What do you think?
Rate this book
Expansive Education
This book offers a powerful manifesto for schools to articulate a different vision of education that looks beyond exam success.
242 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2013
1 person is currently reading
10 people want to read
About the author
Bill Lucas
99 books9 followersBill Lucas is Professor of Learning and Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning (CRL). He founded CRL in 2008, together with Prof. Guy Claxton.
In 2017 Bill was appointed by the OECD as co-chair of the strategic advisory group for the 2021 PISA test of Creative Thinking which will draw on the work of the CRL. Bill is an international adviser to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority in Australia, to Vinnvard in Sweden and to the OECD/CERI research into critical and creative thinking in France. Bill is Director of Learning for the Fellowship Programme of THIS, the new Healthcare Studies Institute at the University of Cambridge.
Bill is known internationally as a speaker on the subjects of learning, change, creativity, healthcare improvement and leadership. He travels extensively to present keynotes, most recently in Sydney, Philadelphia, Helskinki, Qatar, Stockholm, Melbourne, Auckland, Belfast and Dubai. He is a prolific, award-winning writer, and has authored and co-authored over forty books and chapters and many peer-reviewed papers.
With Guy Claxton he is the creator of one of the biggest teacher researcher groups in the world, the Expansive Education Network.
In 2017 Bill was appointed by the OECD as co-chair of the strategic advisory group for the 2021 PISA test of Creative Thinking which will draw on the work of the CRL. Bill is an international adviser to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority in Australia, to Vinnvard in Sweden and to the OECD/CERI research into critical and creative thinking in France. Bill is Director of Learning for the Fellowship Programme of THIS, the new Healthcare Studies Institute at the University of Cambridge.
Bill is known internationally as a speaker on the subjects of learning, change, creativity, healthcare improvement and leadership. He travels extensively to present keynotes, most recently in Sydney, Philadelphia, Helskinki, Qatar, Stockholm, Melbourne, Auckland, Belfast and Dubai. He is a prolific, award-winning writer, and has authored and co-authored over forty books and chapters and many peer-reviewed papers.
With Guy Claxton he is the creator of one of the biggest teacher researcher groups in the world, the Expansive Education Network.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 4, 2025
Reading this book is both frustrating and depressing.
Frustrating because, being an overview, it takes ages to come to what an expansive school would actually LOOK LIKE: I kept waiting for practical tips on what exactly we would have to do to turn a school (or department, or education system) expansive. Trouble is, there's so many different ways, there is no one answer. The versions I have tried really work.
Depressing because this book was written twelve years ago and, if anything, expansive education has contracted. Because of formalised testing, most of it irrelevant to life after school, secondary schools are places of misery, frustration and bullying. I have worked in two (largely) expansive schools where a new "super" head came in and replaced expansive teaching with exam-focus, driving out the excellent teachers (and damaging exam grades) in the process; I have worked in another school which would like to see itself as expansive, but does that by letting kids run riot and providing no structure in which to progress.
This is all sad, because this is a fascinating book about the different ways, across the world, schools, school leaders and education departments have seen that exam-centred education kills understanding and enjoyment, and have tried to do something about it.
It is well worth a read, but only if you are prepared to act on it.
Frustrating because, being an overview, it takes ages to come to what an expansive school would actually LOOK LIKE: I kept waiting for practical tips on what exactly we would have to do to turn a school (or department, or education system) expansive. Trouble is, there's so many different ways, there is no one answer. The versions I have tried really work.
Depressing because this book was written twelve years ago and, if anything, expansive education has contracted. Because of formalised testing, most of it irrelevant to life after school, secondary schools are places of misery, frustration and bullying. I have worked in two (largely) expansive schools where a new "super" head came in and replaced expansive teaching with exam-focus, driving out the excellent teachers (and damaging exam grades) in the process; I have worked in another school which would like to see itself as expansive, but does that by letting kids run riot and providing no structure in which to progress.
This is all sad, because this is a fascinating book about the different ways, across the world, schools, school leaders and education departments have seen that exam-centred education kills understanding and enjoyment, and have tried to do something about it.
It is well worth a read, but only if you are prepared to act on it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review