SPAG Balls

The introduction this week of so-called ‘SPaG’ tests (spelling, punctuation and grammar) for 11-year-olds in England takes me right back to my own Primary 7 class of 42 pupils and Jimmy Bowie, a ‘great teacher’ whose reputation extended well before him. It was a spartan regime of mental arithmetic in the morning and English language – parsing and analysis – in the afternoon. Friday afternoon was the exception, when a couple of hours of silent reading (bliss for some, including me) or drawing, provided an outlet for what limited creativity we were allowed to possess or demonstrate. Spelling was generally reserved for homework, twenty words a night completely out of context, and one of the belt (or strap) next day for every mistake. Tam McGill, a fearsome character who sat in front of the teacher’s desk, where he was regularly subjected to public humiliation, had been kept back a year for failing to meet the required ‘level of intelligence’, which in those days was deemed to be fixed for life and could be measured by a simple short-answer question paper. Now he was chasing the world record for the number of beltings in a single day. The ‘incentive’ to learn was based largely on fear, which many, including our working-class parents, wrongly called ‘respect’. I could go on, and run the risk of turning this into a Monty Python sketch, but I’m sure you get the picture.

Kids enthusiastically greeting the new SPaG tests

I write this from the point of view of one of the ‘winners’ of that particular lottery. I actually enjoyed the analysis of sentences and the parsing of individual words. I loved the problem-solving logic of it, the neat structures. It seemed that once you had cracked the code, you couldn’t lose. For others, however, it would remain a mystery, one of the undiscovered wonders of the world. Later, I would go on to spend a significant part of my life as an English teacher, engaged in that same metaphorical mud-wrestle with language and literature and learning. Has my experience taught me that grammar isn’t really important after all? Absolutely not. An understanding of grammar – if not necessarily the terms of grammar – is the key to language development; without it, a person’s ability to articulate and communicate will be seriously restricted. I really believe that my old P7 teacher’s intentions were good – he knew the importance of grammar – but the mistake was in believing that you can force anyone to learn anything, and it is especially naive to think that you can make them all learn the same thing at the same time. Like many others, I fear that, rather than ‘raising standards’, the re-introduction of such simplistic standardised tests distracts teachers from their real purpose and encourages teaching to the test. But since grammar is about rules – one of which is that you shouldn’t begin a sentence with a conjunction, as I just did – I would like to offer a few simple rules of my own about the learning and teaching of grammar:

• the rules of grammar should be learned within the context of language used for specific purposes and not as a separate ‘subject’
• understanding grammar is as much about hearing as it is about seeing
• grammar should be learned through engagement with increasingly difficult, high-quality texts, both written and spoken, and appropriate for individual learners
• terminology should be introduced as and when appropriate, and preferably when the learner is curious to know
• using language in creative ways does not have to wait for a complete understanding of the rules (in fact a complete understanding of the rules is not possible since they change with time and circumstance)
• if you are a teacher, lead by example and demonstrate the benefits of a good command of language

Further Reading

For a much more informed and articulate criticism of the SPaG tests, read language expert David Crystal’s excellent blogpost here. You might also enjoy this piece from Year 6 teacher, Miss Smith.

For tips on some of the trickier points of English grammar check out this Oxford Dictionaries page.

For a comprehensive list of tools and websites to help you develop understanding of spelling, punctuation and grammar see my list of English Language Sites at the top of the page.

If you’re feeling confident about your own expertise in this area, try the BBC ‘Ten Questions on Grammar’ challenge here.

To find out more about how Scotland currently monitors literacy standards through the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy, visit the SQA website here.

If you are responsible for staff development, and are concerned about teacher confidence with spelling, punctuation and grammar, why not contact me to discuss my ‘Mind Your Language’ workshops and seminars (see Teacher Training and Development link at top of page).

Learning in the Long Run

Some kids hate sport; I loved it. One of my earliest memories is of running laps around my grandmother’s front lawn just to see how long I could keep it going before falling exhausted on the grass. I’ve no idea what  ’made me’ do it, but what I do know is that it came from within me; there were no extrinsic rewards. Thus began a lifelong relationship with running, and despite some long periods apart, especially during my student days when the art of rolling and smoking one’s own cigarettes was much more in keeping with the zeitgeist than running around in trainers and shorts, we have needed each other ever since. Mark Rowlands, the runner and philosopher whose fascinating Running with the Pack I have just finished reading, describes his relationship with running like this:-

If I am thinking at all when I run, this is a sign of a run gone wrong – or, at least, of a run that has not yet gone right. The run does not yet have me in its grip. I am not yet in the heartbeat of the run; the rhythm of the run has not done its hypnotic work. On every long run that has gone right, there comes a point where thinking stops and thought begin. Sometimes these are worthless, but sometimes they are not. Running is the open space where thoughts come to play. I do not run in order to think. But when I run, thoughts will come. These thoughts are not something external to the run – an additional bonus or pay-off that accompanies the run. They are part of what it is to run, of what the run really is. When my body runs, my thoughts do too and in a way that has little to do with my devices or choosing……………

At its best, and at its purest, the purpose of running is simply to run. Running is a member of the class of human activities that carry their purpose within themselves. The purpose of running is intrinsic to it. That, I would one day realise, is important.”

Mark Rowlands, Running with the Pack

Lately, I have also been reading a number of blogs and articles where sporting analogies are used to describe improvements in learning. It is very tempting – there seem to be obvious similarities, such as personal targets, improvement plans, training schedules and so on – and the concept of ‘marginal gains‘ for example, adopted from the training methods of the highly successful British cycling team and its head coach Dave Brailsford, has gained a great deal of currency in educational circles recently. So far, so convincing, but it is around the point where comparisons are made between education and competitive professional sport that I begin to feel a bit more uncomfortable with the analogy; when exactly did learning become a ‘competition’? If we look at one of the most successful educational systems of recent years – Finland – we can perhaps see why the sporting analogy doesn’t quite fit. In his new book, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? Pasi Sahlberg (@pasi_sahlberg), Director General of CIMO in the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, dismisses the received wisdom that making students and schools more competitive benefits all of us in the long run, and even goes so far as to use an enigmatic quote from his fellow countryman and writer Samuli Paronen:  ”Real winners do not compete.”

While some countries, such as the USA, love to talk about competition, their international education ranking, as measured by PISA, continues to tumble. Finland, on the other hand, has no lists of ‘best’ schools or teachers; the main driver of educational policy is cooperation. Finnish schools assign less homework, engage children more in creative play, and have no system of school inspections. Teachers are highly trained, highly respected and trusted to do what is in the best interests of all children in their care. On average, Finland accepts only 10% of applicants into its teaching universities. Applicants must not only have strong academic records, they must also possess interpersonal skills that will enable them to teach well. Next, Finland’s teaching students must complete a 5-7 year course of study, earning both undergraduate and master’s degrees. Once the newly qualified teachers are placed into schools, they will be paid well (with no student loan debt since their university education is free), while also having autonomy to adapt a loose national curriculum into one that meets local needs. They are free to choose their own teaching methods as they see fit, given ample time each day to collaborate with their colleagues, and are expected to attend continuing education classes throughout their careers in order to learn and improve their teaching methods. There are no private schools in Finland, and no standardised tests.

Come to think of it, the Finns have a pretty impressive athletic record too, especially in distance running and field events, so they certainly know how to compete, but perhaps they also recognise that sport is a distraction, not life itself. Which brings me back to the sporting analogies. I’m sure there are comparisons to be drawn between education and sport, as indeed the contribution of physical exercise to cognitive development is well documented, but perhaps the competitive aspects of professional sport are not the best place to start. It may well be that when we use the language of sport, the kind of sport we have in mind is a thing of the past, of a purer form like running itself,  from an era when sport looked less like big business and more like games, or indeed play. I’ll leave the last word with Mark Rowlands:-

“When I run, I know what is important in life – although for many years I did not know that I knew this. This is not so much knowledge newly acquired as knowledge reclaimed. When I was a boy, I also knew what was important in life. I suspect we all did, although we did not know that we knew it. But this is something I forgot when I began the great game of growing up and becoming someone. Indeed, it is something I had to forget in order to play this game at all. It is one of life’s great ironies that those least in need of understanding its meaning are those who most naturally and effortlessly understand it . On the long run, I can hear the whispers of a childhood I can never reclaim, and of a home to which I can never return. In these whispers, in the rumours and mutterings of the long run, there are moments when I understand again what it was I once knew.”

Mark Rowlands, Running with the Pack

See also:  Premier League  Psychologist Hired to  Boost Exam Results

Footnote: Finland has a population of 5.4 million. Scotland has a population of 5.25 million.

Looking for Patterns

Pattern created at http://www.visualthesaurus.com

Call me crazy, but I don’t think we have yet begun to realise the full significance of recognising ‘patterns’ in learning across the curriculum. So much so in fact, that one of my favoured Seven Reading Strategies for exploring a text, whether the text is written, spoken or visual, is Looking for Patterns. Where once, as a young English teacher, I would often spend time creating a set of close reading questions to try to elicit the main points from the study of a text, or to start a discussion, now I would do it quite differently. One of the strategies I would use is simply to ask students, working in pairs or groups, to identify any patterns they can find, and begin the discussion from there (*note that this is only the start of the discussion, not an end in itself). In that way, the students are not immediately playing the ‘guess what’s in the teacher’s head’ game,and the questions raised are ‘real’ questions, in the sense that the learners genuinely want answers to them.

The patterns identified will usually include elements of the plot (if there is one), structure, elements of grammar, layout, use of graphics etc. Some will focus on language patterns, the repeated use of particular words, images or symbols, and the recognition of common themes in a text or group of texts. So whether you have set out to teach an aspect of language, or structure, or author’s purpose and viewpoint, you are in a very real sense teaching these things because you have been asked to, and the difference is tangible.

Robert Louis Stevenson – From a Railway Carriage – poem

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One of the most obvious contexts for this kind of approach is when studying poetry. Ask students to read and listen to this classic poem, From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson – listening is important since many of the patterns are aural – and write down as many patterns as they can find. Now use their findings to explore the significance  of the patterns, their contribution to the whole text and the overall effect in terms of the writer’s purpose. By learning this simple strategy, and using it regularly to compare and contrast different texts, students begin the journey to becoming more sophisticated readers, with a growing understanding of the concept of ‘genre’, which, after all, is simply the study of patterns in literature.

It isn’t only in the study of literature that patterns are important however: patterns in number, musical notation and in art immediately spring to mind. I was also intrigued to find this link recently to a fantastic resource called Mapping History, a site created by the University of Oregon. Thanks to Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers for bringing it to my attention, and for the following insight:

“Some of my favourite social studies lesson plans included having students use maps to analyze data and identify patterns in history.” Richard Byrne

It stikes me that the ability to recognise patterns is an essential element of reading, and of learning, regardless of the curriculum area or context, but as always of course I would love to hear from you on whether, and how you think it might apply in your own particular area.

Superpower: The Power of Speech

As I write this post, 16-year-olds and their teachers in Scottish secondary schools are, literally, wrapping up their Standard Grade English folios for the last time, as the qualification which was introduced to bring equality to the qualifications and certification system  is being replaced from next year by new National 4 and National 5 Certificates. Loved and despised in almost equal measure, Standard Grade and its attendant portfolio of writing, ushered in the era of ‘exams for all’, in the mistaken belief that treating everyone the same was the same as treating everyone equally. The subsequent ‘setting’ of classes and the self-fulfilling prophecy of identifying ‘Foundation kids’ from the start of the course soon put paid to that notion.

One of the rarely-mentioned consequences of the current change, it would appear, is that talking and listening will no longer be a formal, assessable element of the course, which will come as a relief to many teachers, for whom the administration of talk assessments was of nightmare proportions, and to many kids, for whom standing up and delivering a speech in front of their peers was an ordeal, to say the least. It was never meant to be done that way of course, but not for the first time, expediency and the assessment tail found itself wagging the curriculum dog. Nevertheless, one of the unintended outcomes, I fear, is that the development of the spoken word, so vital in a hyper-networked world, will yet again be relegated to the category of ‘desirable, but not essential’. Which is a real shame, considering that young Scots, with some notable exceptions, have not traditionally been renowned for their verbal dexterity, and considering  the emphasis put on orality by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), especially in terms of valuing one’s own culture and identity. In its 2004 position paper, The Plurality of Literacy and its Implications for Policies and Programmes, the organisation for whom the meaningful acquisition and application of literacy lays the foundation for positive social transformation, justice, and personal and collective freedom, recognises the importance of spoken language in enabling individuals and groups to articulate their own ‘meanings, knowledge and identity’.

“In acknowledging the fact that literacy involves oral, written, visual and digital forms of expression and communication, literacy efforts conceived in terms of the plural notion of literacy intend to take account of the ways in which these different processes interrelate in a given social context. Because all such processes involve expressing and communicating cultural identity, the promotion of literacy must foster the capacity to express or communicate this identity in one’s own terms and especially language(s). In a multilingual society, the plural notion of literacy entails designing multi-lingual policies and programmes for both the mother tongue and other languages as well as recognising the complementary relationship between literacy and orality.”

The Plurality of Literacy and its Implications for Policies and Programmes, UNESCO 2004

All of which gives me an excuse, if I needed one, to share with you this wonderful TED talk by Ron Finley, which I think demonstrates admirably the power of the spoken word, the importance of pride in cultural identity, and the ability of individuals to make a difference if they feel powerfully enough about the need to do so. I hope you enjoy it and share it with your students.

RonFinley_2013-480p

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Means To An End: The Future of Scottish Education

“Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.”

Winston Churchill

I am fairly certain that when Churchill spoke those words he had in mind the many Scots whose ideas, creativity and drive contributed to the invention of the modern world (for a fascinating analysis of this phenomenon I would recommend The Scottish Enlightenment by Arthur Herman), but I wonder whether the Scots who will shape the future world will do so as a result of their formal education, or in spite of it. In my previous post I made comment on a short video animation which attempted – quite neatly I thought –  to examine the rationale behind the last major review of the school curriculum in Scotland, and to summarise the progress, or otherwise, of its implementation since. What I didn’t realise at the time was that it was related to a fairly weighty report, By Diverse Means: Improving Scottish Education, published earlier this week by the Commission on School Reform. It should be pointed out at this stage that the report was commissioned by the Centre for Scottish Public Policy (‘Scotland’s only independent cross-party think-tank’) and  Reform Scotland, (an ‘independent think-tank’ headed up by two former Scottish Conservative party advisers).

The report begins by asserting that Scottish Education still enjoys a decent reputation, both at home and abroad, while emphasising that there is no room for complacency, and  suggests that while our schools are improving, they are improving at a slower rate than those of many of our economic competitors. At its heart, and standing out among its 37 recommendations for consideration by the Scottish Government and others, is the principle that schools should have greater autonomy, which, the report’s authors argue, will in turn lead to greater diversity. It is particularly strong in its analysis of the reasons why change is slow to happen in Scotland, a feature of the report which will immediately antagonise those – and there are many – with a vested interest in the status quo. This 129-page report is challenging, not bland, and deserves a wide readership. It raises a great number of questions of the current system, while calling repeatedly for structural and organisational change. It endorses the principles, purposes and values of Curriculum for Excellence as a mission statement for education, and suggests some of the changes which are necessary to bring it to fruition. Each of the recommendations is worthy of a longer debate in itself, and I will return to some of them in due course, but for now I would simply add one key question to those I raised in my previous post, and invite you all to join the discussion.

“Scotland does not lack good ideas. It has policies such as Curriculum for Excellence and Teaching Scotland’s Future that are forward-looking and have the capacity to bring about real improvement. However, the experience of other major policy initiatives over the past half-century indicates that Scotland often fails to extract the maximum benefit from good policies.

In short, processes of change in Scottish education fall short of what is required.

To a large extent this is because the system is too uniform. It lacks the diversity that is a vital element of any learning organisation. The Commission sees the promotion of increased variety in the system as a crucially important prerequisite of future improvement.

The best way of achieving this objective is to increase the autonomy of individual schools. Every school should have as much control over its resources as is practicable. They should be encouraged to innovate and take well-considered risks.

At present, however, schools are reluctant to take the initiative. This is because the culture of the system as a whole is disempowering. The structure is hierarchical with an ethos of each layer being subordinate to the one above it. There is too little communication or sense that constructive criticism is welcomed. Above all, the Commission considers it essential to develop a sense of common endeavour where everybody involved feels able to contribute on equal terms.

At present the responsibilities of different tiers of management are ill-defined. The strategic leadership role of government is obscured by a strong tendency to become involved in detail. The freedom of action of schools is too circumscribed. The Commission takes the view that headteachers should be seen as the chief executives of largely autonomous bodies. At the same time, it is imperative that a collegiate culture should exist within schools.”

By Diverse Means: Improving Scottish Education  The Commission on School Reform Final Report March 2013

The last two sentences of that extract will be particularly contentious. The Scottish consensus has traditionally been egalitarian in nature, the idea of the all-powerful headteacher a relic of some dark bygone era. The business analogy of chief executive will not play well with many. Others will immediately have a vision of Michael Gove and the mess of ‘free schools’ and Academies currently proliferating in England, and wonder whether that is a route we want to take. Whatever way you read it, there are substantial implications for the role of local authorities, an issue which was raised in the comments on my previous post, and which is dealt with in more detail in the report.

Key Question: Is it possible for a collegiate culture to exist in schools if the headteacher is effectively the chief executive of a largely autonomous organisation?

Stands Scotland Where It Did? (Macbeth Act IV Sc 3)

It is now almost exactly a decade since Scotland’s National Debate on the curriculum, the consultation which led to what is still universally referred to as ‘Curriculum for Excellence‘, but which should by now simply be called ‘the Scottish curriculum’ (see my previous post on the significance of the title here). It is perhaps a good time, therefore, to reflect on the general purpose of that review, especially for anyone coming into our education system for the first time, and that is exactly what this creative animation from the community learning group North Alliance invites us to do. The first half of the film reminds us of the need for change, and sets out the challenges for education in Scotland, which of course are no different from those in any other modern economy. However, there are some big questions which remain unanswered, and which need to be addressed by Education Scotland and the wider education community if the aspirations so well articulated in this short presentation are to be realised. I would like to consider just a few of them.

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“Curriculum for Excellence is, firstly, a mission statement. It sets out a vision, and it gives Scottish Education a long-term sense of direction. It will not be implemented over the next few years.”

This is a very welcome statement; had it been made clear from the beginning that this was a long-term vision, much anxiety could have been avoided. I’m sure I didn’t just imagine the very clear timetable for ‘implementation’ from August 2010, which caused no little consternation in local authorities and with the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, but which is no longer to be found (at least by me) on the Education Scotland website. As a mission statement, CfE is a highly commendable piece of work, but as the commentary acknowledges, it is not a ‘national curriculum’ in the traditional sense. The principle is established that it is not the role of governments to determine the detail of curriculum content, but rather to provide broad general purposes and themes within which the outcomes of the curriculum can be met. I happen to believe that this is right and proper, but it does have some serious implications.

Key Question. Who does have responsibility for determining the content of curriculum areas, and what criteria should they use in doing so?

“In the modern world, knowledge remains vital, but it is not enough. Success depends on deep understanding, and on having the skills to turn knowledge to useful effect.”

It is difficult to disagree with this contention, but the reality is that the secondary school curriculum is currently built around subjects and subject knowledge, the primary purpose of which is to prepare students for  National Qualifications at age 17, most of which are awarded on the basis of written examinations. Little evidence is required that this subject knowledge is ‘turned to useful effect’, only that it can be explained in theory. I wonder how different it could be if the curriculum was instead organised around the development of the key cognitive skills identified in the film – particularly problem-solving and critical thinking skills – rather than the traditional curriculum areas which have hardly changed in the past 50 years, and which were not, bizarrely, subject to review during the National Debate. I frequently meet and talk to teachers who are creative, and want to be more creative (that’s why they became teachers) but they are ground down by a regime of constant testing and target-setting by their ‘managers’.

Key Question. Is it possible to have a problem-solving or project-based curriculum while at the same time providing students with a core subject knowledge?

“Subjects are still important. Indeed, the structure of knowledge is perhaps more important than ever, but at the same time we have to remember that knowledge is joined up. The problems of life are seldom solved by using expertise from a single subject area alone. Being able to draw on different areas of learning and apply them together in the real world contexts is a vital skill.”

I have to confess that I have no idea what ‘the structure of knowledge’ means, but this point more or less acknowledges that real learning does not take place in subject compartments. It also seems to  imply that the the connection of the disparate parts of this complex jigsaw will somehow be put together by the learner at some point in the process, without the need for structural change. All the previous evidence from school inspections suggest that this does not happen, and that in fact young people find it extremely difficult to make connections in learning across curriculum areas.

Key Question. Is it possible to make radical changes to an education system while operating within the same subject structures which have changed little in the past 50 years?

“A surprise benefit of CfE development has been a new emphasis on learner engagement, the idea that the learner has to take responsibility for his or her own progress, and needs to be involved in all of the key decisions. This kind of active involvement in the learning process wasn’t a significant part of the original plan, but it has been enthusiastically taken on board by schools.”

I’m not quite sure why this should come as such a surprise, or in what way it wasn’t ‘part of the original plan’. The curriculum is described in terms of ‘I can….’ and ‘I have……’ statements, or to put that another way, in outcomes and experiences written from the point of view of the learner. If that doesn’t imply that the learner has primary responsibility for his or her learning then I have seriously misunderstood it. In fact, it was in this respect that I though the curriculum review was innovative and radical. In reality however, ten years later many young people are still unaware of what these outcomes are, despite the fact that they are freely available online. It may have been enthusiastically taken on board by some schools, but many others need significant support in making that transition.

Key Question. Is it possible to transfer the responsibility for learning to the learner (where it rightly belongs) while holding teachers to account for their students’ examination results?

“Nobody has yet made the breakthrough to genuine 21st Century practice. That is the task that faces us.”

Indeed. Is that because there are barriers to progress which only those in positions of authority can remove, or is it because, as a profession and as a nation, we are instinctively conservative?

Related: For an excellent analysis of the review of the curriculum in England see Is Character the Essential Student Outcome?

The Ikea Effect

Last week I had the dubious pleasure of assembling some flat-pack furniture from everyone’s favourite value store, the ubiquitous Scandinavian giant IKEA. Like many of my contemporaries, I served my apprenticeship, in furniture-building terms, on the inferior British version, MFI, cursing and swearing with the best of them when discovering that the 16 2-inch screws required to complete the job numbered only 15 in reality, and that on completion the missing screw would make the difference between a sturdy family heirloom and a pile of kindling. It wasn’t entirely the fault of MFI, however, since back then I felt that the pictorial instructions were included as a bonus – a kind of first aid kit to be opened only in case of emergency – and that the whole thing was really down to male intuition and an innate sense of logic. Much experience and many years later, and heeding the words of Thucydides, as you do, that ‘few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought’,  I carefully opened the boxes and started to READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.

What I didn’t appreciate until well after the event was that the sense of achievement I felt on completing the job and realising that it could hold several books without reverting to its original state, has actually been identified and named by a group of American academics as the ‘Ikea Effect‘. In a series of experiments, Daniel Mochon, a marketing professor at Tulane University, along with his colleagues Dan Ariely of Duke University and Michael Norton of the Harvard Business school, demonstrated that people attach greater value to things they have built themselves. Building your own stuff ‘boosts your feelings of pride and competence, and also signals to others that you are competent’ apparently. I’m going to ignore the fact, for now, that the bookcase had actually been ‘built’ by someone else and only ‘assembled’ by me. Let’s not go splitting hairs when feelings of pride and competence are at stake.

New York box-cart

Now any English teacher in the land (of Britain that is) could have pointed to the story of Spit Nolan by the Irish-born writer Bill Naughton and said, ‘He told them so’. In this much-loved tale of working-class kids from the North of England, the eponymous hero, Spit, is without question the district’s champion trolley rider, the ‘trolleys’ being the carts or buggies made from bits of junk collected in the local scrapyard. Spit’s success is all the more remarkable for the fact that he is recovering from tuberculosis, a common illness in poorer areas of Britain in the first half of the 20th Century. Spit’s trolley has been lovingly crafted by his own hands, and he remains unbeaten until his friend Ernie appears with the Rolls-Royce of carts, assembled in his father’s factory by his engineering colleagues. The challenge is set – and the outcome in the balance – but the moral of the story is already making itself known to us, in flashing lights, in the words of the unlikely hero himself:-

“You own nothing in this world except those things you’ve taken a hand in the making of, or else you earned the money to buy them.”

Spit Nolan by Bill Naughton

Not everything about the Tulane report was positive however; it comes with a health warning. One of the implications of the Ikea Effect is that we tend to fall in love with projects we have spent a great deal of time working on, even when they are quite clearly failing, losing any sense of objectivity along the way. Which is why we need ‘critical friends’ who are prepared to tell us that in fact that shelf is not quite straight, or that lesson plan might just be a tad unrealistic.

“It’s a good reason — and this is true whether you are running a big complicated project involving millions of dollars or finishing a third-grade craft project — to have someone from the outside, who isn’t invested in you or your work, give you some objective feedback before you show your project to the world.”

Shankar Vedantam, NPR