Reforming Lessons

Cheery Friday Greetings from Barb Oakley! 

Book of the Year: Reforming Lessons

If you want a powerful, uplifting read about how to turn a struggling education system around — despite the drag of “well-meaning” but harmful inertia — pick up Nick Gibb and Robert Peal’s Reforming Lessons: Why English Schools Have Improved Since 2010 and How This Was Achieved.. Fifteen years ago, England’s schools were in a sorry state. Students were underperforming badly compared with their peers in Singapore and Shanghai, and the air was thick with excuses. The idea of lifting an entire country’s educational performance felt like wishful thinking. But during his ten years as Schools Minister, Nick Gibb — along with like-minded colleagues — did something remarkable: they pushed England sharply upward in international measures like PIRLS and PISA.

The transformation didn’t come from catchy slogans or another layer of bureaucratic “innovation.” It came from visiting classrooms, listening to teachers, and then looking squarely at what the best research showed. The verdict was blunt: teachers were being trained to use progressive teaching methods that sound compassionate but in practice make it harder for students to learn. The reforms loosened schools from state “guidance” that pushed those ineffective approaches and opened pathways for teacher training outside the narrow confines of university faculties steeped in the same ideology. Freed from the dogma mills, schools embraced evidence-based methods—and the gains in reading and mathematics have been striking.

Reforming Lessons isn’t just a policy manual; it’s an encouraging, clear-eyed account of how real reform can be done—intelligently, at scale, and with lasting results. It’s a reminder that standing up to entrenched but misguided orthodoxy is worth the effort, and that when educators are trusted to use methods that actually work, students thrive. England’s turnaround shows what’s possible. 

When Intuition Meets Neuroscience

Greetings from Lhasa—the “Place of the Gods” at the top of the world in the Himalayas. Over the past few months, I’ve been sharing Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Minds: Learning in the Age of AI with dozens of audiences in India, China, the Middle East, and elsewhere. This keynote digs into (in memorable ways!) the neuroscience research showing how our brains use two complementary memory systems—the declarative system for conscious knowledge and the procedural system for automatic skills—and why internal knowledge is still essential, even in the digital age. We also explore how to integrate generative AI in ways that support, rather than erode, those brain systems.

In the face-to-face conversations afterward, I saw people leaning in, smiling, and saying some version of “I knew it.” In the post-event surveys, that same sentiment came through in writing—often short, emphatic, and full of relief.

For years, many had been told to minimize memorization, lean heavily on discovery learning, and avoid too much explicit instruction. It was framed as the enlightened path to higher-order thinking. But as one teacher wrote, “Many times over the years, I have been presented questionable strategies that are magic bullets that people have invented to improve learning… The value for me is validation that a teacher should provide vocabulary, ideas, concepts, and strategies… to establish memorable connections to learning.”

Another said simply: “Validation of my teaching methods.” A third described the talk as “Reinforcing the key aspects of good teaching,” while another called it a “Great reaffirmation.”

For some, the relief was deeply personal: “Direct instruction is effective. This really strengthens my belief with the hard evidence. It really boost up confidence to push what I belief because it is not just a feeling anymore.”

The same throughline appeared whether the audience was in New Delhi, Shanghai, or Dhahran: “It makes a difference in our mindset,” “I think it really changed my mindset about direct instruction,” and “It was valuable… priceless in this day and age of so much distracting information regarding pedagogy.” “Great conference but this was worth the 15 hour flight alone.”

It wasn’t just about validation—it was about gaining the language and evidence to push back. One participant called it “The strong critique on constructivism, it challenges personal deeply held paradigms. I appreciated this very much.” Another appreciated “Providing me with more resources and language to refine my own educational philosophy.”  Of course, discovering during the presentation that only 0.13% of all educational literature is replicated shows exactly why so many educational fads have left nothing but confusion in their wake.

When people see, at the neural level, why foundational knowledge fuels creativity, and how over-reliance on external aids—including AI—can weaken the brain systems that build expertise, the penny drops. Or as one attendee summed it up: “Great teaching itself which shows the highest value ever in breaking through the myth of active learning!”

Active learning does, of course, have its place.  But by understanding the underlying neuroscience—which is not-at-all difficult when explained properly—educators can understand what that place actually is.

That’s all for now. Have a happy week in learning!

Barb Oakley

• Uncommon Sense Teaching—the book and Coursera Specialization!
• Mindshift—the book and MOOC
• Learn Like a Pro—the book and MOOC
• The LHTL recommended text, A Mind for Numbers
• For kids and parents: Learning How to Learn—the book and MOOC. Pro tip—watch the videos and read the book together with your child. Learning how to learn at an early age will change their life!