Some countries currently look to England as an education model. It might then surprise some that someone like Daisy Christodoulou wrote a rather sombre post about the state of what some in England call the ‘trad’ movement. She reacted to an article by Daniel Hannan in The Telegraph, in which the familiar argument resurfaces that we need to know less because we can look it up anyway. Right, a myth that is also addressed in our myths book. But I do not know if I identify so strongly with a movement called trad. I do have a strong interest in evidence-informed education.

Christodoulou rightly points out the strange twists and turns that Hannan’s reasoning produces. For example, he argues that young people should learn to recognise improbable claims. In doing so, however, he seems to forget that judging whether something is probable or improbable requires knowledge. The man also says one can simply look things up, but he completely ignores what we now know about the role of knowledge in long-term memory, thinking, understanding, and learning. Up to that point, I follow Christodoulou; it aligns with much research.

But her actual point goes beyond this. According to her, the trad movement, despite years of books, debates, successful schools, and good results such as England’s recent PISA performance, has not won the broader battle of ideas. She writes:

“We wrote the books. We had the debates. We built the schools. We aced the tests. And then it turned out nobody cared.”

That is, of course, deliberately sharply worded. The trad movement’s influence on English education is hard to deny. At the same time, Daisy touches upon something striking. Ideas that some in education might have thought were largely settled by now are still very much alive. For example, the notion that knowledge is becoming less important because we have Google is returning in a new version: why bother learning when we have AI? We recognised this, too, while writing our update to the first book on myths.

But honestly? I have never considered myself a ‘trad’. I do, however, share various insights strongly associated with that movement, such as the importance of prior knowledge. I’ve also described other insights in my books, such as the limitations of our working memory and the potential effectiveness of explicit instruction.

But for me, these statements have always been insights I have learned from reading a lot of research. I know that people are always subjective when making choices, but I was always wary that they would become parts of an educational identity. For in my opinion, that is precisely where an enormous risk arises.

Once a body of research results becomes associated with a movement, selection bias always becomes possible. The results that fit the story are highlighted, while the ones that don’t may get less attention. I am always careful about this myself on this blog.

That is, incidentally, absolutely not an exclusive problem of traditionalists. I think you can see pretty much the same thing in every education debate. Anyone who strongly believes in concepts such as self-discovery learning, autonomy, technology, personalised learning, or any other approach runs the same risk. By the way, I don’t really like the word ‘believe’ in this context, regardless of the vision. Above all, I believe in my students.

That’s also why I find Christodoulou’s statement, “What we do works!”, quite complex. What exactly is “what we do”? Does it concern the idea that prior knowledge is important for understanding? That explicit instruction can often be effective? That novices generally need more guidance than experts? Or that retrieval practice can support learning? Yes, there is plenty of evidence for this.

But that does not yet lead to a complete educational model, let alone an educational vision. Let me make that concrete.  Working memory is limited. I hope we can agree on this. But what does this mean? That basic knowledge and skills are often best taught with strong teacher guidance, yes. But not that every good lesson must be maximally teacher-led.

Another example: prior knowledge matters, a lot. Note that both cognitivism and social-constructivism agree on this. Does that make motivation less important? No. More examples? Plenty of evidence supports explicit instruction, but that doesn’t make relationships, autonomy, or collaboration less important. Beginners often need more guidance. But how much? For whom? And when? Unfortunately, the research doesn’t answer those questions just yet. I wish it did.

This is perhaps where educational movements come in. Science gives us findings, principles, probabilities, limitations and possible side effects. That’s already quite a lot. But it isn’t a complete story. We tend to make one out of it. Which makes sense, because stories are much easier to communicate. The problem is that some parts of the story may come from the research, while other parts don’t.

I noticed that evidence-informed practice is sometimes placed in the trad camp. I find this reasoning fundamentally flawed. Evidence doesn’t belong to camps, or at least it shouldn’t. I also come across research that I don’t particularly like because it doesn’t fit the framework I may have had. But then the framework has to change, not the evidence.