The Question of Education

Ben Lawless and Tom Mahoney
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The Question of Education is a monthly podcast for people who can't stop asking why. Hosted by Ben Lawless, education's mascot, and Tom Mahoney, a philosopher of education, the podcast asks the questions that sit beneath everyday conversations about schools, teaching and learning. Through conversations with researchers, school leaders and practitioners, we unpack ideas, challenge assumptions and examine different perspectives on the purpose and future of education. One hour. Once a month. For educators and anyone curious about education.

Episodes

  1. 3d ago

    Gert Biesta: Teachers Should Be on the Side of Democracy

    What is school for, if learning can happen just about anywhere? Gert Biesta thinks learning is an empty word, and that education deserves a far narrower and more demanding definition than the one we usually give it. In the third episode of The Question of Education, Ben Lawless and Tom Mahoney talk to Gert Biesta, philosopher of education, author of The Rediscovery of Teaching and professor at the University of Melbourne, about what separates learning from education, democracy in the classroom, knowledge, measurement and the pressure building in Australian schools. Gert makes the case that education is expensive and difficult enough that it should be saved for the things that cannot happen anywhere else, and that a teacher in a democratic society holds a position that is never neutral. Along the way: why Australian education policy is repeating a cycle he watched play out in Britain thirty years ago, what makes a school stupid, why a focus on knowledge is not automatically emancipating, and what working with a lump of clay has to do with democracy. We also get into scripted teaching, really useful knowledge, the post-real, teacher agency, and the meeting where two adults sat looking at a spreadsheet while the child sat there with them. In this episode Why learning and education are different things, and why the difference mattersWhat Gert sees in Australian policy: scripted teaching, AERO, and a teaching model reduced to one pageThe cycle education policy keeps repeating, and why it never settles in the middleUseful knowledge and really useful knowledge, borrowed from the nineteenth century labour movementWhy teachers should be on the side of democracy, and why that position is not a neutral oneClay, gardens and singing together as the basic democratic experiencePost-truth, and the deeper problem of the post-realWhy it takes enormous effort to run a stupid schoolTeacher agency, and what a one-trick education system does to real childrenAssessment as a means that keeps turning into an endInstrumental knowledge, orientational knowledge, and what Gert says he has been wrong about “They were looking at the spreadsheet and they were not looking at the child.” - Gert Biesta Links Petition to release AERO review: openletter.earth/open-letter-to-release-the-kpmg-aero-report-732e0229 The Question of Education Instagram TikTok https://www.gertbiesta.com https://www.routledge.com/The-Rediscovery-of-Teaching/Biesta/p/book/9781138670709 Ben Lawless - Lawless Learning Tom Mahoney - The Interruption

    Gert Biesta: Teachers Should Be on the Side of Democracy

  2. Aug 31

    Jane Caro: Rich Kid, Poor Kid and the Battle for Public Education

    What happens when a country turns education into a marketplace? Jane Caro thinks Australia has done exactly that, creating a school system that entrenches inequality while convincing parents that paying more must mean getting more. In the second episode of The Question of Education, Ben Lawless and Tom Mahoney talk to Jane Caro, author of Rich Kid, Poor Kid: The Battle for Public Education, about public and private schooling, parental choice, funding and why Australia has developed one of the most socially segregated education systems in the OECD. Jane makes the case that education is not simply another consumer product, and that a system built around parental choice inevitably advantages families who have the money to exercise more choices. Along the way: why parents keep paying enormous private school fees despite the evidence on academic outcomes, how schools sort students by class, whether governments have deliberately shifted the cost of education onto families, and why Jane thinks public school teachers are performing extraordinary work within a profoundly uneven system. We also get into social cohesion, meritocracy, gentle parenting and what parents choosing a school should actually consider. In this episode Why Australia’s schools are increasingly segregated by social classWhy paying more for education does not necessarily mean getting better academic resultsParental choice, consumerism and the private-school arms racePublic funding, private fees and an uneven playing fieldWhether Australia’s education system is building a class systemWhy inequality matters for meritocracy and social cohesionWhat properly funding disadvantaged public schools could look likeWhat Jane would say to parents choosing between public and private schoolsGentle parenting versus permissive and authoritarian parenting “Our greatest resources are not the shit we dig out of the ground. They’re our kids, all our kids, not just your precious kids.” - Jane Caro Links The Question of EducationInstagramTikTok https://australiainstitute.org.au/store/rich-kid-poor-kid-vantage-point-issue-5 Ben Lawless - Lawless LearningTom Mahoney - The Interruption

    Jane Caro: Rich Kid, Poor Kid and the Battle for Public Education

  3. Aug 24

    Adam Voigt: Schools Should Be Campfires, Not Vending Machines

    What are schools actually for? We have never really agreed, and Adam Voigt thinks that unanswered question sits underneath almost everything that goes wrong in education.In the first episode of The Question of Education, Ben Lawless and Tom Mahoney talk to Adam Voigt - founder of Real Schools, author of Restoring Teaching, and creator of Restorative Practice 2.0 - about why schools should be campfires, not vending machines. Adam makes the case that a school's job is to grow decent learners and decent citizens, not to fill a child's deficits on demand or win a place in a literacy race.Along the way: why competition and a culture of blame bring out the worst in schools, why teachers default to command and control, and why he asks experienced teachers to "Marie Kondo" their practice. We get into Class Dojo, the marble jar experiment and reverse peer pressure, NAPLAN, and the explicit instruction culture war - including why Adam thinks branding low-SES teachers as agents of inequity is both unfair and unsupported by the evidence.In this episode Why we have never agreed on what schools are forCampfires, not vending machinesCompetition between schools and the culture of blameWhy "the real world will slap them" is a mythWhy teachers default to control, and the Marie Kondo reframeClass Dojo, the marble jar, and collaborative competitionTeaching as gambling: shifting from outcomes to practiceNAPLAN, "ever-increasing ambition" and what we actually valueThe explicit instruction culture war, and refusing the either/or"Schools shouldn't be vending machines, they should be campfires." - Adam VoigtAdam Voigt is the founder of Real Schools, a former principal, author of Restoring Teaching, and the creator of Restorative Practice 2.0.Links ⁠The Question of Education⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠TikTok⁠ ⁠Adam Voigt - Real Schools⁠ ⁠Ben Lawless - Lawless Learning⁠ ⁠Tom Mahoney - The Interruption⁠

    Adam Voigt: Schools Should Be Campfires, Not Vending Machines
  • 3 Episodes

About

The Question of Education is a monthly podcast for people who can't stop asking why. Hosted by Ben Lawless, education's mascot, and Tom Mahoney, a philosopher of education, the podcast asks the questions that sit beneath everyday conversations about schools, teaching and learning. Through conversations with researchers, school leaders and practitioners, we unpack ideas, challenge assumptions and examine different perspectives on the purpose and future of education. One hour. Once a month. For educators and anyone curious about education.

Information

  • Creator
    Ben Lawless and Tom Mahoney
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    3
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Ben Lawless and Tom Mahoney
  • Show Website
    The Question of Education

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