A Sage on the Stage with Michael Zwaagstra

This week I am joined by Michael Zwaagstra to discuss his John Catt book - A Sage on the Stage

Our discussion

Could you start by giving us a brief history of your career to this point?

 Chapter one-  foolish educational fads is a fantastic read and one which will chime with many of our listeners , Could you outline some of those educational fads and gimmicks and tell us why education fads do teachers and kids no favours ? 

• A big question in chapter 2 raising academic standards- why should schools focus on the essentials and what are the essentials?

 •In chapter 3 you outlined that tests are good for students could you tell us more? 

•Could you tell us why content knowledge is important ? (perhaps taking in the explanation of Lord of the rings from the start of the chapter and how Tolkien showed a tremendous amount of creativity and even more importantly content knowledge in his Lord of the rings trilogy) 

•Why does discovery maths not add up? 

•My favourite chapter of the book is Chapter 7- improving life for teachers and students.  There is some fantastic common-sense advice in this chapter, firstly why is it time to call time on cell phones in school? 

•Will longer school days make students smarter? 

•Does every student deserve a personalised learning experience that matches his or her unique learning style?

 •Are distractions sometimes good for learning?

 •Is it valuable sometimes instead of bringing in a new initiative to simply stop doing things that aren't working as you put it improve teacher working conditions by dumping bad ideas?

 •Are gadgets in classrooms just gimmicks and should technology drive education reform?

  •Could you tell us where listeners could find out more about you and A Sage on the stage? 

 In podcast pedagogy , I am currently reading the rED guide to the curriculum edited by Claire Sealey who will be a guest in a few weeks.