Today I have the pleasure of sharing a snippet of a longer conversation that I had with the amazing James Nottingham. James Nottingham is the creator of the Learning Pit, one of the most widely used models for teaching to emerge in the last 20 years. He is also the author of 12 books, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and is listed in The Future 500, a ‘definitive list of the UK’s most forward-thinking and creative innovators’.
When I first started this podcast, I remember feeling so nervous about approaching guests. I was just a random teacher from Australia who wanted to change how teachers engage in professional learning. James was so kind, generous and welcoming and I remember feeling so out of my depth when he agreed to speak with me. This episode remains one of my favourites and his work continues to transform the way that I teach.
I encourage you to listen to the full episode which is here.
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🎙️ Podcast Episodes mentioned:
James Nottingham: The Learning Pit, cognitive conflict and our primary role as educators.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome to Season 13 of the Art of Teaching podcast. My name's Matthew Green,
and I'm so glad that you joined me today.
Before we get started with our discussion, I would like to acknowledge the Dharawal
people, the traditional custodians of this land on which I'm recording,
and pay respect to elders past, present, and emerging.
I acknowledge the stories, traditions, and living cultures of Aboriginal and
(00:29):
Torres Strait Islander peoples on this land.
Music.
Today i have the great pleasure of sharing a snippet of a longer conversation
(00:50):
that i had with the incredible james nottingham james is the creator of the
learning pit which is one of the most widely used models for teaching to emerge
in the last 20 years he is also the author of 12 books and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
When I first started this podcast a number of years ago, I remember feeling
so nervous about approaching guests.
(01:12):
After all, I was just a random teacher from Australia who wanted to change the
ways in which teachers engage in professional learning.
James was so kind, generous and welcoming and I remember feeling out of my depth
when he agreed to speak with me.
This episode remains one of my favourites and his work continues to transform
the way that I teach even to this day.
(01:32):
The link to the full episode is below.
Music.
As a naughty kid and of
course once you get a label it's pretty hard to shake the
(01:55):
thing and this is one
of the things that drives me in education I used
to act out because then the teacher
would notice my bad behavior then they
would warn me about my bad behavior and they
would watch me for my bad behavior so guess what
(02:15):
I was getting attention and then they would send
me out of class because of my bad behavior and
every single time a teacher spoke to me about
my bad behavior i thought to myself i've
got you exactly where i want you because you're not
looking at my learning or rather lack of learning you're
not looking at my lack of understanding you're not digging into
(02:37):
why do i not understand because to me
and i would guess to 90 something percent of
kids it's much much better to be thought of as naughty rather than to be thought
of as stupid and so i got sent out so many times i got kicked out at two schools
and i absolutely hated school but i love i love dossing around with my mates
(03:00):
you know and then did my o levels.
16 and thought i'd just leave school but then it turned out a whole load of
my mates were staying at school and I thought, ah, I thought we're all going
to go and bum around Europe together.
And that didn't quite work out that way. And then, um,
and the father kicked me out at that point so that's why i went and lived on a pig farm because.
(03:21):
I had to earn some pennies somehow first day on
a pig farm of the initiation exercise was to
make sure that the prize boar put his shall
we say his product where it was supposed to go and
that was my first day on the pig farm it was but i
used to love standing in the pigsties and the little piglets
would nibble your legs best massage ever put
(03:42):
a pair of wellies on or gum boots and just let piglets
nibble your calves just immense massage they
will always be they'll always be wellies by the way I
refuse to okay good man yeah a to
write I mean gumboots what the hell's that all about you know
at least Wellington boots at least you know
yes one puts on one's Wellington
(04:04):
boots and James that's it's so
it's so fascinating and the thing that like has come
up time and time again with working through your
reading through your work and listening to your some of
your incredible presentations and talks is
that focus on learning and it's not necessarily
about sort of school structures it's not about a discipline it's not about kids
(04:26):
that are acting up but you really why are you so focused on the actual learning
that's happening in classrooms and why is that so important because it seems
as if even though and this is just an assumption I'm making,
even though you were acting up at school, even though you were kind of mucking
around a bit, you still seem to have this thirst for learning and knowledge.
(04:47):
Is that true? Do you think that's...
Yeah, I do. I feel as if I'm making up for lost time, and that's a personal thing.
But I think most of all, it's a mission, being on a mission. Yeah.
Yeah having left school and
bummed around at different jobs realizing i
i didn't really want to be a pig farmer for the rest of my
(05:09):
days so then i i went to a chemical factory
and i thought this is even worse you know and and
you know you go into a chemical factory and
then it's just everybody goes down the
pub straight from the factory and you're
just tanking it and you're knocking back beer after beer after
beer and you just think this is night after night after night.
(05:31):
And you live in almost hand to mouth and i thought there's got
to be more to it than this and then some mates
of mine were heading down to south africa
this was in 89 so as you'll well know as of 89 90
and so the the breakdown of apartheid and
mandela was released in february 90 and and
so this was late 889 and they were going down to
(05:53):
do some some voluntary charity work
in some of the squatter camps and townships outside
of Cape Town and off and I thought well what the hell I'll go
do that and we worked in a women's cooperative and we
worked in a men's hostel and then one of the things that we did
was we worked in a school and there was
500 kids in that school and just three three trained
(06:15):
teachers and I helped
as best as I could but all the time thinking
to myself I'm gaining more than the kids are gaining here
but I felt as I found a
sort of an affinity and I found that I built a rapport quickly and so I thought
to myself well maybe teaching is something for me and I came back to the UK
(06:41):
a year later and tried to get into teacher training but I didn't have the grades
at all because I'd stuffed up at school.
So then I got a job as working in a deaf school as a teaching assistant and
so then that was enabled me three years later to get into teacher training college
and throughout that it was.
Music.
(07:23):
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to the podcast episode today.
It's a privilege to get to share these conversations with you and continue to
invest into our incredible profession.
If you have a few moments, please do me a favor and leave a review on iTunes,
Spotify or through whichever platform you're listening today.
If you wouldn't mind also hitting the subscribe button and sharing it with your
(07:46):
networks, it would really help to get the word out to as many educators as possible.
Music.
There are different ways to connect in the notes below, including links to the
website, the Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram.
Music.
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome to Season 13 of the Art of Teaching podcast. My name's Matthew Green,
and I'm so glad that you joined me today.
Before we get started with our discussion, I would like to acknowledge the Dharawal
people, the traditional custodians of this land on which I'm recording,
and pay respect to elders past, present, and emerging.
I acknowledge the stories, traditions, and living cultures of Aboriginal and
(00:29):
Torres Strait Islander peoples on this land.
Music.
Today i have the great pleasure of sharing a snippet of a longer conversation
(00:50):
that i had with the incredible james nottingham james is the creator of the
learning pit which is one of the most widely used models for teaching to emerge
in the last 20 years he is also the author of 12 books and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
When I first started this podcast a number of years ago, I remember feeling
so nervous about approaching guests.
(01:12):
After all, I was just a random teacher from Australia who wanted to change the
ways in which teachers engage in professional learning.
James was so kind, generous and welcoming and I remember feeling out of my depth
when he agreed to speak with me.
This episode remains one of my favourites and his work continues to transform
the way that I teach even to this day.
(01:32):
The link to the full episode is below.
Music.
As a naughty kid and of
course once you get a label it's pretty hard to shake the
(01:55):
thing and this is one
of the things that drives me in education I used
to act out because then the teacher
would notice my bad behavior then they
would warn me about my bad behavior and they
would watch me for my bad behavior so guess what
(02:15):
I was getting attention and then they would send
me out of class because of my bad behavior and
every single time a teacher spoke to me about
my bad behavior i thought to myself i've
got you exactly where i want you because you're not
looking at my learning or rather lack of learning you're
not looking at my lack of understanding you're not digging into
(02:37):
why do i not understand because to me
and i would guess to 90 something percent of
kids it's much much better to be thought of as naughty rather than to be thought
of as stupid and so i got sent out so many times i got kicked out at two schools
and i absolutely hated school but i love i love dossing around with my mates
(03:00):
you know and then did my o levels.
16 and thought i'd just leave school but then it turned out a whole load of
my mates were staying at school and I thought, ah, I thought we're all going
to go and bum around Europe together.
And that didn't quite work out that way. And then, um,
and the father kicked me out at that point so that's why i went and lived on a pig farm because.
(03:21):
I had to earn some pennies somehow first day on
a pig farm of the initiation exercise was to
make sure that the prize boar put his shall
we say his product where it was supposed to go and
that was my first day on the pig farm it was but i
used to love standing in the pigsties and the little piglets
would nibble your legs best massage ever put
(03:42):
a pair of wellies on or gum boots and just let piglets
nibble your calves just immense massage they
will always be they'll always be wellies by the way I
refuse to okay good man yeah a to
write I mean gumboots what the hell's that all about you know
at least Wellington boots at least you know
yes one puts on one's Wellington
(04:04):
boots and James that's it's so
it's so fascinating and the thing that like has come
up time and time again with working through your
reading through your work and listening to your some of
your incredible presentations and talks is
that focus on learning and it's not necessarily
about sort of school structures it's not about a discipline it's not about kids
(04:26):
that are acting up but you really why are you so focused on the actual learning
that's happening in classrooms and why is that so important because it seems
as if even though and this is just an assumption I'm making,
even though you were acting up at school, even though you were kind of mucking
around a bit, you still seem to have this thirst for learning and knowledge.
(04:47):
Is that true? Do you think that's...
Yeah, I do. I feel as if I'm making up for lost time, and that's a personal thing.
But I think most of all, it's a mission, being on a mission. Yeah.
Yeah having left school and
bummed around at different jobs realizing i
i didn't really want to be a pig farmer for the rest of my
(05:09):
days so then i i went to a chemical factory
and i thought this is even worse you know and and
you know you go into a chemical factory and
then it's just everybody goes down the
pub straight from the factory and you're
just tanking it and you're knocking back beer after beer after
beer and you just think this is night after night after night.
(05:31):
And you live in almost hand to mouth and i thought there's got
to be more to it than this and then some mates
of mine were heading down to south africa
this was in 89 so as you'll well know as of 89 90
and so the the breakdown of apartheid and
mandela was released in february 90 and and
so this was late 889 and they were going down to
(05:53):
do some some voluntary charity work
in some of the squatter camps and townships outside
of Cape Town and off and I thought well what the hell I'll go
do that and we worked in a women's cooperative and we
worked in a men's hostel and then one of the things that we did
was we worked in a school and there was
500 kids in that school and just three three trained
(06:15):
teachers and I helped
as best as I could but all the time thinking
to myself I'm gaining more than the kids are gaining here
but I felt as I found a
sort of an affinity and I found that I built a rapport quickly and so I thought
to myself well maybe teaching is something for me and I came back to the UK
(06:41):
a year later and tried to get into teacher training but I didn't have the grades
at all because I'd stuffed up at school.
So then I got a job as working in a deaf school as a teaching assistant and
so then that was enabled me three years later to get into teacher training college
and throughout that it was.
Music.
(07:23):
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to the podcast episode today.
It's a privilege to get to share these conversations with you and continue to
invest into our incredible profession.
If you have a few moments, please do me a favor and leave a review on iTunes,
Spotify or through whichever platform you're listening today.
If you wouldn't mind also hitting the subscribe button and sharing it with your
(07:46):
networks, it would really help to get the word out to as many educators as possible.
Music.
There are different ways to connect in the notes below, including links to the
website, the Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram.
Music.
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