On researchED Dublin 22

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Robert Macfarlane opens ‘The Gifts of Reading’ with these words:

‘The gift moves…’ writes Lewis Hyde again and again in his classic work ‘The Gift’ (1983). It moves in two ways, we might say: the receiver of a gift is emotionally moved by being given something freely, unexpectedly. And the gift itself moves in the sense of moving onwards, of circulating. Having experienced generosity, we are generous to others in turn. The gift ‘gives on’, as Hyde also puts it, in wild excess of its original extent.

Last Saturday’s researchED Dublin (‘The Return’ after the initial day in 2019, and cancellation in 2020) was an event that was infused by this spirit. Speakers, organisers and helpers gave their time freely, and the impact of that generosity flowed through the day. At researchED ticket-prices are low, no-one is paid, local organisers decide their own programme (and try to make sure it breaks even) and there is no motive other than encouraging a belief in education based on sound principles. Read a good account of a typical rED day here by Ruth Ashbee.

Two people who embodied this on Saturday last were the keynote speakers, both distinguished Professors who are driven by their passion to improve learning by spreading their ideas as widely as possible. Barbara Oakley flew into Dublin from South Dakota as a stop on her way to Norway (then Amsterdam, Tokyo, Bangkok, Nepal, Vietnam… how does she do it?). Paul Kirschner had a much shorter trip from the Netherlands but is equally a hugely enthusiastic educator, and he shared his wisdom in two talks in the Big Schoolroom. How exciting it was to put them together for the first time (pictured). And they in turn gave their time to so many ‘ordinary’ teachers attending our modest enough event.

During her opening keynote, Barbara Oakley gave an account of how neurons create sets of links when you learn something (‘like a chain’), and how you can strengthen these links through practice. She went on to say how valuable metaphor is for explaining learning, perfectly illustrated in a film of her daughter try to cope with reversing her car as a novice driver, her cognitive capacities overloaded.

Well, the metaphor of links in a chain is just the one for a day like Saturday: all sorts of connections were made, many of them surprising and many undoubtedly hidden. A world-class academic like Barbara Oakley sits in the back of a small laboratory as one of 20 people listening to a local teacher. A classroom teacher from Cork has the chance to talk to Kate Jones, author of books on retrieval practice, which was previously cited by Barbara Oakley as the most effective learning strategy of all. Teachers from around the country nervous of Senior Cycle can hear a forensic analysis of proposed reform from Professor Áine Hyland. Three people from very different so-called ‘minority’ backgrounds, Simon Lewis, Annie Asgard and Clinton Wokocha, have an important panel conversation. And then there are all the informal encounters of people chatting to the person next to them in a venue, in the lunch queue, at coffee in the garden. 2 keynotes, 7 venues, 7 hours, 11 buildings, 34 sessions, 38 speakers, 350 bodies on the premises: what a rich broth that makes.

It is the curse of an organiser at such a busy event not to be able to sit down and listen straight through to anything other than the keynotes: how brilliant those two were, though. No less an authority than Paul Kirschner, from his perspective sitting in the front row, said of Barb Oakley’s one-hour tour de force

This might be the best keynote I’ve ever experienced

and

What a wonder this woman is. She can make the most difficult things so extremely easy to understand with graphics that make you laugh and then comprehend.

Who I am to argue? I have never seen anyone explain such complex ideas with such clarity, humour and precision, not to mention the best conceivable use of slides and animations.

Paul Kirschner’s generous reaction there is typical of the man, as he chatted to attendees throughout the day, giving an extra session on ‘What has educational psychology ever done for us?’ which started with a Monty Python clip, and ending the event with his own keynote on ‘How Teaching Happens’. And thinking of metaphors, the perfect one: on ‘experts’ who deny the importance of foundational knowledge: these are butterflies who have forgotten they once were caterpillars.

Given that I could not see any other session straight through, it would be invidious to pick out others, but walking around the campus and spending some time in most, what struck me most was the sheer excellence, enthusiasm and variety of the presentations.

An early slide in Barbara Oakley’s talk showed her childhood life across America, as she moved 10 times by Grade 10, the changes marked by lines and arrows across that continent. If you did the same with a map of Ireland on Saturday, you’d see hundreds of arrows heading towards St Columba’s early in the day. Then if you zoomed in on the campus later, there would be a dense mesh of thousands of filaments, as 350 individual paths criss-crossed each other with all sorts of fascinating and fruitful connections. The result: a powerful force for the better in Irish education, in wild excess of its original intent.

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