I’m interested in how children’s cognition develops and it’s fair to say that I’m inclined to be in the Engelmann camp which views the environment/nurture as a bigger factor in the development of cognition and personality than DNA/nature. Engelmann’s view (if I’m correct in my interpretation) was that everyone can learn and that pretty much the only factor that varied between individuals was the degree of exposure to and practice of a concept/knowledge required to secure changes in long term memory. His research and working life experience certainly bears this out and I too have had a few positive experiences of turning round the academic and character trajectories of individuals, groups, classes and cohorts starting with the initial belief that everyone can learn and change coupled to the application of evidence-informed, efficient and effective pedagogy. This blog post asks you to consider what might happen when the NQT is first…
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