Thursday afternoons are always tough: everyone’s tired but they can’t quite taste the weekend yet. So, as far as teaching goes, Thursday afternoon is about as hard as it gets.

But that doesn’t seem to be bothering the teacher I’m watching now. Despite my dropping in to observe a lesson just after lunch, they have the class in the palm of their hand. Every eye in the room is fixated on their animated and clear explanation, which is deftly breaking down a complex topic step by step. Every ear is hanging on every word - and I must admit that I’m learning a thing or two myself.

I wonder this teacher achieves such great results. I don’t get the chance to observe them as often as I would like, but it’s always a pleasure...Wait. What was that?

Did they … did they just ask the children to put on their green thinking hats?

Good Lord, I thought that fad had died out years ago. And gosh, they’ve actually got real hats! How much did they cost? Now the teacher is asking them to pinch their earlobes and rub their bellies to “activate their creative neurons”!

I’m sweating. It’s awkward. How long has this been going on for? What on earth am I going to say? Should I stop it? It feels like I should stop it. No, I’ll wait until after the lesson. But I’m not sure how much more I can take ...

You might think that the move towards becoming an evidence-informed profession would have meant that cringeworthy observations like the above were a thing of the past. Even if a teacher still thought there were something in these unproven techniques, you’d think they would be too embarrassed to do them: on social media, especially, a growing band of self-righteous inquisitors have taken it upon themselves to excommunicate anyone dabbling in such teaching “nonsense”.

But schools are complex places, full of complex people and complex processes. Teaching, learning, children, classrooms - they’re each full of shades of grey. So dubious practices live on for many reasons. No one is immune, either: we’ve all fallen victim to the latest teaching fashion at one point or another, haven’t we?

And yet: how much nonsense should be tolerated?

That’s a difficult question to answer. At what point does a distraction become a dereliction of duty? At what point does interference to correct a small error lead to damage to the larger, exemplary practice?

The potential ramifications of taking unnecessary action can be plentiful, but the same can be said of doing nothing when action should have definitely been taken.

What we need to do is find a “nonsense threshold” for teaching. And what follows is my attempt at just that.

Don’t give me that malarkey

First of all, let’s be clear on exactly what sort of nonsense I’m talking about here.

There are a couple of culprits that have had their cards marked for a while now. Brain Gym and learning styles are perhaps the most obvious contenders, but there are others. In fact, it seems as though each new year brings with it a new shiny idea that promises to transform education for the better, before it rapidly mutates into a monster.

Many of these falsehoods are known as “neuromyths”; beliefs about the brain and learning that are seemingly plausible but, in fact, have no grounding in reality. For example:

• It’s not true that there are critical periods of “neural plasticity” in early childhood and that learning becomes more difficult if we “miss” these windows.
• Some people are “right-brained” and therefore more creative? Poppycock.
• We only use 10 per cent of our brains? Bogus.
• Completing brain training exercises can improve problem-solving skills and lateral thinking? Nonsense.

Unfortunately, the list is surprisingly long.

But it’s not just fads that we get caught up in. Alongside the above more egregious examples, there are plenty of other nonsense ideas that are well embedded into the educational landscape.

For example, it is difficult to find a teacher who hasn’t heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy, with many school policies grounding curriculum choices, questioning techniques and even assessment practices on that pyramid. This is despite the fact that Bloom’s Taxonomy, especially in the pyramid formation that it usually appears, was never intended to be used as a theory of instruction or learning, holding neither validity nor reliability as either.

So what is our guiding definition of “nonsense”? Nonsense is a teaching practice that has no evidence to support its use and has the potential to damage learning.

Stuff and nonsense

Our attraction to nonsense should come as no surprise: psychologists have found that teachers are particularly susceptible to learning myths.

In one study, teachers who scored better on general knowledge quizzes were actually more likely to believe in neuromyths. And there’s also some evidence that experienced teachers are just as likely as new teachers to buy into the myths.

If we are honest, the reasons for this are clear. First of all, most of us will have been taught at least one of these nonsense practices during initial teacher training. In fact, inexplicably, it’s still possible to find myths like learning styles appearing on the syllabuses of prestigious universities.

Even if you managed to escape a shot of nonsense or two when you were inaugurated into the profession, the chances are you’ve received a CPD session on some pretty woolly ideas, only to watch them quietly slip out of the policy the next year.

And very often nonsense in the classroom is superficially attractive. From the outside, at least, the ideas feel very exciting and engaging and they almost always promise a quick win, which can be tempting when you feel the pinch of accountability pressure. In contrast, many of the approaches that research suggests are most effective are nowhere near as whizzbangy and showstopping for observers, and they can take quite a long time to get right.

Finally, it should not be forgotten that up until quite recently teachers were actually rewarded for nonsense by inspection bodies and external observers. We only need to review the Ofsted inspection and subject reports from eight or nine years ago to find student-led lessons and discovery based-learning being celebrated.

Taken together, it should not be surprising that we see (and do) a lot of nonsense in classrooms; we’ve designed and engaged in a system that makes it more or less inevitable.

“So all right,” you may be thinking, “fine, we all engage in a bit of nonsense every now and then. Is there really any harm being done?”

Unfortunately, yes. Many of these beliefs manifest in teacher behaviours that are likely to harm pupils’ outcomes. For example, believing that pupils learn best through their preferred learning style may communicate to a child that, since they are not a “visual learner”, they needn’t worry much about reading. It’s just not for them.

A second reason is the time and resources that nonsense consumes. Nonsense is hungry. It demands precious CPD time, which could better be spent on more effective practices. It leeches classroom time that could be used supporting pupils’ understanding. It robs the school budget to pay the slick consultant with a flashy PowerPoint and an aversion to any real accountability for what they’re selling.

The biggest problem, though, is that nonsense - in the way we have defined it - collides with what we now know constitutes effective teaching and learning. A growing consensus among researchers, drawing on theoretically underpinned and empirically supported models, shows that what works are things like clear, explicit instruction, ensuring pupils have plenty of opportunity to practise the application of newly gained knowledge and skills, and doing regular practice tests.

So, yes, it does matter. And if we notice that a teacher has sent their class off on a “treasure hunt” around the classroom to find hidden facts about a new text, we should be able to agree, as a mature profession, that it is nonsense.

Taking out the trash

Now, the next question is: what should we do about it?

We would like to argue that we shouldn’t reach straight for the P45 or launch immediately into hefty judgement when we spot nonsense.

Consider the following dilemma: which would you prefer, a teacher who is outstanding for 45 minutes of a lesson, then indulges in five minutes of nonsense, or a teacher who is flatly mediocre for the full 50 minutes? No clangers, but nothing close to being inspiring either.

Would it change your answer if it was only a minute of nonsense? What about half an hour?

Of course, it would be optimal to have 100 per cent expert practice in line with the latest findings on what constitutes effective teaching. But can any of us honestly claim to achieve this all day, every day?

It may, paradoxically, be that a smidgen of nonsense is what allows both the teacher and the pupils to do such great work for the rest of the lesson.

It’s also true that learning isn’t the only goal of education. Although increasing knowledge and understanding is usually taken to be the principal purpose of schooling, it’s seldom taken as its only aim. As such, it’s important to always ask the question “What were you trying to achieve?”

Your criticism of a particular activity - say the treasure hunt above - may fall away if the teacher had an entirely different goal in mind.

So, if you feel your nonsense antenna going off, then good. It’s right that we should be vigilant of dodgy practice. This isn’t a call for “anything goes” or a claim that there is no best way overall.

But it’s important that we take a moment to pause and consider a few things:

• Just how egregious is the practice?
• How much time is it taking up?
• What does the rest of the lesson look like?
• What was the teacher trying to achieve and why?

Your answers to these questions will help you to see if your threshold for action against the nonsense has been met. That threshold should be set by the ultimate experience of the student: is this damaging their education, overall?

If the threshold has been met, then the conversation should be constructive, not punitive. Using evidence, this should be a discussion, not something that embarrasses the teacher. They should be encouraged to see the right way forwards, not forced there. If employed thoughtfully, a nonsense threshold allows for a less confrontational and more effective route to both self- and peer improvement.

But if your nonsense threshold has not been met, maybe just leave that teacher alone doing what they do best: teaching great lessons for the majority of the time.

Yes, what I’m asking here is tough to do. It requires those in charge of teaching and learning to hold fire, to view teaching holistically, and to appreciate the greater good. It requires them to swallow their own embarrassment, perhaps, too.

But really this is about being realistic…and tolerant. We need great teachers to stay in teaching. The nonsense threshold makes sure you don’t force some of those great teachers out because of a quirk of their teaching that has little negative impact on outcomes.

Now, where is my green thinking hat?

Jon Hutchinson is assistant headteacher at Reach Academy Feltham, in West London, and a visiting fellow at Ambition Institute

This article originally appeared in the 25 September 2020 issue under the headline “Why we need a nonsense threshold”