Students with hearing or visual impairments were once seen as a challenge for inclusive education. In many ways, they still sometimes can be. But over time, schools have built up expertise, support structures and experience. In many systems, this is no longer where the greatest tensions lie. The group that increasingly defines the challenge looks… Read More When youth services fail, schools become the safety net
In my work, I try to stay sober about AI. Sometimes that comes across as too critical for enthusiasts, sometimes too positive for sceptics. The latter group might feel more at home today, thanks to a new study by Sean P. Walton and colleagues that examines what actually happens when people work with AI. Human AI… Read More AI can improve work. But only if you actually use it
There is something irresistible about solutions that feel both old and new at the same time. Oral exams, for example. Centuries old, once the norm, then largely abandoned, and now suddenly back in the spotlight. Not out of nostalgia, but out of necessity. Since the rise of generative AI, a familiar reflex keeps popping up:… Read More AI broke our exams. Are oral exams the fix? Hold your horses…
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There is something irresistible about large international studies. Seventy countries. Three decades. Thousands of data points. The kind of research that immediately gives the impression that we are getting closer to answering a big question. In this case, what does cultural change do to the mental health of children and young people? Does a more… Read More Does Individualism Make Children More Anxious? What a Global Study Really Shows
“Soft healers make festering wounds.” It is an old saying, but in education we sometimes seem to forget it. It sits uneasily with the idea of high expectations. And no one really says it out loud, certainly not today, but what if we lowered the bar, not out of laziness but out of understanding for… Read More When lenient grading helps and when it harms
We have known for some time that early-life stress can play a role in how children learn and develop. Think of effects on attention, memory, and emotion regulation. By now, that is fairly well established. New research again suggests that this same early stress is also associated with something that at first sight seems more… Read More Early Life Stress and Later Gut Problems?
I have been a fan of Louis Theroux for a long time, and of his brother as well. Since his early documentaries, he has had a rare way of working: friendly, almost naïve in appearance, yet remarkably persistent. He asks questions that sound simple, but are often difficult to avoid answering. So when his new… Read More Everyone Uses Everyone in the Manosphere
I have lost count of how many times I have heard people say that we learn from mistakes. Sometimes it even turns into a slogan: “If you never make mistakes, you never learn.” It sounds appealing, and there is some truth to it. After all, I do not know anyone who has never made a… Read More Not Every Mistake Helps You Learn
Last year, I wrote here about what I called the silence of the countervoice in AI. The issue is fairly simple: many chatbots are designed to be helpful, friendly, and affirming. That makes interactions pleasant, but it can also mean that genuine disagreement appears less often. Or, as I summarised it at the time: if… Read More AI that agrees with you doesn’t necessarily make you smarter (but it may make you more confident)