

Our speakers were Dr Peter Dennis, Head of Religion and Philosophy at Brighton College; Dr Laura D’Olimpio, Dr Brendan Larvor, Reader and Head of the Philosophy Department at the University of Hertfordshire; and Professor Angie Hobbs, Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield.

All the talks are available on our podcast.

Virtues in the Classroom - Opening Remarks

In June 2020, CIRL hosted a free online conference in collaboration with the University of Hertfordshire’s Forum for Virtue and Understanding, on ‘Virtues in the Classroom’. The conference explored ways in which we can model philosophical virtues in the classroom, such as charitability, logical reasoning, critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, rational judgement, and intellectual humility.

This conference put on talks and provided a forum for discussion of the theme of how teachers can model philosophical virtues, how such modelling might be skilfully done, and where the pedagogical risks lie. More broadly, the conference considered the theme of virtues in education.

Our speakers were Dr Peter Dennis, Head of Religion and Philosophy at Brighton College; Dr Laura D’Olimpio, Dr Brendan Larvor, Reader and Head of the Philosophy Department at the University of Hertfordshire; and Professor Angie Hobbs, Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield.

All the talks are available on our podcast.

Virtues in the Classroom - Dr Laura D'Olimpio: 'Educating for the Future: Being Critical and Kind'

The second talk of our online conference on Virtues in the Classroom is given by Dr Laura D'Olimpio (University of Birmingham), on 'Educating for the Future: Being Critical and Kind'.

Laura is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education at the University of Birmingham. She co-edits the Journal of Philosophy in Schools and regularly contributes to The Conversation, and Radio National’s Philosopher’s Zone and The Minefield. Her first book, Media and Moral Education: a philosophy of critical engagement (Routledge, 2018) won the 2018 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia’s annual book prize. Her second book, The Necessity of Aesthetic Education is forthcoming with Bloomsbury.

Laura's talk relates to an article she wrote for the most recent issue of the Eton Journal for Innovation and Research in Education (see pages 57-58, here).

Virtues in the Classroom - Dr Brendan Larvor: 'What virtues do we philosophers model in our classrooms?'

The first talk of our online conference on Virtues in the Classroom is given by Dr Brendan Larvor (University of Hertfordshire), on 'What virtues do we philosophers model in our classrooms?'.

Brendan studied philosophy and mathematics at Balliol College, University of Oxford before embarking on a brief career as a systems analyst. He quickly resumed his studies in philosophy, taking an Masters from Queen’s University Ontario before returning to Balliol to write a doctoral thesis on the philosophy of mathematics of Imre Lakatos. He taught at the Universities of Liverpool and Oxford before joining the University of Hertfordshire in 1997. He specialises in the history and philosophy of mathematics and science, and philosophy of education.

For the presentation accompanying Brendan's talk, see here.

Virtues in the Classroom - Dr Peter Dennis: 'Teaching Epistemic Virtues'

The first talk of our online conference on Virtues in the Classroom is given by Dr Peter Dennis (Brighton College), on 'Teaching Epistemic Virtues'.

Peter taught philosophy at the London School of Economics before training as a secondary school teacher at Stowe School. Since September 2020 he has been Head of Religion and Philosophy at Brighton College.

For the presentation accompanying Peter's talk, see here.

 

 

Virtues in the Classroom - Professor Angie Hobbs: 'Virtues, Flourishing and Education in an Age of Uncertainty'

The final talk of our online conference on Virtues in the Classroom is given by Prof. Angie Hobbs (University of Sheffield), on 'Virtues, Flourishing and Education in an Age of Uncertainty'.

Professor Angie Hobbs FRSA gained a degree in Classics and a PhD in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. After a Research Fellowship at Christ’s College, Cambridge, she moved to the Philosophy Department at the University of Warwick; in 2012 she was appointed Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, a position created for her. Her chief interests are in ancient philosophy and literature, and ethics and political theory from classical thought to the present, with an emphasis on the ethics and politics of flourishing. She has published widely in these areas, including Plato and the Hero (Cambridge University Press, 2000). Her most recent publication is Plato’s Republic: A Ladybird Expert Book (2019).

Angie has long worked in a wide variety of fora promoting more philosophy provision in schools and is an Honorary Patron of the Philosophy Foundation. She contributes regularly to radio and TV programmes and other media, and has spoken at the World Economic Forum at Davos, the Houses of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and Westminster Abbey. She has been the guest on Desert Island Discs, Private Passions and Test Match Special.

The Science of Successful Learning

This is a webinar panel discussion with Peter Brown, Prof. Mark McDaniel and Prof. Roddy Roediger, authors of the seminal, best-selling book on the science of learning, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning (Harvard University Press, 2014). 

Peter C. Brown is an American writer, novelist, and retired management consultant living in St. Paul, Minnesota. 

Mark A. McDaniel is a Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the Director of the Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Henry 'Roddy' L. Roediger is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Science. 

This webinar was recorded on 8 November 2020 and hosted in collaboration with Eton's Education and Psychology Societies.

CIRL have posted a series of blogposts on Make It Stick, readable on our blog.

The Importance of Internationalism in Education

This is a recording of a webinar we hosted on 23 June 2020, featuring the following panel:

Robert Ford, Director of Heritage International School Moldova and a British Council Schools Ambassador

Julia Handelman-Smith, Head of Internationalism at the British Council

Daniel Okiya, Global Learning Coordinator of the Nelson – St Joseph Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning School Programme (a cluster of 9 schools in London and 17 schools in Oyugis, Kenya), and a British Council Schools Ambassador.

John Rolfe MBE, Schools Outreach Manager at the British Council

Please see here for links to the Powerpoints used by the speakers in the webinar.

There were some connectivity issues during the webinar which resulted in some sections of the audio being less clear. We have made these as clear as possible in the podcast audio mix.