Friday Mindset #74

Hello all, and happy Friday!

It's freezing here this week and it's snowed a fair bit.

Which reminds us of the time.... and there's a trigger warning here, rudeness coming up.... the morning after generous snowfall a few years ago, one of our year 11 kids shuffled strategically through the pristine calf-deep snow of the back playground to draw a massive penis. It was visible for miles. The only two things you could see from space that day were the great wall of China and a giant cock-and-balls in north Manchester. All the kids in the upstairs corridors were pointing and laughing. We managed to dodge the job, but a colleague of ours had to go out and shovel the entire playground clear to get rid of it. *sighs* Happy days, eh?

Alright, less of these childish memories, let's dive in with this week's goodies.

Something to try...

OK, last week we were getting excited about Dr Rebecca Lawson's work at the University of Liverpool. We promised a powerpoint, and we've got it for you! It's called The Bicycle Test and it explores the phenomenon Lawson is interested in; the disconnect between what we think we know, and our ability to explain it.

We first learnt about Lawson's work in Scott Young's Ultralearning (giveaway for that particular text coming up one day soon) and Young uses Lawson's work to extol the virtues of the Feynman technique of revising/learning a topic. All good stuff. In the powerpoint, we've added a clip we cut together from a Rocketjump video - lots of employees trying to draw bicycles and failing.

OK, here it is. Enjoy!

Something we're reading...

This blog post has been occupying our minds over the last few weeks. In it, writer and illustrator Lawrence Yeo explores the idea of consuming information - much like a student does - through books, lessons, videos, documentaries and so on. What he argues is that if we consume without a 'release valve', the information fills us up uncomfortably, and then becomes unwieldy, then gets forgotten.

What we need to do, Yeo argues, is consume... then release the information creatively. Learn something, then make something with it. He's a creative guy, his examples are all about media production. But we wonder whether the same goes for students. Consume a topic, create something that summarises that topic. Open your release valve to free up space for more content.

It's a thought-provoking piece:

Our latest offer...

Shout-out for last week's offer again: last year we ran a free online session called Practice - a crash course in teaching revision. It's a super-quick 45 minute summary of how we're currently teaching effective revision. There's some theory, followed by 4 or 5 quick (and new) VESPA activities - all practice ones, obviously. And we're doing it again:

Wednesday 15th February - 3:45 - 4:45pm, Zoom.

For a link to the session, just email us at [email protected] and we'll send it out. There's been plenty of interest so far, so it's happening.

Book giveaway next week, so keep your eyes peeled!

That's it for this week. Stay out of the snow, OK? And all the best to you and yours,

Martin, Steve and Tony