Making Kids Cleverer: A Manifesto for Closing the Advantage Gap

by David Didau

In ‘Making Kids Cleverer: A manifesto for closing the advantage gap’, David Didau reignites the nature vs. nurture debate around intelligence and offers research-informed guidance on how teachers can help their students acquire a robust store of knowledge and skills that is both powerful and useful.

Foreword by Paul A. Kirschner.

Given the choice, who wouldn’t want to be cleverer? What teacher wouldn’t want this for their students, and what parent wouldn’t wish it for their children?

When David started researching this book, he thought the answers to the above were obvious. But it turns out that the very idea of measuring and increasing children’s intelligence makes many people extremely uncomfortable: “If some people were more intelligent, where would that leave those of us who weren’t?”

The question of whether or not we can get cleverer is a crucial one. If you believe that intelligence is hereditary and environmental effects are trivial, you may be sceptical. But environment does matter, and it matters most for children from the most socially disadvantaged backgrounds – those who not only have the most to gain, but who are also the ones most likely to gain from our efforts to make all kids cleverer. And one thing we can be fairly sure will raise children’s intelligence is sending them to school.

In this wide-ranging enquiry into psychology, sociology, philosophy and cognitive science, David argues that with greater access to culturally accumulated information – taught explicitly within a knowledge-rich curriculum – children are more likely to become cleverer, to think more critically and, subsequently, to live happier, healthier and more secure lives.

Furthermore, by sharing valuable insights into what children truly need to learn during their formative school years, he sets out the numerous practical ways in which policy makers and school leaders can make better choices about organising schools, and how teachers can communicate the knowledge that will make the most difference to young people as effectively and efficiently as possible.

David underpins his discussion with an exploration of the evolutionary basis for learning – and also untangles the forms of practice teachers should be engaging their students in to ensure that they are acquiring expertise, not just consolidating mistakes and misconceptions.

There are so many competing suggestions as to how we should improve education that knowing how to act can seem an impossible challenge. Once you have absorbed the arguments in this book, however, David hopes you will find the simple question that he asks himself whenever he encounters new ideas and initiatives – “Will this make children cleverer?” – as useful as he does.

Suitable for teachers, school leaders, policy makers and anyone involved in education.

Chapters include:
Chapter 1: The purpose of education
Chapter 2: Built by culture
Chapter 3: Is intelligence the answer?
Chapter 4: Nature via nurture
Chapter 5: Can we get cleverer?
Chapter 6: How memory works
Chapter 7: You are what you know
Chapter 8: What knowledge?
Chapter 9: Practice makes permanent
Chapter 10: Struggle and success

Genres: Education, Teaching

479 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 20, 2019

Reviews

[Derek Hopper · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best education books I have read out of many. David Didau builds a strong case that the role of schools must be to make children cleverer by teaching them and helping them remember a knowledge-rich curriculum. He draws on lessons from cognitive science, educational psychology and general educational research to support his claims. Very strong final chapters to the book which draw together all arguments and lists key things schools and teachers need to do. And what's more the book is well written and easy to read, not dry and academic.

[Lucy Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every school leader, and ideally every teacher, should read this. The explanation of key research findings into clear and actionable conclusions make it a fascinating and important read for anyone working in education, particularly CPD and teaching and learning leads.

[Aaron Schumacher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Former English teacher David Didau seems to have plagiarised Wikipedia in his book called Making kids cleverer. At least it's less into eugenics than his older book. The main bad idea is a central desire to shape curriculum so as to perpetuate existing systems of power.

Didau's titular thesis is that the goal of schools is to make kids cleverer, in the sense of crystallized intelligence, by teaching knowledge, broadly construed. When it comes time to discuss which knowledge, he pivots from arguing in support of cleverness to arguing in support of dead white men on the grounds that this knowledge is culturally valued—implicitly, valued by the culture he values.

I think it's possible to make an argument for some shared knowledge, in the tradition of Hirsch, but I think it's a different argument than arguing for knowledge that best helps students think more effectively in the sense of moving toward a global maximum. Similarly, the Lindy effect is about longevity, but not necessarily quality. I think it would be much more interesting to look at curriculum design by taking seriously the idea of giving students the best mental toolkit possible. This is not what Didau does.

Didau discusses the Flynn effect, and subscribes to the "scientific spectacles" interpretation that general skills with scientific abstraction explain increases in average IQ over time, but at the same time argues one-sidedly for teaching concrete knowledge, not general skills.

I do think that students can and probably should learn and remember much more, generally, than they sometimes do, but Didau is a problematic advocate, and I don't think his obsession with IQ is useful.

[Elisabeth Marksteiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every teacher should read this, but also every administrator. David Didau uses his personal experience to illustrate this research heavy text about what makes a good education. He debunks the ‘skill’ outside of the ‘domain’. In trying to be relevant, the baby has often been thrown out with the bathwater. Can’t recommend highly enough to anyone interested in education and learning at all...

[Georgina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again David Didau presents an accessible overview of cognitive science, current and past pedagogies, and a strong argument for what can be done by teachers to close the disadvantaged gap. As a leader in a secondary school with one of the most disadvantaged intakes in the country this is an empowering read.

[Carlene Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is good and backed up with research. I especially liked his references to concepts such as the Flynn effect and Bargh fallacy (would have liked a list of these for future reference) it’s not a 5 star only because I personally have read a lot in this field already and may have been a 5 star if I’d come to this first. My main gripe is the publisher’s decision to use heavy weight paper making it uncomfortable to read.

[Jasper Beckeringh · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is some solid advice in there that can help teachers, but the argument against teaching voices present in society other than dead white men is weak at best and borderline racist at best. Any non-white culture is considered to be of lesser value (about the same value as trash teen novels apparently) and should be avoided unless you just happen to be drowning in time.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a lot of very interesting and well researched/ supported theory in this. There are some practical suggestions but not loads, but it’s certainly thought-provoking and will have you considering how best to adjust classroom practice.

[Arfan Ismail · Rating 1 out of 5]

Garbage

[Finn Mannerings · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of two halves, the second is full of insightful information that directly relates to teaching but the first seems to struggle to make points.

[M K C]

Teaching-ORTU Gable Hall

[N.J. Danatangelo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent and I can see myself going back to this over the years as my son begins his schooling journey

[Klara Furuberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skulle ønske vi lærte denne typen ting i lærerutdanning. Appliserer moderne psykologi på utfordringene i skolen - og veldig godt skrevet.