A second edition of Gary Thomas's OUP publication, Education: A Very Short Introduction, has now been published. When this book first appeared in 2013, with its stimulating, readable approach, I thought it was so good that the Department of Education ought to buy enough copies to give to all teachers and teaching assistants in English schools [*]. As Tim Brighouse put it at the time: "There should be a copy in every staff-room and all young teachers should keep a copy beside their bed."
There was a time when all new teachers would have know much of what is in this book, although they might have had to sit through interminable lectures to do so, and might not have had a Gary Thomas on hand to help them make sense of the principles, themes and connections in the continuing complex story of how contested ideas around education are put into policy and realised in practice.
* Of course, the DfE did no such thing. However, in the hope that they will change their minds, I'll be writing to my MP who now toils daily in the DfE vineyard, suggesting it.
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