About the Author
----------------
David Didau is a freelance writer, blogger, speaker,
trainer and author. He started his award-winning blog, The
Learning , in 2011 to express the constraints and s
of ordinary teachers, detail the successes and failures within
his own classroom, and synthesise his years of teaching
experience through the lens of educational research and cognitive
psychology. Since then he has spoken at various national
conferences, has directly influenced Ofsted and has worked with
the Department for Education to consider ways in which teachers
workload could be reduced.
- Professor Rebecca Allen, Director of Centre for Education
Improvement Science, UCL Institute of Education
David Didau has done it again! 'Making Kids Cleverer' is an
engaging, highly readable analysis of the latest research on how
we learn and what we can do to improve the achievement of our
pupils.
Like his previous books, David’s latest offering contains many
strong cls. Your initial reaction, like mine, may be that he
has made these cls for effect, but he sticks so closely to the
research evidence that you have to take his arguments seriously.
Anyone involved in the care and education of children and young
people would gain a huge a from reading this book. Highly
recommended.
- Dylan Wiliam, Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment,
University College London
In 'Making Kids Cleverer' David Didau provides us with a
brilliant and accessible account of why knowledge is rtunity,
and of how we can increase children’s knowledge through a
thoughtful and scientific approach to schooling.
More than ever, children need a core set of ideas, facts,
procedures and other forms of knowledge in order to help them
navigate the ever-changing work environment they will encounter
and to fully participate in the many rtunities afforded by
the modern world. In this book, Didau offers an incisive argument
for the importance of knowledge and a solid framework for how to
improve the knowledge base of all children.
'Making Kids Cleverer' will be an invaluable resource for
parents, teachers and policy makers.
- David C. Geary, Curators’ Distinguished Professor, Department
of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri
Written with great precision and clarity, and with a good dash
of humility and humour too, 'Making Kids Cleverer' is a truly
magnificent manifesto. Everything David Didau says chimes deeply
with what I know to be true and what I am trying to accomplish in
our schools, and I am of course cleverer now than I was before
reading it. It is an absolute joy to read, and an incredibly
timely tour de force that can, and should, have a national
impact.
A must-read for everyone in education, from trainee teachers to
inspectors and policy makers.
- Lady Caroline Nash, Director, Future Academies
David Didau’s latest edu-blockbuster is a compelling and
endlessly fascinating read. Weaving together a wealth of evidence
and ideas - from the philosophical to the practical – Didau
confronts the taboo topic of intelligence head-on. Didau shows us
that by teaching children powerful, biologically secondary
knowledge we not increase their intelligence but also prepare
them for happiness, wealth and whatever adult life throws at
them.
I have not read another education book that brims with as much
in and stimulating thought as this. Every page serves up a
new surprise or gentle provocation. Making kids cleverer should
become the priority of all schools and teachers. A thoroughly
recommended read.
- Andy Tharby, English teacher author of 'Making every lesson
count' and 'How to explain absolutely anything to absolutely
anyone'