The majority of the material collected on this site, and presented in the animations is taken from the book Overschooled but Undereducated, by John Abbott and Heather MacTaggart. Further ideas can be found in the resources listed to the right.
Overschooled but Undereducated synthesizes an array of research and shows how these insights can contribute to a better understanding of human learning, especially as this relates to adolescence. By mis-understanding teenagers’ instinctive need to do things for themselves, society is in danger of creating a system of schooling that so goes against the natural grain of the adolescent brain that formal education ends up unintentionally trivialising the very young people it claims to be supporting. By failing to keep up with appropriate research in the biological and social sciences, current educational systems continue to treat adolescence as a problem rather than an opportunity.
This book is about the need for transformational change in education. It synthesizes an array of research from both the physical and social sciences and shows how these insights can contribute to a better understanding of human learning, especially as this relates to adolescence. The book was conceived through a series of international conferences, and considers the education systems in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand. Its intention is to shake education out of its two-century’s-old inertia. In the saga of the ages, if a generation fails, the fault lies squarely with the previous generation for not equipping them well enough for the changes ahead. The most immoral thing a person can ever say is: ‘This will last out my time’.
Purchasing Options
The introduction is freely available to read on the Initiative’s site.
Overschooled but Undereducated can be purchased from Amazon (.co.uk or .com) or directly from the publisher, Continuum.
Selected reviews of
Overschooled but Undereducated
Malcolm Davies, The International Schools Journal
This book puts forward an agenda that has largely been rejected to date by those who can influence education. It is likely to provoke two main responses: first that we cannot make the change as our system will not allow it. Conversely, from those who have already freed themselves from the constraints of an English national curriculum, their response will be “can we afford not to do what is advocated here?”
From my standpoint such a book should be compulsory reading for all my staff so that they will dare to question our assumptions and dare to make a difference. We will then be Abbott’s “responsible subversives”.
About Malcolm Davies, The International Schools Journal
Malcolm Davies is Director of The International School of Bremen, Germany, and also Deputy Chief Examiner of Philosophy and DCE for “History of the Islamic World” with the International Baccalaureate.Read the full review. Distributed with permission.
Sir Gustav Nossal
This remarkable work, so individualistic and peppered with fascinating reminiscences and asides, deserves the widest possible readership. It is at the same time profoundly scholarly and eminently accessible. It is nothing less than a tour de force, and it is a privilege to recommend it unreservedly.
About Sir Gustav Nossal
Knight, CBE, FRS, FAA and much besides, Sir Gustav Nossal is currently working in the department of Pathology at the University of Melbourne.Bernard Trafford
It’s hard to imagine how anyone with a commitment to education, a care for the young, or a concern about the dismal state of our education system and its obsession with measurable outcomes and non-stop testing could fail to be convinced and inspired by this book or could avoid wanting to sign up and join Abbott’s army of Responsible Subversives. It seems to encompass and sum up all the things that have been worrying and intriguing me in my 30 years of teaching and challenge me to start afresh and do something about them! Like Lewis Carroll’s sorrowful Gnat, I’m left thinking, “I wish I’d said that.
About Bernard Trafford
Dr Bernard Trafford is head of the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne and was 2007-8 Chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC)Lorenzo McLellan
John Abbott does not simply leave us with our minds full and hands empty, but rather offers us the tools needed for such change to be made. A comparative view of the Finnish schooling system (which has established itself as the lodestar of educational policy and achievement), in combination with a detailed exposition of the ‘grain of the brain’ (how children actually learn) and a retrospective view of the succession of educational policy acts since 1870, show how Britain is more than capable of transformation.
