Book Review: Fear is the Mind Killer

 By Holly Youlden

The idea of ‘learning to learn’ has been a field of educational theory and practice for some years, that aims to do what it says on the tin: help children get better at learning. This means focusing explicitly on the processes of learning, not simply the content. Within the Science department, we’ve had many discussions over the years about how we could use these principles to ensure we have students who can genuinely think as scientists, and not just parrot abstract facts. 

What is the book about?

Fear is the mind killer is a non-fiction book by Dr James Mannion, a Science teacher-turned education researcher, and Kate McAllister, an experienced Modern Foreign Languages teacher who has recently established her own school in the Dominican Republic. This book tells the story of an ambitious project led by James and Kate to establish a Learning to Learn curriculum at a comprehensive school in Brighton and the various pitfalls, successes and lessons they learned along the way. It also provides an in-depth exploration of the research underpinning the idea of Learning to Learn and practical guidance on how to design and implement a Learning Skills curriculum within any school context. 

Learning to Learn: is it worth it for our students?

Metacognition and the development of skills such as self-regulation are frequently discussed as essential components of creating the independent, self-motivated learners we aspire to have in our classrooms. Moreover the frequently cited Education Endowment Fund (EEF) suggested that metacognition provides a ‘high impact for very low cost, based on extensive evidence’ making it even more appealing for schools to consider integrating into their curriculum. Yet in spite of this, Learning to Learn has faced considerable criticism, with researchers such as Tom Bennett, writing, “Learning to Learn: it isn’t even a thing. We’ve been hoaxed….the hipsters are selling snake oil on this one, whether they know it or not” . The main argument seems that teaching generic skills in the absence of subject knowledge is misguided and is not worth classroom time, and could even, “erode [the] belief that young people need subject knowledge”. Indeed there are several examples where metacognitive interventions based on ‘learning to learn’ have tried and failed to have a measurable impact on the learning in classrooms. 

The authors James and Kate are fierce advocates of the power of a Learning Skills curriculum and tackle these arguments head-on by putting Learning to Learn ‘on trial’. Not only does this help provide a clear and balanced understanding of the arguments for and against Learning to Learn but it helps explain the deeper meaning of points which we have regularly seen taken out of their original context in recent years. 

A prime example of this is cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham, author of Why Don’t Students Like School? whose point that “factual knowledge must precede skill” was embraced by Michael Gove and Nick Gibb and used to justify the prioritisation of a ‘knowledge-rich curriculum’, based on memorisation and learning of facts. As a science teacher I’m well aware of the requirement for students to learn certain concepts off by heart, to provide them with tools to solve more complex scientific problems, however the idea of students simply ‘knowing’ lots of facts being evidence of good learning always seemed too simplistic. Willingham had actually explained that he believed facts should be taught, “ideally in the context of skills” and that “we want our students to think, not simply to memorise...our goal is not simply to have students know a lot of stuff- it’s to have them know stuff in service of being able to think effectively” . As Mannion and McAllister point out, this “reveals a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between knowledge and skills than these politicians acknowledge” and they argue the true aim should be to create a Learning to Learn curriculum which runs alongside and is “intertwined with a knowledge-rich, subject-based curriculum”. This shows how ideas within education can be subject to ‘lethal mutations’ and how essential it is as teachers and school leaders to do our homework, understand the limitations of educational studies, and appreciate that every school context is unique and to take caution with accepting or dismissing ideas too readily. 

My conclusions

Overall it was fascinating to read about how the Learning to Learn curriculum at Sea View was designed, implemented and how it has evolved over the past 15 years. The intervention itself involved elements of ‘Philosophy for Children’, oracy, project-based learning and self-regulatory activities, such as time to journal. The curriculum was designed to provide students with opportunities to put skills into practice, such as having the chance to actively communicate by deciding on a team research project, as opposed to just sitting through a teacher-led lesson on teamwork. From the early-doors challenge of putting together a team of like-minded teachers to drive the project at its inception, to the challenges of allowing students to feel frustrated and resolve situations for themselves when teamwork breaks down during a project, it was brilliant to read such an in-depth account of such a complex school-wide intervention. If you are interested in seeing a fantastic example of a school taking a huge leap of faith to help benefit their students holistic development I highly recommend Fear is the Mind Killer as an interesting, well-researched read. 

Questions to think about...

• Which skills do we feel students need more opportunity to practice in school?

• How can we use project-based learning effectively in lessons? 

• What approaches to metacognition have we tried with our students already? What did we find?