I wonder whether the hand loom weavers liked their new factory made clogs! 😂😂

That should have been "cloth factories" not "clog factories" 🤦‍♂️

The issues are structural and built into the economic system. I suspect that just as hand loom weaving was replaced by clog factories with the invention of the steam engine. Coding will go the same way. Most coding will be low quality AI produces, but there will be niche artisanal bespoke coding.

It is a repetition of the automation -> redundancy pipeline from the last 200 years of industrial isation

Potentially, this is the issue though. If coders were all self employed freelancers they might have some choice in the matter, but they aren't. Employees don't have that agency and can be expected to work in ways which ultimately makes them redundant.

Coding is an intrinsically interesting thing for coders. However, coders who do it for a living are under pressure from managers, clients, deadlines etc. in a commercial environment a task that would take a person where a day, but a person + AI an hour gives impetus to AI use.

If the model of learning being promoted in schools equates to “work”, then the message being promoted by schools is that learning not a leisure activity. So any concept of reading for pleasure being promoted by schools is working against a headwind. To be effective it needs to promoted elsewhere .

INITIAL THOUGHTS ON THE SEND WHITE PAPER 2026 The government finally released its white paper on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) today and I keep hearing professionals say they are ‘cautiously optimistic’, and I don’t understand...

Initial thoughts on the SEND white paper from me.

Honestly this was pretty rushed cus I am v time-poor atm so maybe I’ve missed something or it’s not as bleak as I think, but either way I hope it’s of some use to someone

borrowed-language.ghost.io/initial-thou...

I'm aware that #SEND covers far more that Autism, that was just a for instance. And again nob-of this is to say special needs don't need specialised provision and funding. I'm saying we should abolish the idea of the mainstream with it's insistence of standardisation and norm-definition.

Reading what us actually being proposed by the Govt re #SEND reform, is far what is needed. Support us still gatekept and deviation from an artificially defined norm is still ghettoised. Undiagnosed #autistics, for instance, will still be encouraged to mask and conform until the system breaks them.

Of course, I'm not here siding with funding cuts to services which support learner's needs, I'm just pointing out that the problem is with the concept of a mainstream education system which normalises e.g. neurotypicality or non-disability.

Re #SEN debate: this is the symptom, not the cause. The problem is not SEN, the problem is mainstream education. Current model = standardise everyone, allow exemptions only with diagnosis. #Neurocosmopolitan model = assume different, design the system for it.
SEN = the frontline of a bigger fight.

Shows clearly that there is a difference between learning, assessment & certification. Certification can clearly be gamed, learning not so much. Certification = useful way to ensure people can do what they claim, gaming it erodes its value. Aim for learning, which will show up in assessment anyway.

Curriculum Is a Localist Model of a Distributed Mind The problem with dividing knowledge into pieces

open.substack.com/pub/profbeck...

We need more challenges to assumptions like this piece does. Whilst the curriculum may claim knowledge can be divided up into chunks (which in itself can be disputed as this article does), The aim of education should be wisdom which is seeing the connections.

Difficult to express that in 300 charaters. What I am getting at is the question of the ownership of the education process. If its about indiviuals learning, those individuals should have control over the process. They do not owe their attendance to the state/school. Seems to be more about control!

The assumption here that education is about socialisation, not learning, or that these are the same thing. Yet schools also claim learning=memorisation, which works on individual learners minds. By claiming authority over children's development schools appropriate learning from indiviual learners.

Feeling a bit #burnedout at the Moment. Trying to teach in a #neurocosmopolitan way, through #dialogue, valuing & respecting each learner's internal learning process, feels draining; especially when it has to be done #subversively, under the radar of #NT performative expectations
#EduSky #ND #Freire

Observing feedback on a #learningwalk. It’s clear reviewers seem to believe the external, performative actions expected of teachers & learners are what learning actually looks like. No dialogue with students that might reveal the internal processes of learning, which differ individually. #EduSky

I know the ED Hirsch idea is that core learning provides a common platform for later development and a common language for discussion, but I'm not sure this is ever applied in the school system - seems to be just a matter of memorising knowledge content

Reflecting as I prepare for the week on how often learning is framed as memorising. When is it expected that learners actually apply/use the #knowledge?
It seems to be the emphasis all the way up to #ALevel. In #FE/HE I'm working with the consequences of this. When should #theory become #practice?

There’s no such thing as a normal brain: Best ideas of the century Neurodiversity research has reshaped how we think about autism and ADHD, revealing that a “normal” brain doesn’t exist – and that unusual brains also come with unique strengths

Part of my argument in Empire of Normality was that normality very much does exist, and is determined primarily by the logics of colonialism and capitalism. The no such thing as normal framing obscures its material basis and force imo.
www.newscientist.com/article/2508...

We should also remember that any changes in learner's memory is a change imposed on their selfhood. If education is a process done TO learners by the schools, rather than being done through learners' conscious volition ( i.e. #autonomy), then the tendency will be towards disengagement not joy.

There is no such thing as SEND - The Autistic Advocate In this article Kieran Rose looks at why there is no such thing as SEND in UK Education and addresses the harm casued by SEND narratives.

New from @kieranrose.bsky.social

There is no such thing as SEND

theautisticadvocate.com/there-is-no-...

Agree 👍. I teach computer science. Of the 7 coding languages I have some familiarity with, I taught 4 to myself whilst in my current post (last 10 yrs). I completed my schooling in 1987, so have learned everything IT related as an autodidact. I don't lie to my students about needing instruction.

Much better now, thanks. I remember reading a year or so back and thinking it needed updating. Let’s hope your edits don’t get overwritten by people wanting to restore the way it used to read.

Thanks for this analysis, it’s helpful. I’ve also been thinking along these lines, except with 3 aspects. What the world sees, what you experience, and what is actually happening neurologically. Diagnosis is based on the 1st, not enough is known about the 3rd. Posts like yours help share the 2nd.

Why are there so many undiagnosed adults who are only now discovering they're autistic or otherwise neurodivergent?

I have an explanation...

If GCSE examiners “can’t recognise legitimate but less common approaches, pupils are disadvantaged precisely for engaging with their subjects at a deeper/more authentic level … success depends less on mastery of knowledge than on 2nd-guessing what examiners know/expect”

💯

#autism
#monotropism

Exam questions take as definitive the knowledge that’s defined in the syllabus (ok, yes, students need to know what they are being examined on). But this has the side effect of reducing knowledge to categorised lists of facts, and crucially stops students seeing connections between areas of study.

Clearly skills are transferable because that’s what happens throughout your life. The knowledge I gained at school in the 70s and 80s is not really relevant now. I teach computing & all of the knowledge/skills I teach were gained after I left school, through the transferable skills of how to learn.